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AQA BIOL2 Biology Unit 2 Exam - 26th May 2011

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Original post by ChessMister
Along the lines of, "was putting competitive inhibitor wrong"


no it was right :smile:
lol i just doubt myself
i reckon i've got around 60. lol wbu
Original post by Jim Lee
Agreed.



I got that, and i think quite a few others did-makes it highly likely, but not sure if we can confirm it-only the examiners can do that.



Do you mean full marks UMS? For this exams its 140 UMS for full UMS. I found this UMS conveter for the exams a few weeks ago, so i can tell you them for the past few papers:

June 2009- 67/85 converts to 140/140 UMS
Jan 2010-64/85 converts to 140/140 UMS
June 2010-73/85 converts to 140/140 UMS
Jan 2011-64/85 converts to 140/140 UMS

I thinks its pretty good how we can drop 21 marks, and still get full UMS marks. I think it will probably be around 68-72 for this exam, but i'm just being pessimistic.


Surely this can't be right? Full UMS marks at 64 for one paper?
Original post by EffKayy
no it was right :smile:
lol i just doubt myself
i reckon i've got around 60. lol wbu


For certain I have lost three marks- wrong calculations- then I would speculate as to another 6-12 being lost.
Original post by ChessMister
For certain I have lost three marks- wrong calculations- then I would speculate as to another 6-12 being lost.


i got all the calculations wrong -2 -2
then -5 for the fish
-3 for the leaf question
-1 somewhere else cant remember.
then ermm probz nock off 5 more

is this an A?
Reply 1944
Shize, i didnt read the time in minutes correctly, i put it into hours and minutes :biggrin:.....
During the exam, the walls started leaking. It was like a flipping WATERFALL onto people's HEADS. Try that for relaxing.
Original post by EffKayy
i got all the calculations wrong -2 -2
then -5 for the fish
-3 for the leaf question
-1 somewhere else cant remember.
then ermm probz nock off 5 more

is this an A?


fish what fish?
right so apparently we all didnt do as well as we thought we did when we first left the exam room, so HOPEFULLY the grade boundaries will be lower........
on the first question, was it only cell wall, starch and chloroplasts? i wrote chloroplasts and that eye thingy mabob...

x
Original post by razzler
personally I found this exam much harder than the psat papers. In the past papers I was getting good As but im not sure I will in this one,. There were lots of tricky 1/2 marker HSW questions that will cost me. I thought the structure of this exam was much different to previous years. Normally its knowledge adn then the last 2/3 questions gives a scenario plus some graphs and HSW works questions but this year it was spread through the whle paper. I thought half the spec wasnt even examined! I would have doen equally well (or badly) if i hadnt turned up to a single bio lesson. Too much HSW not enough knowledge questions !!! HSW has cost me an A:angry:


I like the whole HSW and applicatiom of new ideas.The application of HSW seperates the people who have just revised alot but who aren't actually that bright from the people who are genuinely quite clever. I'm sure with enough effort anyone could learn how to quote a whole tect back, not everyone has the ability to do the harder stuff in applying knowledge, which at the end of the day universities and prospective employers are looking for.
Reply 1950
Original post by TheBlueNowhere
I like the whole HSW and applicatiom of new ideas.The application of HSW seperates the people who have just revised alot but who aren't actually that bright from the people who are genuinely quite clever. I'm sure with enough effort anyone could learn how to quote a whole tect back, not everyone has the ability to do the harder stuff in applying knowledge, which at the end of the day universities and prospective employers are looking for.


HSW isnt an accurate indicator of intelligence. I got 10 A*s wwhilst doing little revision i dont need some HSW to tell me im intelligent. The subject is biology otherwose universities should just do IQ tests.

plus I dont mind a few HSw questions like in past papaers but I felt this paper over did it I thought it was excessive
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 1951
sorry if ive missed it, looked thru most of the posts... but
what did people write for how diff base sequence for protein may lead to a diff in structure?
Original post by TheBlueNowhere
I like the whole HSW and applicatiom of new ideas.The application of HSW seperates the people who have just revised alot but who aren't actually that bright from the people who are genuinely quite clever. I'm sure with enough effort anyone could learn how to quote a whole tect back, not everyone has the ability to do the harder stuff in applying knowledge, which at the end of the day universities and prospective employers are looking for.


FFS. :angry: But it's a Biology A level... not a HSW A level.

:elmo: I agree m8 but sometimes examiners should just think about the student and that it's not fair to test them so harshly with so many HSW questions when they have been told to learn a whole text book for their AS level and should cut them some slack and all that. At the end of the day student x may know all the biology in the world but won't get the grade they deserve because they couldn't apply it right to some stupid question, where as the student y who has merely drifted through the syllabus has practised a few HSW questions and to their luck the whole paper is full of them. Hardly fair. This paper had so much of this, and I learnt so much biology for a paper which prolly contained about 20% of unit 2.

SORRY FOR THE RANT.
Original post by razzler
HSW isnt an accurate indicator of intelligence. I got 10 A*s wwhilst doing little revision i dont need some HSW to tell me im intelligent. The subject is biology otherwose universities should just do IQ tests.


HSW is Biology. You have to look at data and apply your own knowledge to this data. Kowing text book definitions of Genetic diversity and Species is no good on its own. You have to be able to apply this knowledge to unfamiliar situations. The way you sound like you want the exam to be done is everyone who revises should get an A. If you are good at Biology then it shows on the HSW questions.
Reply 1954
Original post by EffKayy
And for the similar shape i wrote about competitive inhibitors, etc.. :s-smilie:
Urgh i'm frustratedd =( I think i effed up the whole leaf question.


was competitive inhibition wrong? cos i did that too...:s-smilie:
Original post by TheBlueNowhere
I like the whole HSW and applicatiom of new ideas.The application of HSW seperates the people who have just revised alot but who aren't actually that bright from the people who are genuinely quite clever. I'm sure with enough effort anyone could learn how to quote a whole tect back, not everyone has the ability to do the harder stuff in applying knowledge, which at the end of the day universities and prospective employers are looking for.


Not really, as the nature of HSW contradicts the nature of a markscheme'd examination, in that there are hundreds of ways they can be answered, but only one way AQA want you to answer.
Reply 1956
Original post by TheBlueNowhere
HSW is Biology. You have to look at data and apply your own knowledge to this data. Kowing text book definitions of Genetic diversity and Species is no good on its own. You have to be able to apply this knowledge to unfamiliar situations. The way you sound like you want the exam to be done is everyone who revises should get an A. If you are good at Biology then it shows on the HSW questions.


No you dont understand what im saying. I dont mind some HSw questions about interpretating graphs. The way I remember it only one or two of the questions was onterpretating graohs.

let me make it simpler - HSW is okay but I thought it was overdone in this exam. It should be more like previous years. Why the hell did the exam board tell to learn all tht stuff in the spec i just wasted my time i could have spent tht time doing more useful things. I could have gone to no biology lessons and done equally well. Are you saying it takes no intelligence in answering questions other than HSW ones
Original post by failingatm
FFS. :angry: But it's a Biology A level... not a HSW A level.

:elmo: I agree m8 but sometimes examiners should just think about the student and that it's not fair to test them so harshly with so many HSW questions when they have been told to learn a whole text book for their AS level and should cut them some slack and all that. At the end of the day student x may know all the biology in the world but won't get the grade they deserve because they couldn't apply it right to some stupid question, where as the student y who has merely drifted through the syllabus has practised a few HSW questions and to their luck the whole paper is full of them. Hardly fair. This paper had so much of this, and I learnt so much biology for a paper which prolly contained about 20% of unit 2.

SORRY FOR THE RANT.


I can see where you are coming from but how can the gifted people stand out if all the a-level required was learning a text book off by heart. If that was the case I think it would de-value the who a-level. One of the reasons Maths is a respected A-level is because each question is unique, you can't just learn textbook definitions, you actually have to show you have the ability to apply your knowledge to a wide range of questions.

If student X did know all the Biology in the world then they would've drifted through those questions. The impression I got when I spoke to people after the exam is the ones I know to be of higher abilities seemed to be getting the rights answers, the lower ability ones generally struggled to apply what they knew to those situations.
Original post by Kisskoli
was competitive inhibition wrong? cos i did that too...:s-smilie:


You're not wrong, it was a competitive inhibitor. Not sure that stating that will be worth anything ont he mark scheme though.
Original post by razzler
No you dont understand what im saying. I dont mind some HSw questions about interpretating graphs. The way I remember it only one or two of the questions was onterpretating graohs.

let me make it simpler - HSW is okay but I thought it was overdone in this exam. It should be more like previous years. Why the hell did the exam board tell to learn all tht stuff in the spec i just wasted my time i could have spent tht time doing more useful things. I could have gone to no biology lessons and done equally well. Are you saying it takes no intelligence in answering questions other than HSW ones


So you could've gone to no biology lessons and you still would've known about DNA being in triplets and that introns are non-coding parts of the base sequence? Don't be ridiculous! I'm not saying it takes no intelligence, obviously it takes an intelligence of some level. However I'd say that most people that get accepted onto Biology A-level courses could get an A if there was no HSW and they learnt the text-book off by heart.

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