Edexcel A-level Biology B Paper 1 - 5th June 2025 [Exam Chat]

Why do I do such a dead exam board? 😭

Good luck to all ten of us 😂

How did it go everyone?

how did everyone find that i need reassurance, literally on the verge of tears

I consider myself to be A* for Biology and I almost didn't finish in time. I thought that exam was super tight for time, more than reasonable given how chilled out the first bit of the paper was.
There was a really weird focus on immunology for that. I understand it's restricted to Paper 1 but even then. Same with respiration. They really went heavy on the exclusive topics.
Thought the big markers were...alright, but it's so ridiculously, disgustingly difficult to tell if you've done what the question is asking you. Half the time it feels like sharing your opinion on what the data shows. I sort of just ended up stating what it said in words and went "This means that x is or does y" and whatever.
The last question really felt like a guessing game so I just said what the data showed and how even the apmatars or whatever they were called varied between influenza strains, so not all effective at once, influenza mutates rapidly, it might bind to MHCs rendering immune response invalid, some other stuff like that.
The small markers were nice though. All around, I'm usually really confident on my results but this paper has made me pretty uncomfortable.

I consider myself to be A* for Biology and I almost didn't finish in time. I thought that exam was super tight for time, more than reasonable given how chilled out the first bit of the paper was.
There was a really weird focus on immunology for that. I understand it's restricted to Paper 1 but even then. Same with respiration. They really went heavy on the exclusive topics.
Thought the big markers were...alright, but it's so ridiculously, disgustingly difficult to tell if you've done what the question is asking you. Half the time it feels like sharing your opinion on what the data shows. I sort of just ended up stating what it said in words and went "This means that x is or does y" and whatever.
The last question really felt like a guessing game so I just said what the data showed and how even the apmatars or whatever they were called varied between influenza strains, so not all effective at once, influenza mutates rapidly, it might bind to MHCs rendering immune response invalid, some other stuff like that.
The small markers were nice though. All around, I'm usually really confident on my results but this paper has made me pretty uncomfortable.
Also forgot to mention the algae one was REALLY ******* weird and I have no clue whether or not I got any relevant marks on that. For why the algae started dying, I just said that it had occupied as much of the solution as possible, the chlorophyll in it was too dense so cells within could not access sunlight and so couldn't respire and died, too dense and all nutrients were gone...not a clue if I got that right at all.

considering ur an A* student and can agree it wasn’t fun reassures me a little. i feel like this paper is significantly harder to other past papers ive done and time was no joke as well had to rush so many questions.

100% a rush paper, I would argue harder than Paper 1 2023, no clue about what 2024 was like though.
The good thing is that grade boundaries for Biology B are (relatively) low compared to other STEM or just science/maths subjects (probably because it's a rush and for most people it seems quite tough) and they don't ever really fluctuate too much so I don't think it's the end of the world even if this paper was super rough

How did it go everyone?

Idk why but that's been the best paper I've done out of mocks of past papers, first time I've finished one of them in time but it might be because my 2 other subjects are applied ones so I'm really used to those style of questions (I did criminology this morning too and had to be isolated because it was at the same time of this paper 😭)

I consider myself to be A* for Biology and I almost didn't finish in time. I thought that exam was super tight for time, more than reasonable given how chilled out the first bit of the paper was.
There was a really weird focus on immunology for that. I understand it's restricted to Paper 1 but even then. Same with respiration. They really went heavy on the exclusive topics.
Thought the big markers were...alright, but it's so ridiculously, disgustingly difficult to tell if you've done what the question is asking you. Half the time it feels like sharing your opinion on what the data shows. I sort of just ended up stating what it said in words and went "This means that x is or does y" and whatever.
The last question really felt like a guessing game so I just said what the data showed and how even the apmatars or whatever they were called varied between influenza strains, so not all effective at once, influenza mutates rapidly, it might bind to MHCs rendering immune response invalid, some other stuff like that.
The small markers were nice though. All around, I'm usually really confident on my results but this paper has made me pretty uncomfortable.
Also forgot to mention the algae one was REALLY ******* weird and I have no clue whether or not I got any relevant marks on that. For why the algae started dying, I just said that it had occupied as much of the solution as possible, the chlorophyll in it was too dense so cells within could not access sunlight and so couldn't respire and died, too dense and all nutrients were gone...not a clue if I got that right at all.