General Thoughts: Biology (3 Viewers)

[Dylanamali]

This is 100% correct.

noiceeee!!!

 

[sibeler]

errm no. Punctuated equilibrium is defined that evolution occurs over short spaces of time rather than the gradual evolution that has been suggested. Why would having gaps in the fossil record have anything to do with it.

na actually thats wrong.. lots of the trial papers last year used this as a trick question.
Even though punctuated equilibrium is short bursts of evolutionary changes and then long terms of stability, the reason why this backed up is because the fossil record is incomplete and so some scientists go with the other theory. Because otherwise the fossil record supports darwins gradualism, hence the answer was a,

 

[damo_g]

I'm very confident with my MC answers:

1. B
2. C
3. B
4. C
5. B
6. D
7. B
8. D
9. C
10. D
11. A
12. B
13. A
14. B
15. B
16. A
17. D
18. A
19. A
20. C

Feel free to comment =)

Haha we got the exact same answers. I hope you're good at bio ahha. What kind of marking are you aiming for?

 

[MetalTheory]

That was a hard paper. I was confident with a lot of the topics and I studied heaps for the paper and it just so happened that the majority of the paper had questions which I was hoping wasn't going to be in the paper. I was hoping for a band 6 but I'm I'll be lucky to manage a band 5.

EDIT: Got a boost of confidence from 18/20 in the multiple choice, but I still wanted 19!

 

[Tasha270494]

What stuff did people talk about in the last 7 marker question?
- I talked about how biological advancements in identifying cause of disease (Pasteur/Koch) allowed treatments to be developed such as antibiotics (first developed by Fleming - penicillin) --> overall better health for society.
- Then I talked about Beadle/Tatum and their 'one gene-one polypeptide' hypothesis and how this proved that the mutation of a gene causes different proteins to be produced and therefore different alleles --> new traits. Thus, by irradiating the fungus, the new traits are beneficial for society as it can cure bacterial diseases.
- Then I bs'd the rest about enzymes...
I wasn't exactly sure how to explain the enzyme stuff it gave, but I tried anyway.

 

[bigbirdbanana]

I'm very confident with my MC answers:

1. B
2. C
3. B
4. C
5. B
6. D
7. B
8. D
9. C
10. D
11. A
12. B
13. A
14. B
15. B
16. A
17. D
18. A
19. A
20. C

Feel free to comment =)

I got this exactly! So happy, and from reading up on the answers i'm fairly confident we got 100% in that section, yay!

lol, i said that y was a clock. I had no fkkn clue what to put there.

This made me laugh so hard! Haha best. Dw, I had no idea either!

I'm really happy with multiple choice and fairly pleased with the rest of the core stuff (except the X and Y thing, I said thermometer and data graph converter lol, apparently it's temperature probe and data logger). The 7 marker in Communications absolutely stuffed me over though because it was on the ONE lesson i missed in the entire year! I read other people's notes on it and stuff but some of it was wrong i found out after and nowhere near that depth :S. Goodbye high band 6!

Overall i felt that there was a stronger emphasis on skills and application of knowledge as opposed to directly asking from the syllabus than past years. Weird that there were no diagrams and the only graph i did was for action potential in Communications. I didn't mind it, but i'm really irritated by the hearing aid/cochlear implant! GAHHH!

 

[UnrealAnchovies]

m8 im p sure i've read in a number of textbooks evidence for punctuated equilibrium is the incomplete fossil record...

anyways... no more bio (ever)!

 

[OmmU]

Re: 2011 HSC Biology Paper

3) should be B imo

Yer I was tossing up between the two. It is ambiguous they are both correct but which is more xD I didn't chose B because the 'specific temperatures' made me think that they were implying that different parts of the body will be different temperatures. So I went with the plain and simple they need a constant internal environment (temp) xD Shitty question IMHO.

And I put killer T cells as they 'destroy the macrophages which engulfed the antigen'. Cytotoxic T cells through research though look the better answer: "they kill cells that are infected with viruses" - wikipedia

Oh well The worst part about bio is having two correct and one being 'more correct'.

 

[2011_]

Guys if everyone thought that it was pretty much straight forward after the multiple choice, What did everyone say object Y was? I had been through the whole syllabus and I pretty much had everything covered yet I had no clue what this thing was meant to be, I assume X was a thermometer.

I think it was a data logger

 

[Dylanamali]

Haha we got the exact same answers. I hope you're good at bio ahha. What kind of marking are you aiming for?

haha.. I ended ranking 1st internally but in a school ranked 280ish.
I'm hoping for a mid band 6, especially after completing the exam - probably expecting a 90+ raw mark for the bio exam, which will hopefully scale to mid band 6.
if I actually did get 100% in MCs, I'm assuming I would have lost about 5-6 marks in short answer and about 3 in the option.

 

[bigbirdbanana]

What stuff did people talk about in the last 7 marker question?
- I talked about how biological advancements in identifying cause of disease (Pasteur/Koch) allowed treatments to be developed such as antibiotics (first developed by Fleming - penicillin) --> overall better health for society.
- Then I talked about Beadle/Tatum and their 'one gene-one polypeptide' hypothesis and how this proved that the mutation of a gene causes different proteins to be produced and therefore different alleles --> new traits. Thus, by irradiating the fungus, the new traits are beneficial for society as it can cure bacterial diseases.
- Then I bs'd the rest about enzymes...
I wasn't exactly sure how to explain the enzyme stuff it gave, but I tried anyway.

I talked about how by developing an antibiotic this meant that people could recover more quickly, generally without hospital treatment. This reduces the strain on hospitals who are then better able to take care of other patients. It also reduces the amount of time people take off work, which thereby helps the economy. As the antibiotic allowed the disease to be controlled it meant that it didn't become an epidemic which could affect trade and tourism, also harming the economy. Thus it helped improve the functioning of a society by maintaining a higher level of health.

I also looked at the advances in transgenic species, particularly golden rice. Golden rice has the gene to produce high amounts of vitamin C and can be planted in third world countries where the diet mainly consists of rice and there is a high prevalence of scurvy due to lack of vitamin C. The increase of golden rice in their diets then improves the health of individuals and thereby the society as a whole, allowing it to function better.

Etceteraaa

 

[Dylanamali]

I talked about how by developing an antibiotic this meant that people could recover more quickly, generally without hospital treatment. This reduces the strain on hospitals who are then better able to take care of other patients. It also reduces the amount of time people take off work, which thereby helps the economy. As the antibiotic allowed the disease to be controlled it meant that it didn't become an epidemic which could affect trade and tourism, also harming the economy. Thus it helped improve the functioning of a society by maintaining a higher level of health.

I also looked at the advances in transgenic species, particularly golden rice. Golden rice has the gene to produce high amounts of vitamin C and can be planted in third world countries where the diet mainly consists of rice and there is a high prevalence of scurvy due to lack of vitamin C. The increase of golden rice in their diets then improves the health of individuals and thereby the society as a whole, allowing it to function better.

Etceteraaa

did you relate it back to the question a lot? Not as in the actual question, but the stimulus about the fungus.

 

[ReneeApple]

I think I only got 16 or 17

Doesn't matter though, multiple choice is always my weakest part in biology. I know that doesn't really make any sense. But I think I did the written sections really well. I reckon a band 6 isn't impossible.

 

[Dylanamali]

Does anyone happen to have/remember all the section B questions?

 

[damo_g]

haha.. I ended ranking 1st internally but in a school ranked 280ish.
I'm hoping for a mid band 6, especially after completing the exam - probably expecting a 90+ raw mark for the bio exam, which will hopefully scale to mid band 6.
if I actually did get 100% in MCs, I'm assuming I would have lost about 5-6 marks in short answer and about 3 in the option.

Well that boosts my confidence a little. I'm looking at 19-20/20 for the mc. Just not sure on the last one as some people are saying it's A and some are saying C. I put C, so heres hoping.

 

[Dylanamali]

oh yeah and in terms of thoughts on the paper.. I thought it was relatively easy, similar to those in previous HSCs, not any harder by any means..
IMO, the CSSA trials for biology this year were a step up from this level of difficulty.

 

[1981Grant]

na actually thats wrong.. lots of the trial papers last year used this as a trick question.
Even though punctuated equilibrium is short bursts of evolutionary changes and then long terms of stability, the reason why this backed up is because the fossil record is incomplete and so some scientists go with the other theory. Because otherwise the fossil record supports darwins gradualism, hence the answer was a,

We'll see. I trust you on the past papers because I only managed about 4. Although I'm sure that the gaps can't really support punctuated equilibrium; thinking about it though, Darwin did use it to prove his theory which included gradualism... so its definitely posibble.

 

[2011_]

Overall thoughts: A fair paper.
- MC was a little harder than my trials and past papers
- Short answer seemed ok, lots of skills / application as well as remembering information, which I liked
- Communication - I think I did ok. Not great but definitely ok.

 

[Riproot]

Shit...
Currently estimating my marks as:
18/20
?/55
19/25

D: Want to kill myself.
I've been doing a lot shitter in the HSC exams than I have been all year and I have no idea why. Except it's probably because I'm not studying. :/

 

[1981Grant]

What stuff did people talk about in the last 7 marker question?
- I talked about how biological advancements in identifying cause of disease (Pasteur/Koch) allowed treatments to be developed such as antibiotics (first developed by Fleming - penicillin) --> overall better health for society.
- Then I talked about Beadle/Tatum and their 'one gene-one polypeptide' hypothesis and how this proved that the mutation of a gene causes different proteins to be produced and therefore different alleles --> new traits. Thus, by irradiating the fungus, the new traits are beneficial for society as it can cure bacterial diseases.
- Then I bs'd the rest about enzymes...
I wasn't exactly sure how to explain the enzyme stuff it gave, but I tried anyway.

I talked about:
-Enzymes
-Enzymes increasing our understanding of biology
-How our increased understanding of belonging led to developments against disease/antibiotics
-Darwins theory of evolution leading to evolution in bacterial pathogens
-Golden staph
-Then I made a judgement that the continued development and widespread use of antibiotics had the potential to have negative implications for society as super bugs may develop from this then we all pretty much may die.

Although I don't think it is really matters about your specificity as the question allows you to talk about just about your whole study of biology as long as you related it back to the implications for society