Pupils complaining about "Unfair" exam paper

They are. And pretty much everyone who sat the exam has made a little 'complaint'

I think a levels should ask you to apply your knowledge- it's the only true indicator of understanding as opposed to someone memorising a text book. But how much prior knowledge of shrews and faunagoo are we expected to have? Sure, write a question involving shrews (don't drag it on for 6 pages, but hey...) and let us apply our knowledge of material we have been taught in order to answer the question. Imagine being given a question asking you to apply your knowledge of a subject and never having been taught that subject. It just won't work.

No it wasn't, and it was specifically in the new AQA text book for this exam they would not need it, yet they were asked about it. Most people are upset they spent months learning stuff for none of it to come up except in 1/8th of the paper.

Life isn't fair.

My girlfriend studied her ass off for tat exam, literally sat there every night going over past papers and pouring over all the info she could find and she came out of that exam almost in tears, she usually comes out happy as she revises for months before exams and she's expecting three As.
I havn't met a single person who found it managable.
Aparantly they had no knowledge in it, and she learnt all these really complicated words and only needed it for 4 marks or something.
Damn right they should complain.

While I haven't looked at the AQA specification, I've just read the paper. Last year I did OCR Biology.

There was a large emphasis on statistical analysis of results, yet the first question (on geese) looks quite typical. Second question on caterpillars you analyse a graph again and same for the third. Possibly a difficult question was 3b)i), where they ask how to find the average life expectancy of a population from the graph. I wasn't taught this with OCR last year, so that was the first real question that could have been difficult.

Q4 - flowers in a wood, first parts on sampling, second on coppicing more on Spearman's rank. Yes, this question could be done by someone who studied GCSE Stats. Q5 - biochemical processes and apple slices has large biological content, similarly does Q6 with succession. Q7 looks like a Physics question I did with AQA last year and again it's more common sense in the first part, before more knowledge on sampling, reliability and results. Then you analyse more graphs and talk about correlation now. Q8 is a series of 3 essays about ATP, energy in an ecosystem and intensive rearing of cattle vs productivity.

So overall, I think that the paper was quite general, with 1, 5, 6 and 8 requiring knowledge from the course. There was a large element of statistical analysis in 2, 4 and 7 and Q3 was somewhere in between.

That said I've just looked at the title of the module - Populations and Environment - and it's actually quite a narrow subject. Therefore we have ended up with a non-technical paper which does look like the synoptic paper from the old OCR course. However, now just reading the specimen paper given with it, there's not much difference between that and what was sat on Monday.

did you check the date on the textbook and the date of the new curriculum?

"This is the first year this exam specification has been taken and the AQA board says this can cause uncertainty about what should be studied."

The same stuff probably happened when the A Level change in 2000 took place. Just that in the past decade the use of technology has widened access to past papers (and less be honest, it's much easier when you have 16 past papers to go through compared to an unreliable specimen). This change will bump grades down for a year or two but it will return once people know what examiners want.

Do you know where i can find the paper?

While I haven't looked at the AQA specification, I've just read the paper. Last year I did OCR Biology.

There was a large emphasis on statistical analysis of results, yet the first question (on geese) looks quite typical. Second question on caterpillars you analyse a graph again and same for the third. Possibly a difficult question was 3b)i), where they ask how to find the average life expectancy of a population from the graph. I wasn't taught this with OCR last year, so that was the first real question that could have been difficult.

Q4 - flowers in a wood, first parts on sampling, second on coppicing more on Spearman's rank. Yes, this question could be done by someone who studied GCSE Stats. Q5 - biochemical processes and apple slices has large biological content, similarly does Q6 with succession. Q7 looks like a Physics question I did with AQA last year and again it's more common sense in the first part, before more knowledge on sampling, reliability and results. Then you analyse more graphs and talk about correlation now. Q8 is a series of 3 essays about ATP, energy in an ecosystem and intensive rearing of cattle vs productivity.

So overall, I think that the paper was quite general, with 1, 5, 6 and 8 requiring knowledge from the course. There was a large element of statistical analysis in 2, 4 and 7 and Q3 was somewhere in between.

That said I've just looked at the title of the module - Populations and Environment - and it's actually quite a narrow subject. Therefore we have ended up with a non-technical paper which does look like the synoptic paper from the old OCR course. However, now just reading the specimen paper given with it, there's not much difference between that and what was sat on Monday.

I don't think the exam is unfair. It just seems sloppy and poorly considered.

I don't know about the specifics of the exam paper in question, but this is definitely the most accurate examination of the subject of independant learning.

It's something that should be promoted, and something that should give you somewhat of an advantage in exams. However, independant learning should not be anywhere near the focus of the exam, and thus questions in a completely unfamiliar context should not really dominate the exam paper. In my opinion problem-solving questions are really what test the skill of a candidate, rather than questions on an unrelated topic that the candidate may or may not have read up on.

Did anyone here actually do the paper by the way? Because your input would be very helpful.

That's funny.

Oh how nonchalant! It's okay for you, who's already done your A- Levels and in uni, but it's not okay for those thousands of 18 year olds who arn't going to make it to their uni of choice becase of a "bump [down of] grades."

Look, please stop trying to catch us out. The textbook in question is the brand new textbook that was rewritten specifically for the new curriculum. Our teachers didn't like teaching from it as it was written in such a rush, it arrived a few weeks late at our school. So yes. We know the textbook was for the exam yesterday.