VCE Biology Question Thread

[caffinatedloz]

You can generally determine whether a trait is going to be dominant or recessive, sex-linked or autosomal pretty quickly. If your trait occurs in every generation then it is most likely dominant, if it occurs every now and then its probably recessive. If there is an equal amount of male:females then its autosomal, if more females are affected its X-linked dominant, if more males are affected its X linked recessive.

hope this helps!! 

Adding on from this, if a trait skips a generation or disappears and reappears when neither parent expresses it, you know for certain it is recessive.

[PhoenixxFire]

What is natural selection? (Kinda looking for the perfect 1 line definition but idk if its possible lol)
Natural selection is the process by which the environment directly acts on the phenotype of organisms often choosing the most fittest in its environment and allowing it to pass on its traits.

Careful with how you word this - you've made it sound like an active process by saying "choosing". Would be better to say that the fittest organisms are able to survive or something like that.

Apart from practice exams and questions, is there any other effective ways to prepare for the final end of year exam ? I know they run revision lectures and are they effective and worthwhile? Much thanks 

I found revision lectures worthwhile, obviously they're not long enough to really go into depth with all the content but they are useful for going over all the content briefly, and that can often be enough to remind you of topics you might have completely forgotten and can help with figuring out where to focus your revision.

I drew a lot of diagrams and brief notes to revise, e.g. a page for each point of the study design where I'd just draw/write everything I could remember about that topic and how it related to each other and I think that helped. There's some guides from past students here that might give you some new ideas for how to study too.

For Biology what is everyone's best method to study effectively? (flashcards, rote, mindmaps etc ??)

It's going to depend on what works best for you. I think rote learning would be a waste of time because you won't get those sorts of questions in the exam, it's going to be more about applying your understanding so memorising a bunch of definitions won't help. I never really used flashcards, but I did use mindmaps and liked them.

Do i have to print out the million past VCAA exams i want to do or can i get ones from my school or VCAA? (I really dont wanna print out 5 past exams for $55)

As erutepa said, you can try asking your teachers, if that doesn't work printing at officeworks is about 10c a page I believe (which would make it about $4 per exam).

[forsande]

Is migration a reason for the founders effect?

[Erutepa]

Is migration a reason for the founders effect?

Specifically the founders effect is a result of emigration of a non representative population from a parent population to found a new population with different allele frequencies.

[forsande]

Specifically the founders effect is a result of emigration of a non representative population from a parent population to found a new population with different allele frequencies.

Thanks,
Genetic drift is defined as change in allelee frequency by random chance, so what does random mean in this context? The founder effect is when a small number of individuals move away from a larger population due to what I assume would mostly likely be migration, but how can migration be random? Wouldn't there be a reason like less food availability, competitive threat etc

[Erutepa]

Thanks,
Genetic drift is defined as change in allelee frequency by random chance, so what does random mean in this context? The founder effect is when a small number of individuals move away from a larger population due to what I assume would mostly likely be migration, but how can migration be random? Wouldn't there be a reason like less food availability, competitive threat etc

Migration is random in the sense that, by chance, a non-representative smaller population migrates from a larger population. I don't think random here refers to the reason for migration, more the frequency of alleles that migrate.
Think of it this way:
If you grabbed a handful of marbles from a box of 50% blue marbles and 50% green marbles, your handfull of marbles maybe, by chance, 80% blue and 20% green, thus this smaller (founder population) is non-representative and has different colour frequencies. This is pretty much how the founder effect works.
Hopefully, this helped, and sorry if it was confusing.

[matthewzz]

Hi everyone,

After my attempt at exam revision I've realised that cellular respiration and photosynthesis are two areas I completely forgot, and I was wondering to what depth are we expected to know the stages of each process. On the study design it says biochemical pathway mechanisms are not required, so does that mean all we really need to know is the inputs and outputs of each stage, rather than what the stage actually entails? For some reason this seems wrong as it would otherwise just be pure rote learned numbers... Can anybody help? 

[caffinatedloz]

Hi everyone,

After my attempt at exam revision I've realised that cellular respiration and photosynthesis are two areas I completely forgot, and I was wondering to what depth are we expected to know the stages of each process. On the study design it says biochemical pathway mechanisms are not required, so does that mean all we really need to know is the inputs and outputs of each stage, rather than what the stage actually entails? For some reason this seems wrong as it would otherwise just be pure rote learned numbers... Can anybody help? 

Is this for 3/4 or for 1/2? I'm doing 1/2 and we were told about specific outputs and stages within both processes but then only actually learnt the overall equation. The study design for Unit 1 says:

photosynthesis as a chemical process in which solar energy is captured and transformed to chemical energy
by fixing carbon to produce a carbohydrate and releasing oxygen as a by-product

cellular respiration as a chemical process that commonly uses glucose to produce energy for the cell in both
autotrophs and heterotrophs.

So I would assume not but wouldn't be sure...

[matthewzz]

Is this for 3/4 or for 1/2? I'm doing 1/2 and we were told about specific outputs and stages within both processes but then only actually learnt the overall equation. The study design for Unit 1 says:

photosynthesis as a chemical process in which solar energy is captured and transformed to chemical energy
by fixing carbon to produce a carbohydrate and releasing oxygen as a by-product

cellular respiration as a chemical process that commonly uses glucose to produce energy for the cell in both
autotrophs and heterotrophs.

So I would assume not but wouldn't be sure...

Oh sorry I mean Unit 3... I know it's a bit more in depth but not sure how much.

[Owlbird83]

Oh sorry I mean Unit 3... I know it's a bit more in depth but not sure how much.

I'm pretty sure you just need to know the inputs and outputs of each stage of photosynthesis and cellular resp, but you also need to know about the NADH, NADPH and ATP that cycles the energy/H ions between the stages. I really recommend getting a rough understanding what happens in the stages because it is much better than rote-learning in my opinion, then you are more likely not to forget the things, because they have more meaning.
Please correct me if I'm wrong! 

[PhoenixxFire]

^also locations. And ignore acetyl CoA when you come across it and treat pyruvate as the input for krebs.

[interessant]

On the VCE Biology website, there is a q and a Word doc which answers a question about what you need to know for cellular respiration. It's by the VCAA assessors so I guess you can rely on that.
https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/biology/Biology_FAQ.docx

[K.Niva]

Hi everyone,

Do we need to know the different techniques for selective breeding such as artificial insemination or MOET? The study design only says, "the manipulation of gene pools through selective breeding programs." So, is it okay to just know the general role, result, advantages and disadvantages of selective breeding?

Thank you!!

[Erutepa]

Hi everyone,

Do we need to know the different techniques for selective breeding such as artificial insemination or MOET? The study design only says, "the manipulation of gene pools through selective breeding programs." So, is it okay to just know the general role, result, advantages and disadvantages of selective breeding?

Thank you!!

You only need to know, as you've said, the general role, results, advantages and disadvantages. You don't need to know any specific types.

[K.Niva]

Thank you! Also wondering...

1. What's the difference between a block insertion and a block translocation?
2. Is a block translocation the swapping parts of two chromosomes or just the moving of ONE part? (different resources say different things)
3. Can a translocation only occur in non-homologous chromosomes?

A block insertion is when a segment of a chromosome is inserted into a non-homologous chromosome whereas a block translocation is when segments of different chromosomes kind of swap places so the genes are still present, only on different chromosomes. A block insertion is the moving of ONE part whereas a block translocation is the swapping parts of two chromosomes. A translocation occurs on non-homologous chromosomes.

Hope this helps and makes sense