Biology Practice Exam Discussion

[chemzy]

I feel like I should be getting higher marks

Like the specificity kills

[Biology24123]

I feel like I should be getting higher marks

Like the specificity kills

Unless you are going for a 50 then 87 is good. It would get 45+ study score this year

[chemzy]

Really? My sacs according to grade distributions would be A for u3 and A+ for u4; if I get around 87% for the exam, will it guarantee me a 45+?

Im redoing vcaa because they're pretty much going to repeat the same concepts but make it harder this year

Guys, vcaa hasn't asked much about stem cells in the past few years, so it's better to study those concepts well!
I was planning to make a list of all the things they haven't asked us in the past few years, so that we can prepare for those. What do you guys think?

[Biology24123]

Really? My sacs according to grade distributions would be A for u3 and A+ for u4; if I get around 87% for the exam, will it guarantee me a 45+?

Im redoing vcaa because they're pretty much going to repeat the same concepts but make it harder this year

Guys, vcaa hasn't asked much about stem cells in the past few years, so it's better to study those concepts well!
I was planning to make a list of all the things they haven't asked us in the past few years, so that we can prepare for those. What do you guys think?

Good idea. How do you know your grades

[chemzy]

Grade distributions 2014 would be similar to this year's one. Scroll down of the grade distributions PDF and it says 'coursework 3/4' . It'll tell you your grade for your average sac percentage

I just want a 45+ then I'll be happy

[Biology24123]

Grade distributions 2014 would be similar to this year's one. Scroll down of the grade distributions PDF and it says 'coursework 3/4' . It'll tell you your grade for your average sac percentage

I just want a 45+ then I'll be happy

It doesn't work like that. it's based on SAC rankings because everyone has different SAC's

[warya]

Wait you only need 87% for a 45+?!?!

[cosine]

fml my teacher made us do 2014 MC in class today, great..

[warya]

fml my teacher made us do 2014 MC in class today, great..

Try having to do all of 2014 as a trial exam today, I'm only up to 2006 don't make me do this now 

You have to draw like 5 antibodies and it was honestly the hardest thing

[cosine]

Try having to do all of 2014 as a trial exam today, I'm only up to 2006 don't make me do this now 

You have to draw like 5 antibodies and it was honestly the hardest thing

Not sure if you're being serious haha?

I got 38/40 for the MC guys, not sure if this is even good..? Is this even 40 worthy? I mean losing 2 marks on MC, leaving me only 12 marks on the SA to lose.. Anyone else done the 2014 paper?

[warya]

I'm not joking haha! Not sure about the antibodies but the rest of it was pretty okay. I noticed it was very different from previous years' papers- less regurgitation of pre learned definitions and much more unfamiliar scenarios. Have a crack, its too late to be worried about saving them I guess, I'm kinda glad to have done it now

[heids]

Not sure if you're being serious haha?

I got 38/40 for the MC guys, not sure if this is even good..? Is this even 40 worthy? I mean losing 2 marks on MC, leaving me only 12 marks on the SA to lose.. Anyone else done the 2014 paper?

Just so you know, as far as I remember from checking my answers after the exam, I got 38 last year too.

I promise you.  I was as ignorant as hell last year.  still am  But I felt fairly 45-ish back then, because I hadn't been on this forum - and compared to everyone else I could see, I was doing fine.  This forum tends to assume that you need full marks or ridiculous knowledge levels to score mid-40s marks - it's honestly not true!  This feeling comes because everyone who's posting on this site is like top 2-5% material, and not representative of the real population.

And yes, for 99% of people, lots of the 2014 questions were hard.  It may be easy for you, but that's coz you're a super-rare case

[cosine]

I'm not joking haha! Not sure about the antibodies but the rest of it was pretty okay. I noticed it was very different from previous years' papers- less regurgitation of pre learned definitions and much more unfamiliar scenarios. Have a crack, its too late to be worried about saving them I guess, I'm kinda glad to have done it now

I didn't mean the exam was easy haha, I haven't done the SA yet, doing it tomorrow in class so exam conditions. I just was questioning the antibodies, how could that be hard? Sorry, let me rephrase that it sounds mean xD Why did you find drawing the antibodies hard? Was it a trick question or??

Just so you know, as far as I remember from checking my answers after the exam, I got 38 last year too.

I promise you.  I was as ignorant as hell last year.  still am  But I felt fairly 45-ish back then, because I hadn't been on this forum - and compared to everyone else I could see, I was doing fine.  This forum tends to assume that you need full marks or ridiculous knowledge levels to score mid-40s marks - it's honestly not true!  This feeling comes because everyone who's posting on this site is like top 2-5% material, and not representative of the real population.

And yes, for 99% of people, lots of the 2014 questions were hard.  It may be easy for you, but that's coz you're a super-rare case

Nice! Do you know what questions you lost the marks on? I posted mine on the bio thread so if you see them you might remember if you also found those two difficult? Also if you don't mind me asking, what sac average did you have, and what rank were you? Just for the sake of everyone here who also dreams of getting 45 like you did, do you know how many marks you lost in total on the exam? Also did you find it harder than usual?

Cheers.

[warya]

I don't even know they were just hard to draw maybe I'm just deranged haha, you will see when you do it. good luck!

[heids]

I didn't mean the exam was easy haha, I haven't done the SA yet, doing it tomorrow in class so exam conditions. I just was questioning the antibodies, how could that be hard? Sorry, let me rephrase that it sounds mean xD Why did you find drawing the antibodies hard? Was it a trick question or??

Nice! Do you know what questions you lost the marks on? I posted mine on the bio thread so if you see them you might remember if you also found those two difficult? Also if you don't mind me asking, what sac average did you have, and what rank were you? Just for the sake of everyone here who also dreams of getting 45 like you did, do you know how many marks you lost in total on the exam? Also did you find it harder than usual?

Cheers.

I do indeed remember.  Lost marks on the geological time scale question, and the flamingoes (both easy questions, just... well don't know, timed conditions do that to you).  And yes, though I found the potassium one you posted hard, I did figure it out.

SAC average - I was at DECV, had like a 94% average (super easy SACs) and was rank 1 because it was a pretty bad cohort - only one other from the cohort got 40+ (40 from memory).  No clue of my SA marks on the exam... I found it pretty similar to others, easier than 2006/early in the last study design, but harder than 2013.

You'll have absolutely no problem getting a 45, cosine.  Unless you have some hidden sections of the course you know nothing about.  Keep studying for the higher 40s!