Environmental studies exam - 22nd May 2014

How did everyone find the unit 2 exam? what did you get for the to calculations and how did you find the 10 marker?

Much better than unit 1! 10 marker was sort of 'meh' aha. I more talked about soil fertility factors rather than how it relates to soil organisms? E.g. I talked about ploughing to increase aeration. How about you?

Reply 2

AmyT997

Original post by scottwhite

yeah i wrote about that, along with water retention and temperature. I found it harder than unit 1 and a lot of people found it hard so hopefully grade boundaries will be low but i personally didnt find it too bad. What did you get for the two calculations?

Reply 3

scottwhite

Original post by AmyT997

Think I got 92% for the first one, completely messed it up though.. I did % change in purity of copper ore or something instead of the cost of extracting... And I got 119 years I think for the residence time question

Reply 4

Weeble33

Original post by scottwhite

I wrote about ploughing affecting earthworms. And how crop rotation increases fertility by alternating plant types.

Reply 5

ViciousPenguin

I got 95 years o;

Overall found both exams pretty good although the 10 marker was a bit of a chore. Also the one about negative feedback mechanisms- we hadn't learnt about a decrease in CO2 so I had to blag it with something about decomposition (can't even remember).

Reply 6

scottwhite

Original post by ViciousPenguin

same about the negative feedback! I only knew about increase temperature means more clouds from evaporation so more albedo and temperature is back to normal... So for co2 I just put if there was more co2 in the air then it means less of a limiting factor for plants to photosynthesise so they photosynthesise more to take co2 out the air. Is that right?

Reply 7

ViciousPenguin

Original post by scottwhite

Yeah that's what I said for the increase :smile:

For the decrease I said that the lack of co2 would decrease temperature. This means more plants would die in the winter and so more decomposition would take place due to the DOM produced. This would increase the co2 concentration.

Sounds wrong now but it's all I could think of in the exam aha

Reply 8

tomcrayston

The paper was horrible :eek:

... I was a but puzzled on the question on 2 ways how reservoir water requires less treatment than river water (i think i put because the water composition and flow is not constantly changing that reservoir water doesnt need precautionary treatment...also put about agriculture is often adjacent to rivers and therefore more contamination of pesticides etc.)

The 10 mark question was horrible for me...I only could think of organism acting as detritivore & decomposers for nutrient recycling and the denitrification which returns nitrogen to atmosphere.

what human activities release methane? I just put none

what is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere...i just put 1%

I really hope the grade boundaries are low this year!!!!! :/

Reply 9

scottwhite

Original post by tomcrayston

The paper was horrible :eek:

Percentage is 0.038%, I put 0.034%.. Hope that counts lol. Human activity that releases methane I put as cattle farming with animals that have a Rumen.. For the water treatment one I put sedimentation is less likely to be needed because reservoir water is still so it pretty much already sediments.. And I put screens cos it's less likely r have tree branches in the reservoir than a river, because it's just still and can't really have things being picked up by it unlike a river that covers a large area.. I put pretty much the same for the 10 marker though!