Biology: Discussion, Questions & Potential Solutions

[Joseph41]

This thread is for all exam related discussion. Was it easy? Was it hard? What did you get for 'that' tough question?? Feel free to pop any and all of your thoughts below.

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[charlottemchenry]

MC was pretty weird but hopefully I got them!

Otherwise wasn’t too bad a few strange things but overall it was manageable.
 

[Razeen25]

In practice exams I’ve always gotten only 1 or 2 multiple choice wrong, but for the first time I had to legit GUESS at least 7 of the multiple choices. It was so so hard. The genetics questions, idek where to begin. (.

The only good thing was that the 8 marker was an easy question regarding the identification, treatment and prevention of disease which allowed for increased life expectancy, but I needed another good 5 minutes to flesh out my answer and I can already imagine the 5/8 I got.

Oh well. Onto math I guess

[jasn9776]

I agree that mc wasn't too hard but had some weird stuff like the malaria lifecycle, which I forgot to guess an answer to, and the glomerulus and all kidney parts and osmoregulators are both homeostatic and enantiostatic right?
Short answers was alright though. I figured they'd make an extended response on health since it hasn't been asked for a few years
The option was relatively easy too. Prompt was vague about visual and auditory in human models vs animal.

[kauac]

In practice exams I’ve always gotten only 1 or 2 multiple choice wrong, but for the first time I had to legit GUESS at least 7 of the multiple choices. It was so so hard.

I feel the same.

MC was definitely the hardest part of the exam imo, I definitely took a lot longer to complete them than I normally would in practice exams. Definitely think this was the section where I dropped the most marks.

SA: fairly nice, though I didn't like the question on co-dominance for the fur mammalians. It was difficult to interpret whether the question meant that the natural resistance resulted from the co-dominance (which is what I assumed) or not.

Option - Communication: Brilliant! Generally my strongest area as well, so not surprised. Especially liked part d), where we had to draw the diagrams of   correcting myopia. I think I overwrote for part e) though, because I needed another booklet, but I think I addressed the question really well and in-depth, so that's that.

Overall: considering it was the last year of the current syllabus, NESA hasn't managed to do anything drastic for biology, so that's a positive. Just hoping I did enough to achieve the mark I am aiming for, considering my MC game was weak.

[Bells_123]

Yeahhh, overall it was okay. There were definitely some multiple choice questions I got wrong though, and I feel like I probably wrote some unnecessary stuff in the short answer that didn't properly address the question 

I did the 'Genetics: The Code Broken?' option and it was alright, but I got a bit confused with the pedigree question and don't know if I answered it right! I was really surprised that there wasn't really any punnet squares or genetic linkage maps we had to draw too.

It's done though, now I gotta study for maths tomorrow! 

[amelia20181]

What did everyone put for the 1st multiple choice question about why do ectotherms bask in the sun

[Simple_Prokaryote]

I don't know what the first MC was. I thinlk i did vitamin D

[jasn9776]

I think it was to increase metabolism as ectotherms need heat to increase their metabolism.  vitamin d is not in the syllabus so I doubt it is the answer. Anyways I would worry too much since most people found mc had a few hard ones like I doubt most people will remember that bacteria have cell walls .

[Razeen25]

What did everyone put for the 1st multiple choice question about why do ectotherms bask in the sun

I'm so sad, idk how tired I was today but I really read "endotherms" in the first question (even though I know it makes no sense for endotherms to bask in the sun)

[aadharmg]

I think it was to increase metabolism as ectotherms need heat to increase their metabolism.  vitamin d is not in the syllabus so I doubt it is the answer. Anyways I would worry too much since most people found mc had a few hard ones like I doubt most people will remember that bacteria have cell walls .

didn't it say basking in the sun decreases metabolic activity?

[kauac]

didn't it say basking in the sun decreases metabolic activity?

That's what I thought, too....

There didn't seem to be any correct answer 

[jasn9776]

never mind. I guess it might be vitamin D after all by process of elimination. oh well.

[kauac]

never mind. I guess it might be vitamin D after all by process of elimination. oh well.

Maybe it was a mistake? Like there was a mistake in 2011 bio MC, there were two correct answers for q 8 in the marking criteria.

I guess we will find out eventually when this year's marking criteria is released. 

[Lollzza]

ok guys was it bar, column or line graph I still don't know D: