Biology Exam Chat + Exam Copy + Answers (now)

[davo__666]

2Bb:2bb  don't you have to simplify to this -->  1Bb:1bb
thanks for the solutions

[nubs]

Did you have to show the ratios of the phenotypes and genotypes in question 2? Or could you simply list what they were? They didn't ask for the ratios, did they?

[Namit]

Well technically RNA polymerase is found in ribosomes isnt it? Its an enzyme, therefore a protein, and ribosomes produce proteins? But ... transcription has to take place before that can happen so I guess the initial location of rna polymerase is the nucleus. Ambiguous but they should accept both..

Regarding question 3, "replacement of a defective allele with a normal allele... " , vcaa writes in the examiners report for 2008 :
"Gene therapy aims to insert a normal/functioning allele into a cell.
An example of incorrect information provided by students was ‘the removal of an allele or the insertion of an allele into
the body’. "

So Would 'DNA replacement' be correct?  Because they're saying that the for gene therapy, the removal of an allele is incorrect, and replacing involves removing.... ?

What do you think will be A+ cut off marks? 60/75?

[onoff312]

I hope these answers are not exactly like VCAA would say i think they are a bit narrow in their responses.
If VCAA did not award a mark for A i) answered Structure M i would be surprised since the question did not ask for identifying the organelle but which structure.

Fairly sure i got 21/25 for multi choice and quite well on the short answer hopefully that gets me a 60/75!

[tanya.j]

What was the other type of DNA you could use aside from Mitochondrial DNA?

So um, I'm guessing if you wrote mRNA, it's wrong? *-)

[tanya.j]

For question 2, did you have to show ratios. I did the punnet square and i think i just said that theres a 50% chance of it being yellow or blue :O lol
i didnt wrote out the phenotypes again cos i assumed they will take that from the punnet square :S
Am i going to loose marks for this Q?

[ggxoxo]

Can someone please explain something to me; if the cut off was 62/75 like last year, would 68/75 be good or bad (to get like 45 + assuming other GAs are high A+s)?

[TheEscapist]

Would largely depend on your midyear as well id think.

[ggxoxo]

assuming mid year was also 68/75

[REBORN]

68,68 is 48+

[ggxoxo]

now lets all hope VCAA redeems itself from their ambiguity this year by being just a bit lenient!

[TheEscapist]

What would i need on this exam do you think after a 65ish/75 midyear, and an 85% average on sacs, to get a 45+?

[zoeee]

does anyone think question 1 was highly ambigious
and im considering that the suggested answers may be wrong
because it asked for what structure would rna polymerase would be found in, since they had only labelled structures M and N, people would automatically assume it has to be one of those and they did not in fact have to name the nucleus??
i went for the ribosomes because its an enzyme because of it so should be interesting to see if that point is raised by some of the teachers

[nubs]

does anyone think question 1 was highly ambigious
and im considering that the suggested answers may be wrong
because it asked for what structure would rna polymerase would be found in, since they had only labelled structures M and N, people would automatically assume it has to be one of those and they did not in fact have to name the nucleus??
i went for the ribosomes because its an enzyme because of it so should be interesting to see if that point is raised by some of the teachers

There's been a massive rant on this earlier on in the thread
but the only reason I wouldn't put down ribosomes is because that seems more like a unit 3 question

[kostak]

i think it could be ribsomes, as RNA polymerase is an enzyme, but again it was a highly ambigious question (probably more than 1 correct answer by VCAA) and I thought that the questions about the horses and the homozygous lethal genes were also quite badly written. I think a lot of students would have found that though...