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

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so many of me and my friends thought we had also got the wrong paper, i think i might have laughed at loud during the seaweed question. Can someone please explain where on earth information about wavelengths absorbed by seaweed is on the syllabus? I get that we are supposed to apply our knowledge to novel situations, but that was taking the mic. Surely a question applying any of the knowledge that we had actually learnt on about five other topics would have made TEN TIMES MORE SENSE. An also, does anybody know who writes those exam papers? Maybe we can all give in one p to buy a text book which we can mail to them? Anybody?

Reply 741

bertstare

Original post by guichiguichi

yeah the seaweed question seemed like a test for a 7 year old arts students on the complementary colour wheel, rather than any actual biology. i didnt see the point of that at all

Reply 742

JP83

Think I totally misread the seaweed question?

I understood that light is lost in order of the visible spectrum in order of red, orange, yellow (as given in question), then presumably green, blue etc as depth increases.

I swear the data presented was for photosynthesis rates at blue, green and red light respectively. The value for both seaweeds was low (1.0 or something) at red wavelengths and both photosynthesised in blue light best, then green with slight variations between species. Green, then blue (which they both photosynthesised best in) are found at all levels so I said both would be found in all locations (shallow water coz blue/green light plentiful and also deeper water coz green/blue wavelengths not lost). Red (as given by low rates in data) and orange/yellow wavelengths irrelavent (as no data given)

So only considering green and blue wavelengths which would be available at all shore levels so seaweed can live and photosynthesise (i.e. survive) at all depths of the shore.

Anyone else get this???

Reply 743

Zanny17

Original post by mooniibuggy

I wrote that too! and I actually drew it out lol and labelled the axis and put the title

yeah some of my friends wrote bar chart and something about standard deviation ;/ I hope they accept multiple answers because i'm sure there's more than one way to present that data...

Hmm i did something totally different :tongue:

thought it was the seedling core prac so what i did was find the change in mass (final - initial) divided by the total time to give you the growth rate. Then plot it as a double bar chart allowing for comparison between the two. ><

Reply 744

Zanny17

Original post by JP83

I GOT THAT. Well just for the plant which had the highest rate of photosynthesis think it was around 3.6...in green light. And since green light was present everywhere I thought that it should therefore be abundant in all regions of the shore :/ For the other weird one, the highest rate of photosynthesis was 1.0 in red light and followed by blue light. And as red light is lost as dept increases i said it should be highest at the top of the shore..where theres the highest blue and red light so it photosynthesises optimally. idk....weird exaaaam.

Reply 745

abuelzouz

i thought it was good... i hope so.. everything is alright except wavelength que. I hope I get an A!

Reply 746

JP83

If you have not see this before it will really cheer you up! Its a spoof paper of the AQA unit 4 paper they had complaints about last year

http://www.milanmehta.net/aqabiojan2010/

Enjoy!

Reply 747

Samia99

Original post by JP83

If you have not see this before it will really cheer you up! Its a spoof paper of the AQA unit 4 paper they had complaints about last year

http://www.milanmehta.net/aqabiojan2010/

Enjoy!

hahaha lol! :biggrin:

Reply 748

Core

Original post by abuelzouz

i thought it was good... i hope so.. everything is alright except wavelength que. I hope I get an A!

what did you place?

Reply 749

imaam

Original post by JP83

If you have not see this before it will really cheer you up! Its a spoof paper of the AQA unit 4 paper they had complaints about last year

http://www.milanmehta.net/aqabiojan2010/

Enjoy!

Loooooooooooool that is too jokez!!

Reply 750

bertstare

Original post by JP83

If you have not see this before it will really cheer you up! Its a spoof paper of the AQA unit 4 paper they had complaints about last year

http://www.milanmehta.net/aqabiojan2010/

Enjoy!

hahahahahaa im dying @ some of them

Reply 751

Core

Original post by JP83

If you have not see this before it will really cheer you up! Its a spoof paper of the AQA unit 4 paper they had complaints about last year

http://www.milanmehta.net/aqabiojan2010/

Enjoy!

lol..limit reached.

Reply 752

TheChief

First time on here since the exam - been avoiding it because I thought I ballsed it up big time!! However, reading the fact most others hated the paper too makes me feel a bit better! Totally ran out of time, and Qu 7 and 8 were a nightmare. I spent so long revising and nothing came up I hoped for! Also, it should not be 90 minutes like Units 1 and 2, because more marks are available, and the content is harder too.

Bloody joke!!

Reply 753

alexwharton

Original post by TheChief

Same here! we learnt so much about specific immunity, course of aids,tb light independent reactions. ALl the big stuff just did not come up. Really not looking forward to unit 5! x
Also even with extra time i was really pushed to finish it!!

Reply 754

HannahBeth

this was worse than the actual Jan exam. Stupid rubbish questions and skipping massive parts of the syllabus we all spent ages learning like immunity. I have complained to edexcel.

Reply 755

Samia99

Original post by HannahBeth

this was worse than the actual Jan exam. Stupid rubbish questions and skipping massive parts of the syllabus we all spent ages learning like immunity. I have complained to edexcel.

It's good that yu complained abt it! :tongue:

Reply 756

Pwiii

Original post by HannahBeth

this was worse than the actual Jan exam. Stupid rubbish questions and skipping massive parts of the syllabus we all spent ages learning like immunity. I have complained to edexcel.

Yeah I agree! Good you complained, im gna complain aswell
I spent time learning the immunity process and HIV and only few marks came up on that.. =/ disappointed..

Reply 757

JP83

I've sent a complaint to edexcel. I would encourage others to do the same. All this talk about A levels being easier... how about missing out all the hard topics like photosynthesis, respiration and immunity (which took up weeks of my time revising) plays straight into hands of D grade students who didn't bother to learn these topics. And, given they weren't tested, must be ****ing laughing! What a joke of an exam.

Reply 758

TheChief

Original post by JP83

I too have sent off a complaint to Edexcel.... I'll never get the last 2 months of my life back where everyday I was revising the 'proper' topics, and they hardly came up!
Im 30, doing an A-level to start a degree, so have experience of whether A-levels are getting easier, having taken 3 in 1998 - I can definately say, from my experience, exam boards seem to be a lot sneakier these days, and therefore I would say exams are a lot harder to prepare for.

Reply 759

Scruffy Jack

Original post by TheChief

I also took A Levels over 10 years ago and I can tell you that they are much easier today. Having to sit 1 or 2 exams at the end of 2 years study and with one shot at getting the grade you aspire is what used to happen. You accepted your result as a reflection of your work and you also accepted that the examiners knew what they were doing, after all I'm sure they are far more qualified in the subject area, teaching, course design and assessment than anyone registering complaints. Even if the exam was slightly hard, you took solace in the fact that you were in the same boat as every other student.

A Levels today are not difficult. You learn 3 months material, sit an exam and then dump the knowledge. There are numerous complaints whenever more than a token question or two examine material from past topics. Students re-sit exams numerous times in an attempt to inflate their grades without the fact that they scored an A on their third attempt ever being captured. This is why you now need straight As to get into University. This system may be seen as fair because it allows students to re-sit if they have had a bad day on a previous exam, through ill health, family trouble etc, but the system is being abused. It used to be that a B was average and an A showed real achievement. Now an A is average due to the abuse of the system and A* had to be introduced as a way of identifying the truly gifted students.

Bottom line is - there is always an element of luck when deciding where to focus your revision but we all sat the same exam, the playing field is level so stop complaining, stop setting up facebook groups and show a little maturity.