Data Test Questions

[sealtheseal]

Hi,

Our school has decided to cover only Unit 3 Topic 2 for our upcoming data test.
Would somebody be able to tell me what I should be able to calculate and the main topics/ things I should know for this test?
As well as does anybody have any practise exams or questions they could share with me?
Everyone is doing biodiversity for their data test and I'm not sure what things I need to do.

Thanks!!

[K.Smithy]

Hi,

Our school has decided to cover only Unit 3 Topic 2 for our upcoming data test.
Would somebody be able to tell me what I should be able to calculate and the main topics/ things I should know for this test?
As well as does anybody have any practise exams or questions they could share with me?
Everyone is doing biodiversity for their data test and I'm not sure what things I need to do.

Thanks!!

Hi Sealtheseal!
Firstly, if you haven't already had a look at QCAA's practice data test, then I'd highly recommend that you do so You can find that here. It is an extremely helpful resource to wrap your head around analysing data - which, unsurprisingly, is the major focus of a data test ahaha.
One thing I would take note of if you look through QCAA's exemplar, is the cognitive verbs used throughout. You'll notice that most of them are lower-level cognitive verbs; this means that you don't need to know as much content as you may think.
The verbs that appear throughout the exemplar are:
- contrast
- draw a conclusion
- calculate
- infer
- determine
- identify
These are the cog verbs that you are very likely to see in your IA - in fact, I'd be surprised if you didn't see these.

As for Topic 2 content, I wouldn't worry too much about memorising everything - because you won't need to know it. You just need to analyse data given to you. However, if you are wanting to go over concepts that have a good chance of being in the test (just for some peace of mind), I'd recommend looking at and analysing energy flow-diagrams and energy transfers, and identifying keystone species based off of datasets.
In summary, a data test is designed to examine your ability to analyse data and come to a conclusion based off of what is presented in front of you (so make sure you are paying attention to details such as the SD bars and axes, and read graphs/tables carefully before you answer the questions). So rather than cram-reading a bunch of notes, you should dedicate most of your time to reading tables and graphs
I hope this helps! If you have any further questions, please feel free to give us a shout
Good luck with your test preparation,
Katelyn