AQA BIOL2 Biology Unit 2 Exam - 26th May 2011

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.

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.

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.

on the first question, was it only cell wall, starch and chloroplasts? i wrote chloroplasts and that eye thingy mabob...

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You're not wrong, it was a competitive inhibitor. Not sure that stating that will be worth anything ont he mark scheme though.

I think the light sensitive eye may be a neutral, it's quite a strange thing.

The only place I can think of the light sensitive eye exiting in humans is ine the eye itself. If humans don't contain that eye thing then surely you will get a mark. Can't see it being classed as neutral though, it's either right or wrong.

what i am saying is the amount of HSW questions were excessive. cant you agree with me that there were more HSW questions in this exam paper than previous yeas?

Im all for HSW questions but within limits like previous years. HSW is what the EMPA is for which I found was quite easy actually.

your saying its people of higher intelligence should get As rather than people with less intelligence. when youve got a job your gonna employ someone with the required knowledge not just someone wiht high IQ. for brain surgery would you rather have the guy who has the knowledge and worked hard for his degree. or some guy with really high intelligence. Knowledge is importnat. you build on it at uni so youve got to know the basic stuff at As so they shuold examine it and see if its there. I think a Uni would rather have someone who undertands how genetics works rather than someone who can answer why using 10 leaves is beneficial (I put reduce percentage error is that right :P)

So wouldn't that make the light sensitive eye as being present in eukaryotes, as we are consistent of eukaryote cells only?

Well I don't know if they actually exist in animals (meant animals not humans in my last post). I would guess they do though, which would mean that it was wrong. That question looked quite easy on the face of it but both flagellum and light senstive bit were there to trap you I think.

Haha yeah, I definitely think they were both there to trick us! Oh well I put starch grains and chloroplasts

I was confused to why the graph for set A leaves decreased dramatically at first and then became flat? Was it because there was no water left to evaporate or did the stomata close or what?..

I think less water left in the leaf, so lower concentration gradient, slower diffusion.

yeah same, forget about the rest and just put the 2 most obvious ones lol

Dayum, that makes so much sense!

I put that the leaf can only lose so much water, given that it has no way of uptaking new water. So by definition the more it water it loses, the less it has left to lose, hence the decrease in the steepness of mass loss.

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?

Not sure if this is right but:

Different DNA base sequence = Different genes (?) = Different /change in amino acid sequence = Different primary structure = Different bonding = Different tertiary structure?

This question has come up on previous papers.