The Student Room Group

Igcse biology paper 6 help

Ok so this is the silliest problem i go through doing past papers... all my measurments (in mm) never turn out correct! whenever they tell us to measure something i always get it wrong. Its left me wondering if there is a method to measure the width and length? Also, is it necessary to know all the material for the paper 6 exam?

Scroll to see replies

I'm doing this paper tomorrow argh! Haha.

Usually the base of a ruler isn't where the measurements start, always make sure that you start at the zero line and not the bottom of the ruler! You should take the measurement when you're directly above the thing you're measuring as things can look different if you're not at the right angle :smile:

You don't need to know all the material for the exam, the main things they look for in this paper are
can you follow a simple set of instructions
•can you measure something correctly
•plotting points on a graph
•sensibly constructing graphs
•drawing larger diagrams of an organism, without shading or multiple strokes
•correctly labelling simple diagrams (the usually use leaves or small invertebrates)
•identifying hazards in experiments
•identifying which factors need to be controlled in experiments
•being able to construct your own simple experiment or making improvements on a given experiment

Hope this helps, good luck in your exam!
Usually the error to measurements (for me atleast) is because when you print it it's slightly different to the size at which CIE prints it. Don't worry when you do the actual exam your measurements will most likely be correct. :wink:
How did you guys find it??
Reply 4
I found it horrible. Everyone was saying how easy it was and I just went blank....life wtf was that drawing question?! and what did people for the control experiment

How did everyone find it
Reply 5
Tbh sameeee, everyone was smiling when outside the exam hall. Unlike me.. stressed af. But the potato part was fine for me :smile:

However i got 280 for the mean alcohol consumption? Anyone similar??
Then the last page i screwed up with celery and red dye. GCSE middle east student here.
Reply 6
Original post by Dommiedo
Tbh sameeee, everyone was smiling when outside the exam hall. Unlike me.. stressed af. But the potato part was fine for me :smile:

However i got 280 for the mean alcohol consumption? Anyone similar??
Then the last page i screwed up with celery and red dye. GCSE middle east student here.


Yeah I got 280 too :smile:
Reply 7
Original post by DJShaji
Yeah I got 280 too :smile:


I also got 280 but I messed up the red dye bit as well I just said do the test for water by giving the plant copper sulfate crystals so to indicate where water is?
Reply 8
Original post by suht
I also got 280 but I messed up the red dye bit as well I just said do the test for water by giving the plant copper sulfate crystals so to indicate where water is?


I went a different route and talked about the red dye being 'eosin'. Pour 20cm^3 of eosin into a beaker and place a cut plant so that the stem lies in the beaker. Make sure humidity is low, light intensity is high( to open stomata) and carbon dioxide and temperate should be optimum so that transpiration can take place. After a while the water should move up the plant. :/
Reply 9
Original post by DJShaji
I went a different route and talked about the red dye being 'eosin'. Pour 20cm^3 of eosin into a beaker and place a cut plant so that the stem lies in the beaker. Make sure humidity is low, light intensity is high( to open stomata) and carbon dioxide and temperate should be optimum so that transpiration can take place. After a while the water should move up the plant. :/


Yeah thats probably correct i dont really know how correct my answer is .
What was the answer for the control??
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get the marks for the control for saying "Use water instead of hydrogen peroxide", what do you guys think? Also I talked about dying water, then watering with dyed water and then waiting for a couple of days and cutting open the stem. How many marks will I have lost?
That exam totally threw me! Definitely panicking about the extended now! I did the control experiment without alcohol but with enzyme?? Still can't believe that I have actually started my GCSEs!!!
I said replace ethanol with the same volume of water for the control. What did everyone else do for the drawing?
Original post by octoberrain
How did you guys find it??


what syllabus were you guys writing for bio paper 6 because i didn't have any questions what you guys are talking about
Original post by small_genius
what syllabus were you guys writing for bio paper 6 because i didn't have any questions what you guys are talking about

Do you live in the UK? If not, you did a different variation.
Original post by hespa001
That exam totally threw me! Definitely panicking about the extended now! I did the control experiment without alcohol but with enzyme?? Still can't believe that I have actually started my GCSEs!!!


Wasn't the catalyst part of the potato though? That's what I thought... may be wrong though :smile:


Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by CIEBioloysifh
Do you live in the UK? If not, you did a different variation.


oh i live in the middle east may be thats reason
ANYWAY, BEST OF LUCK GUYS
Original post by CIEBioloysifh
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get the marks for the control for saying "Use water instead of hydrogen peroxide", what do you guys think? Also I talked about dying water, then watering with dyed water and then waiting for a couple of days and cutting open the stem. How many marks will I have lost?


Welp. Help. I know you could use water; but instead of hydrogen peroxide?
Original post by jess99056
I said replace ethanol with the same volume of water for the control. What did everyone else do for the drawing?

For the control I said to fill a test-tube with 10cm^3 of hydrogen peroxide without the potato to check that it didn't decompose by itself. Think that may be wrong though...

As for the drawing, I didn't draw the entire picture as I ran out of time, I just drew the vascular bundle without the surrounding cells.

What did you guys put as the problem with the way the oxygen was measured? Got confused at that question


Posted from TSR Mobile

Quick Reply

Latest