Tombre's 100 or so day journey to all A*s!

I'm going to lie, I had to google what that means, but I applaud your clever pun!

Good luck on your final drama performance!! Enjoy it (however, stupid that may sound)

Good luck with your exams! You'll do great

Thank you! I understand what you mean I can't believe it's tomorrow! I have the whole day off timetable to prepare and I'll actually do the exam at about 3! It's going to be weird performing in front of an examiner!

Lucky you! And, yeah, it is a bit strange performing in front of someone official... thankfully, our examiner was quite friendly which helped calm all our nerves a bit!

3 EXAMS DOWN, 11 TO GO! BOOM!

Last Thursday I did my Drama final performance, worth 30% of my grade and I must say I think it went pretty well. My group pretty much pulled it out of the bag a few hours beforehand...

Yesterday was Religion and Life Issues. Was a nice paper. The last question asked for my opinion on the purpose of life and oh my god, an exam hall is not where I need a crisis

Today was B3. Okay this was a hard paper, I could tell it was hard, BUT I happened to know all of it and I actually feel so good about it!

Did you draw the stomata as open or closed? It's been bugging me haha. Most my friends drew it closed, as did I. But no one really knows and we didn't have a chance to ask our teacher :>

Yesss I did it as closed! The problem is one of my guard cells was slightly bigger than the other and I'm kind of worried about that because it said "try and keep it exactly the same size as the original" (which I thought was stupid but hey ho). How'd you find the exam as a whole?

Haha I don't think that's anything to worry about. I thought the exam went pretty well. The QWC's were all nice and not really that hard. I am really annoyed with knowing I lost 1 mark on the graph question because I put 2003 instead of 2004 fml (:
What did you think of the paper as a whole? Bit disappointed ADH didn't come up tbh

I agree about the QWCs. Ahh that is annoying, but hey it's one mark and I know people that put 2007, so at least you weren't that far out. And for all we know 2003 could be right!

I thought it was a nice paper, it was strange, but I liked it. I'm also disappointed at the lack of ADH, but oh well. Microorganisms really outbalanced literally everything though, which sucked. I was spot on with my predictions though, I predicted lots of plants, the eye and filtration.

I think the grade boundaries will be high for this paper though. A few people in my class put 2007 too, I'm not sure why, maybe there was a significant drop at that year I don't quite remember the graph really. The reason I put 2003 though was all dependant on the fact that they took the readings at the end of the year (So in December let's say) so introducing whatever they introduced to make the levels fall wouldn't really have a great impact until the following year, do you get what I mean?
The eye question was quite nice too, wasn't it to do with the iris? I don't really remember. Also the reflex arc one was okay too. In filtration I didn't mention about the amino acids getting filtered through the capillary knot but I think I should be good as I mentioned 4 (maybe 3?) things that get filtered through anyway.

Did you find out any easy marks you lost after the exam or do you think you're going strong at the moment? Finally I calculated how many UMS I needed in order to get an A* in Biol and I think it was approximately 64/80 which is on the A/B Border, but considering it is my weakest science I was pleased with that. Do you have any idea how much UMS you need in order to get the A*? Good luck!

I was actually expecting quite low boundaries because I know a lot of people struggled with this paper. Yeah there was a drop at 2007. I understand your reasoning and I actually did originally put 2003 but changed it after.
I agree, I liked the eye. The first part was the lens, then it was about pupils and the iris. Amino acids aren't on the specification for filtration (they were on the Bangor notes, but they weren't necessary) so I wouldn't worry. Did you also discuss reabsorption?

You're in a very good position. I haven't found out any marks I've lost yet but I'm supposed to have Bio tomorrow so maybe I will then. I know I need 75/80 for an A* in Bio I got 79/80 in B2 , but 66/80 in B1 and same in CA so yeah. Thank you! Good luck!

I'm sure you'll get the A* you've put a whole lot of effort in!!! I mentioned reabsorbtion but only briefly, what did you say? Also did you mention anything about the concentration of the urine or not? I only went as far as saying somethings like x y z will be reabsorbed in the Kidney Tubules, didn't expand any further.

Thank you! I'm very much hoping so! Yeah my answer was similar to yours. I described the filtration and then talked about glucose and excess water and salts being reabsorbed because they're useful. I then said that the urea and unwanted salts and water enter the ureter via the collecting duct. I'm worried I went too far past filtration so it'll be labeled unnecessary content.

As long as your initial points are fine I doubt they would mind you put the extra information in, as it shows further understanding. At least that's what I tell myself when I'm writing points which aren't really necessary haha :>

That's true, I hope the examiner appreciates it! How have you other exams been going?