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WJEC BIOLOGY BY1 2016 (NEW AS) Thread

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Original post by ActuallyIDo
Tbh I don't even think i'll be getting 60% at this rate ,like the lactose and galactose question (where it said name the products), my dumb ass put a glycosidic bond and water, and on the transcription question I was focusing on the diagram on the left hand side and only talked about splicing, not DNA helicase or RNA polymerase....



Not to mention phenolphthalein and milk making an appearance

For the products one i put lactose and water and then the transcription one i jsut explanied transcription i think like DNA helicase and stuff and then the phenolphthalein one i just put theat fatty acids and glyerol are acidic and so the indicator would turn colourless but it was 3 marks so dunno what else u had to say! and then when it said why cant u use the indicator when investigating effect of PH and i said that it's because the indicator is PH dependent? i dunno haha i'm sure you'll get 60%, u never know grade boundaries may be even lower haha! but sadly a lot of my clever friends thought it was easy and got like 90% :frown:
Original post by RasputinReborn
Is this new spec AS? We didn't have these. Is this Eduqas?
Yes this is educas, there is no thread for it unless u can find one for me? Btw what do u estimate the grade boundaries for an A are since people found both of these exams hard,


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Yes this is educas
Original post by RasputinReborn
Sounds just as AIDS as the WJEC one.


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yep, probably as similar difficulity, what do u recon grade boundaries will be?
Original post by RasputinReborn
Guys, do you remember that 3 marker that asked you to state what type of cell that organism with weird organelles was and another organism, and to state 2 differences and 1 similarity (excluding diagrams). Did any of you say that 1 similarity would be that they both contain DNA? (WJEC NEW AS)


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Yeah I did because I thought it was prokaryote vs eukaryotes based on what the diagrams said like a cellulose cell wall and the other had a peptidoglycan wall or something like that
Original post by lemonandlime1
Yeah I did because I thought it was prokaryote vs eukaryotes based on what the diagrams said like a cellulose cell wall and the other had a peptidoglycan wall or something like that


That's right as far as I can see. Stupidly I was stressing so much in the exam that I just didn't notice that and so I just panicked.
Original post by bonney12
That's right as far as I can see. Stupidly I was stressing so much in the exam that I just didn't notice that and so I just panicked.


Idk if it's right, people in my school said it want that but idk, I failed anyway because I messed up the rest of the exam so I need to resit. I'm just praying we have a nice by2 exam
Original post by lemonandlime1
Idk if it's right, people in my school said it want that but idk, I failed anyway because I messed up the rest of the exam so I need to resit. I'm just praying we have a nice by2 exam


I mean, what are the chances of that? BY2 is harder and a lot more to remember so I can see it going shockingly for me :P
Reply 127
Avatar for Cansu2
Cansu2
I think it was a nucleus and not a vacuole, I checked on some images on Google on spirogyra and seems that the vacuole is the transparent background material in that cell and the nucleus is centrally based
Original post by RasputinReborn
58% A
53% B
48% C
43% D
38% E


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really? i hope so, that sounds about right as our school used those for our mock based on how well everyone did
Original post by RasputinReborn
Usually it's like 72% for an A, but I don't think anyone in my year got that high 😂


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that was the old sec tho which was soooo much easier, so i recon ,maybe 70% highest! i hope i can manage that! i dunno tho!
Original post by Cansu2
I think it was a nucleus and not a vacuole, I checked on some images on Google on spirogyra and seems that the vacuole is the transparent background material in that cell and the nucleus is centrally based


In my exam I put X to be the nucleolus and Y to be the vacuole
This exam was an absolute joke it was nothing like the spec
Just to let everyone know, I contacted the WJEC expressing my thoughts and I received a response today, and honestly I'm not best pleased with it:
Dear Megan, Thank you for your email. I am sorry to discover the difficulty you experienced with the new AS level Biology examination. This examination was written to comply with the change in criteria required for the new specification. The content of the paper is entirely within the required knowledge for the unit, but some questions were set in an unfamiliar context, as is required by the Assessment Objectives. We are yet to see the actual outcome of candidates' performances for this paper. I can reassure you that the difficulty of the paper and the performance of all candidates are scrutinised closely and will be taken into account at the awarding stage. We expect grade outcomes to be comparable to that seen in the legacy specification. In the first instance, I should be grateful if you could contact the Biology department at your centre to discuss specific concerns you have with the paper in question. If a representative from the school wishes to contact WJEC on your behalf, we will attempt to address specific concerns you have with the content of the question paper.

Hopefully once they see the poor marks, they will realise that change needs to happen in the regard of making the paper either longer, or making it so that less reading is required.
Original post by megjane1510
Just to let everyone know, I contacted the WJEC expressing my thoughts and I received a response today, and honestly I'm not best pleased with it:
Dear Megan, Thank you for your email. I am sorry to discover the difficulty you experienced with the new AS level Biology examination. This examination was written to comply with the change in criteria required for the new specification. The content of the paper is entirely within the required knowledge for the unit, but some questions were set in an unfamiliar context, as is required by the Assessment Objectives. We are yet to see the actual outcome of candidates' performances for this paper. I can reassure you that the difficulty of the paper and the performance of all candidates are scrutinised closely and will be taken into account at the awarding stage. We expect grade outcomes to be comparable to that seen in the legacy specification. In the first instance, I should be grateful if you could contact the Biology department at your centre to discuss specific concerns you have with the paper in question. If a representative from the school wishes to contact WJEC on your behalf, we will attempt to address specific concerns you have with the content of the question paper.

Hopefully once they see the poor marks, they will realise that change needs to happen in the regard of making the paper either longer, or making it so that less reading is required.


The spec guide did mention that this would be 20% Maths and 20% English or whatever so they have a point. But I still dont agree with them. This has made it unfair for us compared to the past students who had to deal with easier wording. Ty for emailing them though
Follow this link - https://www.facebook.com/southwalesargus/posts/10155002322244863

I would be very grateful if you could all share your comments on here on the South Wales Argus Page
and this link too - http://m.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/14530459.Newport_students_complain_to_exam_board_amid_widespread_claims_exam_was_too_hard/
It's disgusting

Original post by valbrechts
The spec guide did mention that this would be 20% Maths and 20% English or whatever so they have a point. But I still dont agree with them. This has made it unfair for us compared to the past students who had to deal with easier wording. Ty for emailing them though


yeah i understand they "can" do it cuz it says they can but its not fair expecting us to suddenly be able to have the ability to analyse knowledge when we did the old GCSE's and have no-one has ever done these exams before. WHen they said they would make it comparable do they mean lower the grade boundaries accordingly, I think they are going to be shocked with candidates responses, I actually did the Eduqas one but i expect them to have to lower the grade boundaries in the same way
Original post by RasputinReborn
It's hopeless. Sadly, our exam board isn't as big as AQA or Edexcel, so our injustice is going to go unheard of. I mean, if a straight A* student thinks they've gotten a U, it just shows how ****ed up that exam was.


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When the last new spec (now the old one) came out in 2009, the A grade boundary was 75% for an A but surely to dear god it cannot be that high, I did the eduqas paper but it sounds just as bad, guys they have to lower the grade boundary so that equal amounts of people get A's so we should be okay
I honestly hope that the grade boundaries are like :

A - 28
B - 22
C - 18
D - 12
E - 10

Which tbh is quite funny because I still feel that i'd get a U

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