question for past students and such

[hard]

I was wondering, cause i'm aiming for like high 40's-50 in this subject, how hard is it to get like these scores? If you know the course inside out, would you do well or do you have to know random shit just incase some random question pops up in the exam?
btw what are the max amount of marks you can loose over both exams to get 45+?
thanks

[shinny]

For your first question; well that's pretty much unanswerable. The amount of work you do isn't proportional to the scores you get, and there's just too many factors that contribute to what study score you will ultimately get so it's hard to nail it down to 'how hard it is'. However, using your second statement as a guide, well, anything on the exam will be answerable with what is strictly on the syllabus. Problem is Biology is quite broad and they occasionally (well perhaps often) put random scenarios with which you're meant to apply the course materials. While it will ALWAYS be possible to answer these questions with solely knowing the course itself, it obviously does help to know things before hand.

For example in my year, that randomn question about pseudogenes came up and no one really knew what they were and freaked. This question was answerable without knowing anything about pseudogenes, but I somehow happened to have already read about pseudogenes previously and found the question to be a breeze. Ultimately though, I would stress that solely knowing the course and knowing how to apply it is enough for even a 50, as long as you practise the skill of applying Biological concepts to any situation (i.e. grind trial exams! hurrah).

As for the marks you can lose...well, I lost 2 and a half marks on the mid year (score taken from Statement of Marks) and I'm guessing around 6 marks on the end year exam (counted by myself on questions that I know I got wrong+1 mark of careless error) so thats about 9 marks or so. Note that these scores are before doubling up. So as you can see, Biology typically leaves a lot of room for error.

[polky]

Alot of biology is the way you answer the question - the wording, terms you use etc.  Only things on the syllabus are allowed to be tested, so almost everyone doing Biology would have the same knowledge set (give or take a few stuff), and it's the way that you phrase your final answer that sets you apart, I reckon.

Always be ready for unknown, strange and weird scenarios.  It's the way you use what you know (within the boundaries of the syllabus) and how you apply it to the unknown scenario, instead of whatever extra knowledge you might have picked up from wider readings, that's more important.

HTH

[hard]

thanks polky and shinny, great help!

[NE2000]

Polky and shinny did a pretty good job of explaining it. You don't have to know anything particularly random. You should just know the course well and sort of know things surrounding the course. A good general biological knowledge can work well for you in the exam and so it's good to have some genuine interest in biology or at least develop such an interest. Biology is a really broad field so you try to think of applications of biological concepts in real life. Don't stress out over random questions.

Shinny mentioned the pseudogenes example. He knew about them. Others didn't. This does not mean that others did not get full marks for that question. I had no idea about them when I was doing the 2007 exam but it didn't matter the question was self-explanatory. But neither did this mean that shinny did not have an advantage in knowing about them. But I think the advantage he had was that there was no stress factor: no 'omg pseudogenes, where were they in the book?'. So as important as I said it was to get a rounded biological knowledge, with concepts at the core and examples/applications branching out from that core, it is just as important to EXPECT that the exam will have something you don't know (even if it doesn't) and not stress out about it but try and work out the answer.

[hard]

thanks NE2000