what would you say is hardest about the exam?

[hala_madrid]

The effort you put in was quite admirable - yeah, her point about the high-GI food while carbo-loading was pretty handy!

I'm really intent on making PE my top subject, and am hoping for a high 40's ss, because I'm somewhere within the top 3 in terms of sac rankings; however, I often find that PE is the subject I study least for, because all my other subjects are far more demanding. Realistically, if I was hoping to achieve this, do you think I should be devoting more time to studying for it? From your experience, do you think it would be worth the extra effort at perhaps the slight detriment of other subjects? Should I do all the company exams, or just read through notes, etc. It's also my last exam along with chem on the same day, so I'm planning on doing a lot of cramming in the few days before too :p thanks for your advice mate

[lexitu]

Thanks

You definitely seem capable of that I can see how it is the subject that you least study for - when compared to Economics, Chemistry, English and Methods it pales and I don't think you need to put in the same hours for the same score (even after scaling). Having said that, it is not so easy to get a very high-end score.

Doings exams are really important, especially because VCAA likes to throw around similar questions so you can really use their exams to understand certain concepts and how they are tested. I don't think you'll have that many company exams for you to have to worry about what to do and not do but yes, I think you should at least do them, and luckily it is a later exam so you can focus more later. It's good that you've been doing some VCAA exams - now you know what to expect and can tailor your study towards that. Especially for PE, some of the practice exams are terrible so be careful about what you believe. I was going through the Engage practice exams with one of my students and found about four errors and we didn't even do the whole exam!

[hala_madrid]

Hey Lex, in your suggested answers for the sample paper, 8. Bii) I put that elevated core temperature could lead to dehydration, reducing blood plasma volume and thus less oxygen reaches working muscles, increasing EPOC, etc. Is this correct?
Also, for the question about the fitness components of the surfer dude; is it acceptable to say local muscular endurance? My justification was that his gluteal and abdominal muscles would be undertaking a sustained isometric contraction whilst holding that semi-crouched position. Did vcaa accept that as a response? (I don't want to check the examiners report lol)

[lexitu]

Yep that's fine

And nope, that wasn't accepted - think you should just go with the most obvious answers, but it was a tricky question in that a person standing on a board tells you very little.

[hala_madrid]

If you are drawing a graph of energy systerm interplay from 0 seconds onwards... should the aerobic system technically start with the highest contribution and drop down alomost immediately? or would the ATP-PC system start dominant immediately? The obvious answer would say the second option, but seeing as the aerobic system is predominant at rest, wouldn't that make it still dominant for the first 1-2 seconds? Just asking cos i know if this question came up on the exam, VCAA could be quite tricky about that

[lexitu]

Definitely ATP-CP dominant from 0 - ATP itself will be the main thing broken down, then its lower concentration "drives" other fuels to breakdown in order to resynthesise it (so it can again be split) if that makes sense. Wouldn't expect a question asking you to draw a whole graph - they may get you to complete a line to show your understanding if anything. 

[hala_madrid]

Yo lex, don't think I've forgotten bout the exam, i tried to attach it in an email couple of hours ago but it's still not done. Don't worry though, i'll sort it out. Also, in your suggested answers to the vcaa sample exam you said the girl should maintain anaerobic capacity. However, normative data for the phospho-recovery test states that her score of 28% would only be average. There's no separate data for girls and boys. So wouldn't she need to improve this instead?
And what does the study design explicitly say about knowing the fitness tests? Just know normative data for any 2? Or know 1 skill and 1 health based one to be on the safe side would you say?

Also, i just came to the realisation of how much information there really is to be rote-learned... :\

[lexitu]

No worries mate, I'm in no rush, but thanks heaps

And in retrospect, I think I graded anything that was average as maintain, but I guess that this could be either maintain or improve - my bad. As I kind of allude to, I think it's a nice way of testing norms knowledge, but I don't like this idea that they're implying of someone ranking well on norms meaning that they do not need to improve. By the way, do you see another way of approaching that question? I haven't really discussed this with anyone, so maybe there's another valid take.

And yep, don't knock yourself out with norms though, IMO. Basics at most

[hala_madrid]

I agree, excellent shouldn't only maintain, at least in real life. But to be honest, I don't think there's any other way around it; anything less than excellent still leaves the capacity to improve, whereas you can't really argue if you put maintain for an excellent rating, because if maintain doesn't apply to excellent, then where else would it fit?

Also, came across something interesting in the new study design errata:
Aerobic glycolysis – An energy system that relies on the breakdown of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, in the presence of oxygen to produce energy. Also known as the aerobic energy system and the oxygen system.

should be replaced with:

Aerobic glycolysis – The breakdown of glycogen in the presence of oxygen to produce energy, carbon dioxide, water and heat.

Is this indicative that VCAA won't just accept 'aerobic system' as an answer? Only aerobic glycolysis?

[lexitu]

Yep, completely agree, good point

"Aerobic glycolysis – An energy system that relies on the breakdown of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, in the presence of oxygen to produce energy. Also known as the aerobic energy system and the oxygen system." - Where exactly did you see this?

Technically speaking (and I am sometimes a human who likes technicalities), VCAA is wrong. Aerobic glycolysis is in fact the breakdown of GLUCOSE in the presence of oxygen.

On another related matter, my tutoring student who foolishly went to the Engage lecture said that they had told them VCAA will supposedly only accept anaerobic glycolysis and not the lactic acid system - I disagree vehemently given the fact that no clarification has been published and LA system is perfectly acceptable.

Anyway, will respond tomorrow - better study but couldn't resist but to answer to this!

[hala_madrid]

http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vcaa/correspondence/bulletins/2010/August/vce_study.html#3

It's definitely glucose, coming from a biology student. Lol also i meant in my last post does that mean vcaa won't accept 'aerobic glycolysis' as an energy system?

Have fun studying!

[Liuy]

I think VCAA won't be pedantic to the extent that they don't accept several alternative names for different energy systems i.e. phosphate energy system instead of the standard ATP-CP energy system.
That would upset the balance of all the past years where they have accepted these names (I think)

[lexitu]

http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vcaa/correspondence/bulletins/2010/August/vce_study.html#3

It's definitely glucose, coming from a biology student. Lol also i meant in my last post does that mean vcaa won't accept 'aerobic glycolysis' as an energy system?

Have fun studying!

Yep - exactly - glycogenolysis is actually the process of glycogen > glucose (not that you should ever say this). Nelson is wrong in showing ATP formation only from glycogen > glucose when it in fact also occurs from glucose > pyruvic acid. But oh well.

That old definition from VCAA is actually quite risible - aerobic glycolysis, the breakdown of fats and proteins? Were they serious? I don't think it's indicative of what they will accept, it's just indicative that they realised how laughable their previous definition was. The aerobic system is one system with at least two major metabolic pathways (that worry PE students) - aerobic "glycolysis" and aerobic lipolysis. I think it's actually better to refer to it as the aerobic system unless you want to make a clear and conscious distinction between fuel usage patterns.

And I didn't realise that you were a Biology student! That's great Use it to your advantage in understanding, but don't confuse your PE assessors.

And Liuy, I completely agree

[hala_madrid]

Haha it would be helpful, but i forgot everything about aerobic respiration and the krebs cycle and ATP yield as soon as i stepped out of the midyear exam last year. And this just occurred to me, came up in a trial exam today - do we need to know broad external, narrow internal, etc.? Has this ever come up on a VCAA exam, because to me it seems rarely ever tested. Don't tell me this is just another thing i'm going to have to rote-learn, god i'd rather just not sit the exam

[lexitu]

Haha, oh well

I really think you don't - it's never come up in a VCAA exam (both previous study designs). Nelson doesn't do the best job at explaining it either. I think the concepts loosely are important - broad ---- narrow (amount of cues) - internal (analysing self) ------ external (analysis of external environment). That's all there is to it. Not difficult to understand really, but Nelson confuses things. Do not rote-learn Nelson's definitions that's for sure.