AQA A2 Biology BIOL5 - 17th June 2015

add the values for mean rate of co2 production, 0.032+0.051+0.045= 0.128
then find the percentage for each of them, so 0.051/0.128 x 100 = 39.8%
and 0.045/0.128 x 100 = 35.2%

pretty much the whole AS and A2 since everything is made up of biological molecules.. :P

Is there an essay marking thread going on for unit 5??? Because I've written some essays but honestly have no idea what they would score (because my teacher is useless and hasn't replied to my email when I asked him to mark it ). Or is there anyone on here who wouldn't mind taking a look? I just want a rough idea of what kind of mark and if there are any gaping errors/places I could improve...

Post them on this thread. There will probably be some people who mind marking it


Posted from TSR Mobile

Here's another essay I wrote, for the June 2010 paper Link to the mark scheme: http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-BIOL5-W-MS-JUN10.PDF

Again I would love any kind of feedback, I have no idea where I am with the standard of my essays at all!

This is a great essay!
I would give
Scientific Content: 15/16
Relevance: 3/3
Breadth: 3/3
Quality of Written Communication: 3/3
So 24/25

You get into the top band for scientific content for mentioning things which aren't on the spec e.g. Ebola.

One thing I would say is, did you time yourself for the essay?

Wow awesome! Thank you, I really didn't know where I was with the standard. I did try to include stuff not on the specification but I was under the impression you had to write a paragraph of non-specification content to get the marks?

I did time myself! As in I did the essay along with the short answer questions in the paper, so tbh I actually spent longer than 40 minutes on the essay but it was all under 2 hr 15 minutes

Wow that's impressive!
I thought the same about writing a full paragraph on something off the spec, but my teacher says their not too fussy. She gave me 16/16 on one of my essays where I include about 4 lines on something off the spec.

Aha thank you! I really liked the essay title so I felt inspired to write a lot lol

ah ok that sounds more doable, though we were told about 2 weeks before the study leave about the essay which is so annoying as I would've made an effort to learn out of spec stuff earlier in the year had I known about it! nonetheless I want to get at least 20/25 on the essay as I'm going to try to get over 80/100 overall

What other subjects do you take?
I'm taking chemistry and psychology, and I've found there's a lot of I've learned from them subjects, that I can include in my essays.

I also take chemistry, but maths and physics too. I don't think I can bring anything from chemistry from my syllabus I can imagine psychology's pretty useful though! TBH I've never counted on getting 25/25 so I'm not going to get too stressed over it... I'm going to focus on getting as many marks as possible from the short answer qs!

That's my plan too; if I get lucky and think of something relevant from psychology then I'll be happy! The grade boundaries for BIOL5 are quite low too so it's not really worth spending time revising extra bits, when you can focus on the spec.

Although I've been told that if you look at the little data scenarios in the paper you're doing, you can use them as they tend to be genuine real world studies.

This message was just put on Manchester Freshers page;

Do not wish to stress any fellow AQA biology students out
(Of which I hope all of your Biol4 papers went swimmingly)
Apparently the Biol5 paper was "Hijacked" as the van was mistaken for carrying cash, so apparently we are sitting the 2016 BIOL5 paper,
I have asked my teacher (AQA Principal examiner) what the situation is and if he responds then I'll keep you updated!I'm currently stressing because apparently fly the specification was changing after 2015
And also apparently the 2016 paper is disgustingly hard (all according to the guy who wrote it, my teacher)

This message was just put on Manchester Freshers page;

Do not wish to stress any fellow AQA biology students out
(Of which I hope all of your Biol4 papers went swimmingly)
Apparently the Biol5 paper was "Hijacked" as the van was mistaken for carrying cash, so apparently we are sitting the 2016 BIOL5 paper,
I have asked my teacher (AQA Principal examiner) what the situation is and if he responds then I'll keep you updated!I'm currently stressing because apparently fly the specification was changing after 2015
And also apparently the 2016 paper is disgustingly hard (all according to the guy who wrote it, my teacher)

Where does it say that on the page? Please can you post a link?