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Biology A-Level Essay Help!!!

helloo

so yeah the biology essay title is:

the importance of proteins in the control of processes and responses in organisms

I am really struggling with coming up topics to talk about and how to kind of link it to the question so if anyone can help me that would be fab thanks :smile:
Without having any knowledge of your syllabus, I would suggest thinking about it a bit like this:

1. List the different roles that proteins play in organisms;
- enzymes catalyse reactions and cellular chemistry - including enzymes in DNA replication
structural proteins which give form and shape to biological structures
- proteins that act as hormones (such as insulin and glucagon) to regulate specific processes
- membrane transport proteins
haemoglobin and myoglobin to facilitate oxygen transport
- antibodies to fight infection
rhodopsin and iodopsin - visual pigments
- rubisco - the enzyme catalysing carbon fixation

2. Decide and explain which of these comes under the heading of "controlling processes and responses" . Most (if not all) of them could - this is what makes the question rather poor, imho - but your syllabus might have a particular take on what this phrase is intended to refer to.

3. Write the essay describing how each of these functions contributes to the "control of processes and responses", making sure you invest most time in the most relevant ones, and giving examples of how specific proteins (you could describe a particular enzyme; a particular hormone; a particular membrane transport protein etc) work to control a given process and/or response
Obviously, how much detail you go into will be determined by how long the essay has to be.

Does that help?
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by OxFossil
Without having any knowledge of your syllabus, I would suggest thinking about it a bit like this:

1. List the different roles that proteins play in organisms;
- enzymes catalyse reactions and cellular chemistry - including enzymes in DNA replication
structural proteins which give form and shape to biological structures
- proteins that act as hormones (such as insulin and glucagon) to regulate specific processes
- membrane transport proteins
haemoglobin and myoglobin to facilitate oxygen transport
- antibodies to fight infection
rhodopsin and iodopsin - visual pigments
- rubisco - the enzyme catalysing carbon fixation

2. Decide and explain which of these comes under the heading of "controlling processes and responses" . Most (if not all) of them could - this is what makes the question rather poor, imho - but your syllabus might have a particular take on what this phrase is intended to refer to.

3. Write the essay describing how each of these functions contributes to the "control of processes and responses", making sure you invest most time in the most relevant ones, and giving examples of how specific proteins (you could describe a particular enzyme; a particular hormone; a particular membrane transport protein etc) work to control a given process and/or response
Obviously, how much detail you go into will be determined by how long the essay has to be.

Does that help?


thank you so so much for this, this has helped a LOT.
I just get stuck on how far I should go with a topic I suppose for example the whole insulin and glucagon bits would I need to tell the whole story how that works or only part of it? I can't really tell how much is needed if that makes any sort of sense but thank you very much for the ideas :smile:
Original post by emwilliams044
thank you so so much for this, this has helped a LOT.
I just get stuck on how far I should go with a topic I suppose for example the whole insulin and glucagon bits would I need to tell the whole story how that works or only part of it? I can't really tell how much is needed if that makes any sort of sense but thank you very much for the ideas :smile:


In practice, it mainly depends on how much time/space you have been given. Usually, you will have a word limit, a time limit or else a limit implied by the marks allocated to the question. Unless the question says otherwise, try to match the effort/amount of detail you put in with the allotted time/space/marks. In this case, if each of these headings was equally relevant and important, you might need to give 8 or 9 examples (one for each category). But as you know, some of these are more important than others (enzyme and hormone functions are very important, for example) and these are the ones where you will need to go into a bit more detail, so as to demonstrate to the marker that you understand how important they are and can illustrate in concrete, specific terms how this function is typically performed.

I'm sure you know this already, but it's hard to give a more helpful answer for a general case.
Original post by OxFossil
In practice, it mainly depends on how much time/space you have been given. Usually, you will have a word limit, a time limit or else a limit implied by the marks allocated to the question. Unless the question says otherwise, try to match the effort/amount of detail you put in with the allotted time/space/marks. In this case, if each of these headings was equally relevant and important, you might need to give 8 or 9 examples (one for each category). But as you know, some of these are more important than others (enzyme and hormone functions are very important, for example) and these are the ones where you will need to go into a bit more detail, so as to demonstrate to the marker that you understand how important they are and can illustrate in concrete, specific terms how this function is typically performed.

I'm sure you know this already, but it's hard to give a more helpful answer for a general case.


Ahh I see what you're saying and thank you for answering my question, its very much appreciated :smile:

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