Edexcel A2 Biology Unit 4(6BIO4) 13/06/11 - OFFICIAL THREAD !

Yes, I am doing both. I did Unit4 in jan. and I realised most of my mistake. The Jan paper was a bitch, the question 1b(iii) scared me from the start. I have realised my mistake doe. Just stay calm read the question PROPERLY and you will be fine. I redid the paper calmly and i did pretty well. Just hope Mondays paper is Nice.

Unit 5 I havent read properly AT ALL, am gna do that after my Chem on Wednesday.

Yep I'm doing both. Cursing my school for not allowing us to do the Unit 4 in Jan. I take it you are as well?

No I have done Unit 5 in Jan, so got that out of the way - but I might retake [school kinda forcing me] it really depends on how I feel before the day of the exam (I am pretty relaxed about it coz i got 104 first time round).

But from what I have seen I find Unit 4 much harder than Unit 5 content wise coz I am a future medic and Unit 5 is all about nervous system, orthopedics so it's quite easy to learn

can anybody tell me why we cut the same DNA smaple into different sized fragments using restrictions enzymes. Is the reason to compare it with the reference DNA in as many areas as possible ??

I find Unit 5 content wise easier too. Much more human body stuff lol none of this plant bull****. Potential future medic here too.

Have you got any tips for Unit 5? Cheers



So you can use them in gel electrophoresis as different sized fragments will move through the gel different amounts. And then you can compare the bands produced. Shorter segments travel faster and end up closer to +ve electrode than longer fragments.

That's just my guess at that, might be wrong.

Yeah but what I don't understand is why do you need to cut them several times in different ways. I mean we could use one fragment and compare it to the original DNA so I don't understand the point of doing it more than once. It's probably so that we get a more reliable result?

For Unit 5: Know the content, and do not spent a lot of time on the article. My friend knew the article inside out and got a D coz he didn't spent much time on the content, whereas I spent only one day on the article but three weeks on Unit 5 content.

Page 8 of this thread lol

Is it me, or was the Januray 2011 paper a bitch? I think it was the hardest so far? Am i right?

in the jan 11 paper, question 1b (i)

it says in the mark scheme:

(product) is converted to {starch / sugar /
eq} ;

would saying ''carbohydrate'' instead of starch/sugar get you the mark?

You're definitely right. In my biology class a huge proportion of the class are straight A students, most of them are going on to do medicine at uni. Not a single person in my class got A's and only around 1 or 2 got B's. The majority of us got D's and below and I know this is the same for my previous sixth form and also my friends at different schools, the paper was awful! looking back through it, there was a lot of data analysis which I personally find very tricky and also a huge amount of the questions were "suggest" ones where you have to use your own knowledge to apply to something you don't know.

to sum up... yes it was a bitch! haha

YOu know when they ask us about immune system..what do we put first..? B cells or T cells...?

Is anyone else absolutely ****ting themselves for this exam?!
I've revised everything for topic 5/6, I know the core practicals and I've completed and marked all the past papers available (3 I think) and I still feel like I know nothing and feel hugely unprepared! the January exam has definitely knocked my confidence (I got a D) and just the fact that I know so much is relying on this exam to get into uni arghhh!! anyone else feeling the same?

also does anyone else hate all the ecology stuff? I find that I only really understand and am interested in the human biology stuff like the immune system, but all the crap about succession and global warming is just soooo boring!

what is everyone doing in terms of last minute revision?

Someone Agrees, also A level Biology makes you feel stupid. even if you were clever in maths