Wbi14/01 biology unit 4 - 13 january 2021 exam discussion

how did you guys find it??? it was such a weird paper it honestly felt like a statistics paper 😭 the actual knowledge questions were far and few in between, I swear they were playing with this paper. Like i studied so much for it but I can’t tell if I did well or not oh my god

Are you referencing the Biology GCSE mock? If so, SAME! SO MANY GRAPHS. Did you answer the liver failure question?

There was a lot of maths in it for a bio paper, even more so than usual! I found it a really nice paper actually, but the last two questions did mess me up a little :/

The questions were so weird....like it's not hard, not easy but just strange. I also feel the paper is relatively longer.
There are surprisingly lots of calculation, graph and data analysis question.....

Was expecting more ecology but turns out to be more focusing on immunity, which is not bad I guess
I don't know how to feel haha but I was uncertain how to answer the questions.

A levels? Idk it was a very weird paper in my opinion

Yeah, a levels. I was really happy with the focus on immunity, a lot of the questions were really similar to the 2018 papers (the vaccine question was exactly the same)

that’s true!! The vaccine question I was able to write down word for word, inflammation was a bit creative but I think it was manageable, gut flora was a nice question as well but then they asked why antibiotics affect gut flora and in my head I was like “are you okay??? because they’re literally bacteria as well” ended up saying that + that they have the correct receptors idk. Also, did you “label” the three antibiotics? I said P: bactericidal for A and maybe resistant for B, Q: bacteriostatic and R: ineffective. I remember a question like that coming up before but I forgot which was which...

I didn’t mind the gut flora question! I think that’s one of the marking points, to say that they are bacteria as well. I wrote about how because they had peptidoglycan cell walls they would also be affected or something like that (I can’t remember word for word haha sorry)
I did! I think for the diagram where the numbers of A and B didn’t change I wrote bacteriostatic/no effect because there was no change in numbers. I wrote bactericidal for the other 2 since the numbers decreased but I wrote that the antibiotic was more effective for the type that had lower numbers than the other

I didn’t mind the gut flora question! I think that’s one of the marking points, to say that they are bacteria as well. I wrote about how because they had peptidoglycan cell walls they would also be affected or something like that (I can’t remember word for word haha sorry)
I did! I think for the diagram where the numbers of A and B didn’t change I wrote bacteriostatic/no effect because there was no change in numbers. I wrote bactericidal for the other 2 since the numbers decreased but I wrote that the antibiotic was more effective for the type that had lower numbers than the other

yay okay! I didn’t mention peptidoglycan specifically I just said they had the correct receptors but it should be fine. Still don’t know why the zebra question was 6 marks though oh my god

Agreed !! That was a very... interesting 6 marker and one I had never encountered before. There were actually two 6 markers this time (as expected, unlike the Oct 2020 paper which was very odd)

I feel like both this paper and the Oct 2020 paper were odd in their own ways, they just feel... off? I don’t know to put it lol. Was the other 6 marker the decomposition thing? Couldn’t think of 6 marks, maybe 4 or so

I wrote that the fruit needs to be decomposed by microorganisms which will get atp and do ( respiration) so the co2 will be released back to the atmosphere where it will be absorbed by plants again during photosynthesis. New fruits will be produced and the cycle will keep going. But then I remembered thats like 4 points or **** so i added the carbohydrate that had the highest number ( I dont remember its name) but i said it will release a large amount of co2 when decomposed then i mentioned the one with 8.3 value which was the least and i said it will release little amount of co2 when decomposed. But i think my answer is wrong and it didn’t make sense at all , i was just guessing and it was like this for every question tbh😭😭

oh my god mood I mentioned the basics of course: bacteria are decomposers that release enzymes that digest the fruit, this will release CO2 as the use the glucose for respiration. I thought this was too basic so I just said that the monosaccharides would release the most CO2??? and that the monosaccharides would be respired straight away rather than digested first IDK LOL