A2 Biology- Practical Unit May 13th

[teddy cookie 94]

Was wondering if anyone had any useful notes or tips to do well on this paper. TBH , I am kinda worried. I wish these forums were as active as they were for IGCSE Cambridge. Anyone sitting this paper? We can motivate each other and discuss questions so we can do our best.

 

[penelope365]

I agree im sitting for the paper and very worried about question 3

 

[Xhero]

it is spooky

 

[chrisyamin]

these tips that my private tutor told me :
when designing an experiment state every single thing you are going to do an how to control it and give as much details as possible , with reason why do you control that variable (or wtv).
the practicals you need to know are :
which antibiotic is most effective
investigating breathing
measuring the rate of oxygen uptake
can snails become habituated to stimulus ( habituation )
the effect of temperature on the hatching success of brine shrimps
Dna gel electrophoresis
....
when asked for the hypothesis always write the same thing : there is no significant difference between X and Y
and then reject or accept based of the critical value
......
try to find some of the experiments done on youtube , that way actually scored me an A in unit 3 because when you visually see it , it is easier to remember
what to do
...
pay attention to what the question is asking for ...
last thing ,... for the statistical tests ,,, always reject the null hypothesis if the given value is greater than the critical value except for the mann -whitney - u test .
..........
this is al i can think of now good luck

 

[Agent Z]

last thing ,... for the statistical tests ,,, always reject the null hypothesis if the given value is greater than the critical value except for the mann -whitney - u test .

Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon *

 

[noura mosharraf]

can someone plzz EXPLAIN the difference between chi squared test,t test and MANN whitney utest.DETAILED explanation of chi squared test is needed

 

[Agent Z]

can someone plzz EXPLAIN the difference between chi squared test,t test and MANN whitney utest.DETAILED explanation of chi squared test is needed

I don't think Edexcel require a detailed explaination. They just require you to know how to draw conclusions from them.
But here you go: http://www.slideshare.net/SharmilaChristy/stats-test-12873802#btnNext

 

[Abdus Shahid]

Exams tomorrow.. Ummm. any guess which core practical could come. my opinion - spirometer

 

[noura mosharraf]

which experiment?the 1st question or the detailed study?

 

[Abdus Shahid]

Any one of them.. but nevermind I'm just guessing. though my bio sir did say there is a good possibility of sampling technique coming for q3

 

[ashleyaven]

Exams tomorrow.. Ummm. any guess which core practical could come. my opinion - spirometer

gel electrp[hrosis maybe since it never came before .... in question one

 

[Abdus Shahid]

Ah yes. That would be fine. what about the possibility of as core practicals coming ? e.g. affect of temperature on membrane permeability ,or root tip squash experiment

 

[Abdus Shahid]

Btw are we expected to write the q1 investigation very detailed ?

 

[ashleyaven]

Btw are we expected to write the q1 investigation very detailed ?

Ah yes. That would be fine. what about the possibility of as core practicals coming ? e.g. affect of temperature on membrane permeability ,or root tip squash experiment

not appearin in As ..... appeared last year.....
and nnoooo not exactly everything just general stuff like how to carry out, repeats, mean, independant dependant variable,, dnt give too much detail about apparatus in this Question, give how to measure the dependant variable no calculation but formula like in spirometer

thts all i know =D

 

[Abdus Shahid]

I think it's better to know as core practicals. as far as I know we're supposed to know unit 3 for unit 6. just go through them incase . alright

 

[noura mosharraf]

can any1 plzzz clear a few doubts for us.firstly,in the last question the limitations of ur proposed method then in my answer if i state that the proposed method is difficult to carry out then shud i mention mention why the method is difficult or is the sentence good enough?the next doubt is about medians.if the medians of 2 sets of data are close then is the data variability high or low.and why?

 

[teddy cookie 94]

Does anyone have the January 2014 question paper?

 

[bloom princeton]

Does anyone have the January 2014 question paper?

here is the link : https://www.mediafire.com/folder/ley3zbv393lo7/ no examiner's report though :/

 

[teddy cookie 94]

here is the link : https://www.mediafire.com/folder/ley3zbv393lo7/ no examiner's report though :/

Thank you

 

[Abdus Shahid]

can any1 plzzz clear a few doubts for us.firstly,in the last question the limitations of ur proposed method then in my answer if i state that the proposed method is difficult to carry out then shud i mention mention why the method is difficult or is the sentence good enough?the next doubt is about medians.if the medians of 2 sets of data are close then is the data variability high or low.and why?

If you state so then yes the examiner would expect you to give reason. and about the variability , if two medians have a small diff then it means that there is not much difference between the two sets of data. And there is high variability in the sets of data , not related to median I guess, presuming this was the question in a recent past paper.