Biol10005 MST practice question help

[hobbitle]

I hear Chem 2 is pretty hard... it's a next year thing for me. :-/

[Ballerina]

You'll do great if you revise consistently throughout the semester. Everyone kept advising me to do so, and not doing so is where many (I) go wrong.    For revision I'd highly recommend chemCAL and the learning lab. Penny Commons is an angel.

[hobbitle]

Hey LeviLamp, I misled you a bit, there are answers to the sample exam on the link on the LMS.

So, I'm a bit irritated, but maybe it's just me.  One of the practise Section D questions reads:

Chromosomes in eukaryotes re composed of protein and DNA.  Describe what happens to the DNA molecule in a chromosome from the end of one mitotic division of the cell cycle through to the end of the next mitosis.

In my answer I spoke a lot about the relevant proteins and when the DNA is in chromatin form or chromatid/chromosome form, how it wraps around the histones, when it is double stranded and when it is single stranded.
In the provided answer, like 8/10 marks were towards describing the process of DNA replication.
To me, the question doesn't really ask about how DNA replication occurs.  It asks about chromosomes and proteins in the cell cycle. 
I'm annoyed, because if I had got this question in an exam, I would have got like 2/10 but I answered it really comprehensively.
And I could have easily written all about DNA replication, but the question doesn't really ask for it.
Jesus, do we just have to write like EVERYTHING RELEVANT in order to guarantee we don't get boned by a badly worded question???

[LeviLamp]

To me it looks like it's asking for what happens to an individual DNA molecule within a cell cycle, but I'm still sort of unsure on how exactly to answer the question.
I thought it wanted us to mention the processes of transcription and translation and methylation/acetylation in gene expression while the DNA is 'active' and then talk about DNA replication during the S phase, but then I looked at the answer and it includes a comprehensive description of what a chromosome is, the structure of a chromosome (eight histone-unit nucleosomes with a linker protein connecting the coiled DNA to each nucleosome), the number of copies/strands at the start and at S phase and then goes into great detail about all the features of DNA replication, and mentions that we should indicate when the DNA becomes single-stranded again.
It seems kind of unfair, since the marking scheme is specific but the question is strange and not particularly closed-ended in how you interpret it :I

[hobbitle]

Yeah that was my issue too. They would get a massive range if answers to that. I hope they're a bit more specific in the exam.

[LeviLamp]

Listen to Dawn Gleeson's voice at 150% speed. Be blown away by how different it sounds. Do it.

[Belgarion]

Listen to Dawn Gleeson's voice at 150% speed. Be blown away by how different it sounds. Do it.

Lol i re listen to her lectures at twice the speed and i love it. Makes her sound so slow in the mornings during lectures though...

[hobbitle]

Therese sounds hilarious at 2x speed

[LeviLamp]

Eight lectures still to go and I have 153 pages of dense hand-written notes already. 120 pages of Dawn Gleeson. NEVER AGAIN.

[hobbitle]

As someone new to studying this year (school was forever ago), especially rote learning subjects like Biology, I'm interested in study techniques.
You guys seem to do a hell of a lot of note-taking by hand, I do very little of that...... I'm not sure what the best way is.
I try to explain concepts out loud to myself, write answers to as many short essay questions as possible, watch and re-watch lectures, read over notes (but only the notes that I took upon watching the lecture the first time, I don't like re-compile them or anything).  I draw a lot of diagrams if required (not so much this semester but last semester for the Calvin Cycle and stuff) but honestly I don't write a crazy amount. 
I suppose maybe I type a lot (I make a glossary and stuff, but I don't use it that often)... hmmmm!!!!!

[LeviLamp]

The technique I've used throughout the semester has been to attend lectures and type down things as the lecturer talks - this doesn't help me consciously retain anything but I find concepts far quicker to recall (ones I didn't know I knew) later on. I've been listening to the lectures and writing down basically everything relevant. I personally find that writing, even though it's a struggle to get done, helps maintain the short-term memory connections and I find myself coming up with answers I didn't even know I knew the answer to when I take the tests. I tend to just read the essay question answers to get an idea of the content since answering them is time-consuming and makes me scared of the exam

tl;dr listen to lectures (if available, otherwise textbook) and take notes down (I gave up on the extra questions for bio since I ran out of time, but I do all the textbook questions for things like chem)

Then, when you go over your hand-written notes visually the facts start getting stuck in your head a bit better because you were the one who wrote it down - I don't find reading directly off slides helps anything much.

All that said, I seem to be fairly good at cramming in the face of adversity and everyone's different - writing heaps is just what works for me as far as recall goes. And that way I have a permanent record of the sweat and tears I put into this subject and if I ever need the content again it's in one tangible place.

[hobbitle]

Can anyone tell me what answer they get for practise exam Question 4 Section C, blank space D??
I got answer #26. (0.36) but the answers say it's #24. (0.43)...

[hobbitle]

Ugh, due to forgetting to do TWO post-prac tests and not doing amazingly on the MST, I now need like 85-90% on the exam to get a H1.  Siiiiiiigh.

[LeviLamp]

hobbitle, you need to do the proportion, not use the entire sample of attached/unattached - divide by 0.84 instead of 1

[Ballerina]

I am so curious as to what Levi and Nicola look like in real life. If you see me at REB on Friday, come say hi!! I'll be in a red shirt/lipstick, black skirt/stockings/hair and likely standing next to a tall man in plaid. I may or may not be holding 500 flashcards.