OCR 2010 A2 Biology Unit 2 - Control, Genome and Environment

Ok, genetic diagrams and epistasis, codominance stuff takes a while to get. But I think that the animal cloning and biotechnology is pretty straightforward. Plant behaviour is dull, which is why its hard to revise.

I'd be happy to explain animal cloning & biotechnology if you want.

Ok, genetic diagrams and epistasis, codominance stuff takes a while to get. But I think that the animal cloning and biotechnology is pretty straightforward. Plant behaviour is dull, which is why its hard to revise.

I'd be happy to explain animal cloning & biotechnology if you want.

I haven't got onto module 2 yet, but it's not so much understanding I tend to be okay with that, its just that I find it so boring I'd rather chew of my left arm than revise it for another minute. Thank you for the offer, I might take you up on it when I get onto module 2!

Quick question how did you make your notes on the genetic diagram stuff? I skipped that out and went onto variation because I wasn't sure how to do my notes/what would be the best way.

I don't think I'm struggling to understand it but it feels a lot of the time that I'm only just getting it whereas I normally fully understand a topic. But we've still got time right? Maybe if I go through it again and do some questions I'll be okay. But like with the random assortment of chromosomes in metaphase I, I know that it creates variation because the maternal and paternal chromosomes align along the equator in a random order. But I just can't picture this. What does it mean? I can't visualise it my head... so although I might be able to regurgitate the information parrot fashion I don't feel as if I fully understand it and so don't feel confident about this module at all, if you get what I mean

I'm going to try and do environmental factors etc today then leave it.. want to finish module 1 by monday but I feel short bursts are the way to go so that I don't end up getting too frustrated!!


Oh also you know with the body plans/homeobox part of the syllabus do we actually have to remember the stuff about the fly? Or is that just an example the book gave us?

Meiosis is lovely? What do you guys have against it?

I understand that DNA probed anneal with single stranded pieced of DNA to idnetify certain sequences. But aren't all the DNA frgaments double stranded except at the sticky ends?

Lovely? ofcourse it's lovely nothing is more lovely than meiosis i find it amazing how this process can introduce variation

My revision for biology is starting from Monday

Mine already started

I haven't got onto module 2 yet, but it's not so much understanding I tend to be okay with that, its just that I find it so boring I'd rather chew of my left arm than revise it for another minute. Thank you for the offer, I might take you up on it when I get onto module 2!

Quick question how did you make your notes on the genetic diagram stuff? I skipped that out and went onto variation because I wasn't sure how to do my notes/what would be the best way.

I don't think I'm struggling to understand it but it feels a lot of the time that I'm only just getting it whereas I normally fully understand a topic. But we've still got time right? Maybe if I go through it again and do some questions I'll be okay. But like with the random assortment of chromosomes in metaphase I, I know that it creates variation because the maternal and paternal chromosomes align along the equator in a random order. But I just can't picture this. What does it mean? I can't visualise it my head... so although I might be able to regurgitate the information parrot fashion I don't feel as if I fully understand it and so don't feel confident about this module at all, if you get what I mean

I'm going to try and do environmental factors etc today then leave it.. want to finish module 1 by monday but I feel short bursts are the way to go so that I don't end up getting too frustrated!!


Oh also you know with the body plans/homeobox part of the syllabus do we actually have to remember the stuff about the fly? Or is that just an example the book gave us?

Lovely? ofcourse it's lovely nothing is more lovely than meiosis i find it amazing how this process can introduce variation

Hmm..didn't really make notes on genetic diagram stuff, just how each type of crossing works really. I think we also need to know the ratios of the different crosses, so I need to go over that. I think its best to just find some genetic questions and do them. At the moment I don't know which past papers of the old syllabus contain the questions for these modules, so i haven't done much genetics.

With the random assortment and further segregation of the maternal and paternal chromosomes---> you know that they have come together in prophase to form homologous pairs/bivalents. Just imagine these lining up in the centre, with each of the materal/paternal sides of the joint chromsomes (bivalents) facing different ways. When they segregate each cell therefore has a random assortement of the chromosomes.

As to the body plans/homobox sequences I think that we only need to know that the development and control of body plans is regulated by homobox genes, which are held in hox clusters, and these determine the positioning of body organs as well as the polarity. Perhaps also, how an excess of vitamin A in the body can interfere with the normal expression of these genes, and this is known to cause birth defects. Perhaps linking this back to apoptosis also, and how this is also involved in the development of the body.

Straight on
I see a question probing on Retinol :P who knows.. they might ask on the Golden rice (dull stuff) and the use of sequencing ,beta-caretenoid....

I've done module one, done module two apart from the gene technology (done the biotechnology) done all of module 3 and am currently summarising the muscle section in module 4, so have animal behaviour left to do. It's going to bore me so much, since I did it for biology GCSE and Psychology AS, all the classical conditioning etc. Hopefully that means it won't require too much work

At the time I moaned, but I am so glad we did ALL of module three in the period after last years June exams, otherwise I'd be so much more stressed right now.

I've done module one, done module two apart from the gene technology (done the biotechnology) done all of module 3 and am currently summarising the muscle section in module 4, so have animal behaviour left to do. It's going to bore me so much, since I did it for biology GCSE and Psychology AS, all the classical conditioning etc. Hopefully that means it won't require too much work

At the time I moaned, but I am so glad we did ALL of module three in the period after last years June exams, otherwise I'd be so much more stressed right now.

How many exams do you have to do? We haven't started on module 3, its been set as a 'self study' and we have just touched on module 4. I am actually quite scared.