Every question will provide you with a specific number of lines that correlate to the number of marks allocated. These may be trivial to a lot of users, but it is vitally important to allocate specific times to tackle these questions. This information provides you with how much they want you to write.
Let's provide you an example:
This came from the 2016 HSC paper and had five marks allocated to it.
Question 30. (5 marks)
Explain why the combined use of quarantine and vaccination programs is a more effective way of controlling than using only one of these strategies.
This question asked us to explain, which meant that we had to identify the cause and effect of combination uses of quarantine and vaccines.
The next part is the word 'and' between quarantine and vaccination. Simply talking about one program will not suffice, so we have to integrate both programs into our answer and again, relate cause and effect to why it's a more effective way of controlling.
The last part to understand is the distinct difference between control measures and preventative measures.
While they are very similar and often interchangeable, they have distinct features and are not the same.
Control refers to limiting the spread of disease from a population, while preventative is a more specific form of 'control' where it refers to stopping the spread of disease.
To better understand these concepts, let's use the classic malaria case study.
Controlling the spread of malaria may include: drainage of mosquito swamps, killing mosquitoes, or using insecticides.
These do not stop the spread of malaria; they just reduce the number of infections.
On the other hand, some preventative measures include: less exposure to malarial bites by wearing long sleeves, antimalarial drugs like prophylaxis, Atovaquone-proguanil, Artemether, and even Chloroquine.
To now answer the question directly, here's a sample answer that I would have written. You can refer to the marking guidelines and understand how they allocate the marks.
Answer:
The use of both, vaccination and quarantine, programs have become effective in maintaining and controlling the spread of disease. Vaccinations refer to the artificial introduction of an antigen specific to the targeted pathogen, while quarantine refers to the isolation of people, organisms, or objects to limit the spread of disease. Vaccinations are effective since they activate the body's third line of defence, and getting the body ready for an actual attack, but alone, it doesn't necessarily control the disease. Since the body's primary response takes time for B-lymphocytes to differentiate into plasma cells, they do not guarantee that the person, organism, or object being vaccinated will have their vaccinations in place before an attack strikes. Quarantine itself isn't effective because the organism, person, or object does not have any immunity against the disease, unlike vaccinations, so they are still prone to being a causative spread of disease.
As such, a combination of quarantine and vaccinations will help to develop resistance against the spread of disease. By quarantining immunised people and releasing them back into the population once their body is completely ready, this can result in herd immunity, which leads to the contagious disease being contained within the population of immunised people.
As you can see, you will need to go into a bit more depth with these longer questions. You need to find a cause and its effect, and relate it back to why that program alone will not be enough to limit the spread. You will also need to briefly relate why, as a result, the implementation of both programs is the way to go.
Hopefully, this guide helps you with your endeavours in the Biology course. I'm sitting the biology course this year, so take my advice with a grain of salt. I still hope this guide helps you understand the longer responses that may be asked in the HSC.
Good luck!!
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