The 2004 HSC - Earth & Environmental Science paper (2 Viewers)

[McLake]

post it here for rep.



(bubz - yay, i copied it successfully! )
(Thanks bubz)

 

[Egghead]

OMG!! I felt like I was going to fail the whole thing but it all seemed pretty easy. Very easy compared to the CSSA trial. I left about 30 minutes earlier, being 2nd last out of 8 people in my class. I reckon I screwed up a few questions but I also reckon I got enough to pass atleast !! I had alot of write. Wrote over 4 pages for question 27.

How did anyone else go if they're reading this?

 

[yulia]

It was actually harder than I was expecting. Too many long answer questions, and the questions were too vague. Especially the first one in extended responses I can give you several names for stable old crust!
Urgh!
I finished an hour and a half early...I stayed tho and left half an hour early - after checking my paper 3 times.
I really didn't see that paper as easy, I think because it was too general and too vague, there were too many possible answers for some of the questions.

 

[midnight]

I agree that it was too vague, I thought EES would be safe from English-ising that's going on with science papers.
I found my option section absolutely terrible, namely the 7 and 8 (kinda) mark questions, they just, to me, didn't give you any sort of direction in which to answer; and so I'm left wondering if I even wrote a proper answer at all.
And they asked a prac in the option that they've already asked before. Also, it was one my class never did. And so I know I've got that wrong.

I didn't find that many of the questions addressed the syllabus well. I know they like us to 'apply our knowlegde' but really, they could be a bit more original.

And would anyone like to say what they thought the three structures were in the supercycle question? I get the types of faults confused. But I put that the middle one was a normal fault, and the other a reverse fault, I think.

 

[Timmay]

I didnt mind the Oceanography option, yeah true the one about the food chains and physical conditions effecting the choosing of technologies was a bit stupid, like its just common sense, anyways...
we didnt actually do an experiment on compaction so i made up a BS one for that, hopefully it'll work out alright


stable old crust = a craton

1st structure was a isoclinal fold
2nd structure was a normal fault
3rd structure was a reverse fault

 

[Timmay]

oh yeah and luckily that was the prac we did for our practical component of the assessment...

basically u had 2 heat different objects with different SA:V ratios in a beaker in water over a bunsen

then you take the beaker off and extract each object and place each one in another beaker filled with water and have a thermometer or temperature probe in it

record the temperature increase and then the time it takes to return to the original temp (before u put the object in)

 

[midnight]

Thanks Timmay.
I just put 'fold' for the first one.

I had a brief idea of the experiment from what my teacher said and from a past papers book, but I think I may have gotten the results mixed up. I wasn't specific though.
I just found that question really difficult to understand - when it said two methods, what did that mean? I think I was made more confused because I didn't know the answer in the first place.
And for the technology one I didn't know whether they wanted us to actually talk about the technologies. I did to fill up 7 marks worth of space.
Basically I was really unhappy with the way we covered the oceanography course.

What did you put as the reason for the rapid increase in salinity for the graph? Again, I had no idea.

 

[matt_f64]

easy test expecting over 90%. a couple of the big markers were a bit shit but still i wrote tonnes of relevant stuff so hopefully can get some marks for them. the stable old crust is obviously a craton....
intro species was so easy!!! 25/25 for sure!!
i agree some questions were a bit vague.... oh well its over yay!

 

[definingemo]

yeah i never did that experiment...so i made it up and basically wrote exactly what you described timmay.
i thought the test was so short...the content was so minimal and wasn't as relevant ot the course as i thought it would be. i found it was so different ot the trial and to every other test i had done in EES.

all in all i found it....OVER.

 

[matt_f64]

compaction experiment was easy, i havnt done it either but i hav a book of past papers it was in the 2001 or 02 paper that exact question and i used the answer in the back of this book. u use 2 pots one is compacted one is uncompacted, u flow water thru both and record how much water reaches the tray underneath the pot in a given time. obviously water flows faster thru noncompacted soil so ur conclusion is if u hav compacted soil it will lead to water run off which causes soil erosion. to over come this farmers need to plough their farms.

the TECHNOLOGY question was a bit random... we had never covered that dot point in the syllabus but easily made up stuff about technology that i no about...

how did other people think they went with introduced species???

 

[Timmay]

im pretty sure they were referring to the technologies in syllabus topic 8 of oceanography (like echo sounders, magnetomoters, grabs, dredges etc) (for the oceanography bit)

yeah i think it was a lot similar to the chemistry exam in that it was all really vague and up in the air... none of the really obvious questions and if they were (like the supercycle one) it was turned really abstract, someone in my class wrote about the people in front of the structures

yea i think overall the oceanography syllabus needs to be revised, its shithousen, no wonder its the only option not covered on HSC online

reason for rapid increase in salinity is that it forms layers of density and that the upper layer is less dense because of mixing from freshwater rivers and rain water (i was talking out of my arse from that bit)

 

[matt_f64]

it sounds like oceanography is a bit fucked up :S
no im not talkin about oceanography technologies im talkin about in the core topics in short answer the question asking "u used some technology wat was it?" and i jst bullshitted...
also thats funny about the person writing about the ppl in the diagrams lol they had nothing to do with it lol!!

 

[midnight]

I don't like oceanography, I think it's got quite a lot of content that's unrelated to the rest of the course. Introduced Species seems like a much better option, but my teacher wanted us to do oceanography. I just hope I didn't screw it up too badly.

At least for the main technologies one they gave us some examples. I just used photographs and computer simulations, since we've used both of those. Still, I don't see how it really tests our knowledge of the course.

Those diagrams were weird though! I can't understand writing about the people, but I understand being confused.

 

[Timmay]

oh that.... didnt u guys do a data logger experiment? apparently every school got sent a memo saying that every science student needs to do at least one data logger experiment, they even showed us a dvd of how to use them...

yeah they left that question to last and had 5 minutes to do it and just didnt think, its pretty funny but slack tho, board of studies are assholes for doing that to people, they shouldnt have had those pictures in the front cos im sure more than 1 person woulda done that and its 8 marks just down the gurgler

 

[Timmay]

haha yeah our teacher told us the topic names for each of them and then we picked oceanography off that, it sounded cool, he also said he'd organise a scuba diving trip but that fell through....

if i had it again i woulda picked the mining one cos at least thats EARTH related and actually has some future directions to it.... like you cant get a job as an oceanographer (rare) or an introduced species expert...

 

[grimmo]

hurrrm

Hey i thought it was oohhh k. I thought the crazyiest question was urmm i think question 3. It was worth 8 marks and had 3 pictures and something about a geologist and like the tectonic super cycle. Im sure it was easier than it was worded... but that was super dodgie! Urmm my fav was the option on Introduced Species! ...

Good luck 4 the rest of your exams! Kate xx

 

[matt_f64]

yeah intro species is related to caring for the country a bit so its great! and its easy as im sure i got 25/25 well maybe theyre gay and i got 23/25 oh well.
our school neva got told about that data logger shit!! wtf is with that i made up somethin about using an electronic balance to weigh shit.. and using microsoft excel to record data and create graphs etc... i hope thats ok.
and that 8 marker with the picture reminded of english the piece of shit. interprate wat this dodgy piece of crap painting is... F*CK IT!! the question shud have been... "how does a fold belt, convergent plate boundary and divergent plate boundary relate to the plate tectonic supercycle" then it wud hav had some logic and ppl mite understand it without thinkin wtf the ppl in the paintings had to do with it ARGH!

 

[grimmo]

lol... we had used a data logger. Its just a funky bit of technology which measures light intensity, and soil ph yadda yadda. Im sure we will be fine> *fingers crossed

 

[Timmay]

hmm i think that question was designed to be a bit tricky like that to seperate people up a bit, like if it was worded like ur saying i think 99% of people woulda gotten it right, but this way it divides people up a bit more.... im only saying this of course cos im pretty sure i got it right, if i didnt i'd be just as pissed lol

 

[definingemo]

you sound like me grimmo...i agree with all you have said