How did everyone find Biology paper 31?

[IGCSE O/L student]

I found this paper quite hard, I did fine in the 2011 and 2010 paper revisions, so I'm hoping to have done well in this one. The hardest question was the one with the photo of the germinating seed.

talk abt it!

 

[IGCSE O/L student]

DUDE THE EXAM WAS EASY AS HELL!!!

u r a GENIUS, masha allah!

 

[Ibrahim Basar]

Which question for enzymes?! That wasnt bad... deforestation was hard.

 

[Alan Khaledi]

I only messed up one of the germinating labels! i wrote seed instead of plumule cuz the plumule was sooo small! so i wrote seed

 

[IGCSE O/L student]

I only messed up one of the germinating labels! i wrote seed instead of plumule cuz the plumule was sooo small! so i wrote seed

it's ok, sumtyms geniuses r careless.

 

[Alan Khaledi]

HAHAHAHAHA! loool ur rly funny

 

[AmRo_16]

OK i did some mistakes but then it was easier than expected . al7mdullah

 

[pk1947]

salam

i just wanted to ask dat whos paper was AMAZING??
bcz mine wasnt

 

[IGCSE O/L student]

salam

i just wanted to ask dat whos paper was AMAZING??
bcz mine wasnt

same here. i'm really worried.

 

[hazel nut rocks]

It wont be as low .... It will be like 50... its never been higher than that.... They dont score 90s... Thats what your certificate says ... you may have got an A* of 70

The grade boundaries for an A haven't been a 50/80 since 2005. Even in June 2010, when paper 3 was SUPER easy, the grade boundaries were still 40 something out of 80. I think that the grade boundaries for paper 3 will be the same as last year because a lot of people found the paper extremely hard and a lot of big questions weren't even part of the syllabus (the cornea question, the mammal in cold water, the blood clotting lymphocyte antibody).

 

[pk1947]

The grade boundaries for an A haven't been a 50/80 since 2005. Even in June 2010, when paper 3 was SUPER easy, the grade boundaries were still 40 something out of 80. I think that the grade boundaries for paper 3 will be the same as last year because a lot of people found the paper extremely hard and a lot of big questions weren't even part of the syllabus (the cornea question, the mammal in cold water, the blood clotting lymphocyte antibody).

awl ov dese were part of da syllabus

 

[eshal khan]

awl ov dese were part of da syllabus

i second that

 

[IGCSE O/L student]

The grade boundaries for an A haven't been a 50/80 since 2005. Even in June 2010, when paper 3 was SUPER easy, the grade boundaries were still 40 something out of 80. I think that the grade boundaries for paper 3 will be the same as last year because a lot of people found the paper extremely hard and a lot of big questions weren't even part of the syllabus (the cornea question, the mammal in cold water, the blood clotting lymphocyte antibody).

dese were in da syllabus. i knw abt dem!

 

[Ibrahim Basar]

40 something?! Seriously? Isnt everyone going to get an A* then?!

 

[Omar Dajani]

I did Actually Good, Although i left out a question worth [3].

 

[IGCSE O/L student]

i ws able 2 complete da entire ppr, n i finished it 5 minutes b4 tym. Alhamdulillah! All praise is due 2 Allah!

 

[Alan Khaledi]

dese were in da syllabus. i knw abt dem!

well it is easy to know all the questions, but as u might know the markin scheme is very picky n strict so u will lose loooooots of mark!

 

[IGCSE O/L student]

well it is easy to know all the questions, but as u might know the markin scheme is very picky n strict so u will lose loooooots of mark!

i'v noticed sum markin schemes giv 1 ans n da others will giv a different ans, sayin da ans in da other markin schemes is incorrect. dis is 4 da same question.

 

[hazel nut rocks]

40 something?! Seriously? Isnt everyone going to get an A* then?!

Well not everyone is a genius, the minimum mark is based on a curve. If you don't believe me, look at the grade thresholds/mark scheme yourself. Look:
http://www.xtremepapers.com/papers/CIE/Cambridge IGCSE/Biology (0610)/0610_s11_gt.pdf
http://www.xtremepapers.com/papers/CIE/Cambridge IGCSE/Biology (0610)/0610_s10_gt.pdf
http://www.xtremepapers.com/papers/CIE/Cambridge IGCSE/Biology (0610)/0610_s09_gt.pdf

I'm component 31. An A in paper 3 in June 2011 was 38/80 (look at link).

In June 2010, an A in paper 3 was 37/80. Although paper 31 in June 2010 was incredibly easy, simple and straight-forward, probably the easiest past paper ever. The curve was super-low that year because the candidates did bad. Even last year's paper 31 was really easy and only had 1 ''hard'' question, all of the other questions were really simple and straightforward but most people did bad so the curve was low. In June 2009, the curve was also low (38/80 was an A).

As someone pointed out earlier, the mark scheme is strict because the examiners expect specific words and correct spellings from students, so naturally people think that they did good but actually end up losing a lot of marks because they failed to use ALL of the correct scientific words and the specific keywords required. Or they wrote too much and lost marks over missing questions and not proof-reading/checking their work.

 

[hazel nut rocks]

awl ov dese were part of da syllabus

Cornea, blood clotting and phagocytes are part of the syllabus but the correlation between blood clotting and phagocytes/antibodies isn't in the syllabus and the lack of blood in cornea isn't in the syllabus. The DNA question also asked us for something that isn't part of the syllabus. Those questions were worth at least 11 marks in total and then we had those questions were the meaning wasn't straightforward.