Biology Exam Discussion (and suggested answers!)

[J.B]

For question 11 what were the other options again?
Thanks

[bimberfairy]

Hey all!
Congratulations on finishing Bio!! Huge!
What did you think of the exam? Let me know below!
I'm working on the suggested answers to the paper now, and I'll update this thread with them soon.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Coming soon!

MCQs:
1.   C (homeostasis)
2.   D (nervous)
3.   D (frank macfarlane burnet)
4.   A (they fight infection)
5.   B (comparative anatomy)
6.   C (phagocytosis)
7.   A (urea)
8.   C (pH decreases, acidity increases)
9.   B (experiment = 5mL starch + 1mL amylase, control = 5mL starch)
10.   B (10µm)
11.   D (B cells form clones, T cells do not)
12.   B (Tt x tt)
13.   A (DNA -> DNA keeps the same sequence. RNA not mentioned. A tricky one!)
14.   C (fungi have cell walls, protozoans are unicellular and do not)
15.   D (codominance)
16.   B (osmosis is a passive process of water moving from high to low concentrations)
17.   A (Rosalind Franklin discovered DNA’s double helix shape)
18.   C (accuracy = proximity of findings to theoretical findings)
19.   A (44 chromosomes/2 + 62 chromosomes/2 = 53 overall. Tricky and IMO not in the syllabus)
20.   D (the concentration of the substrate is decreasing)

SAQ: Coming soon!

For question 18, was C the one about the scientific literature ?

[Natasha.97]

For question 18, was C the one about the scientific literature ?

yep

[bimberfairy]

yep

Thank you! OMG Last minute, I changed my answer to that hahah

[caitlinlddouglas]

How many marks do you think I would lose if I spoke about a non infectious disease for the infectious question on treatment and prevention ?😬

[mbdtHSC]

It wasn't on infectious only

[Guss123]

Yeah it didnt state infectious so it could of been either one.
And what was the inheritance of the pedigree, got so confused

[ben.roberts13]

The question just said ‘named disease’ so it doesn’t have to be infectious. I did melanoma and the use of public health programs like ‘Slip slop slap’ over expensive treatments

[mbdtHSC]

Yeah it didnt state infectious so it could of been either one.
And what was the inheritance of the pedigree, got so confused

Sex-linked recessive if I remember right? The sons in the second gen couldn't have had the characteristic if it was autosomal, since one of the parents "had no recessive allele"

[bimberfairy]

Overall, I thought the exam was quite easy compared to the past papers. Multiple choice was pretty straight-forward with a couple of trick questions (the complementary base sequence!) I was surprised at the lack of short-answer questions about the practical experiments we performed in class, vaccination programs, anything about the kidney, and anything to do with Mendel, Morgan, Boveri and Sutton. The last short-answer question about Beadle and Tatum + transgenic species was quite WHOA. It took a while for me to formulate an outline for an answer since I never imagined that both of those biology concepts would ever cross paths, but I focused alot on gene expression. My option topic was Genetics, and I thought the questions were easier than past papers. I read through a bunch this morning and the one in the exam was more simpler + straightforward to answer.

What did you guys write for the genotype of the two chromosomes in the short-answer section before crossing over happened? I feel like I stuffed that one up majorly ):

[ben.roberts13]

Yeah it didnt state infectious so it could of been either one.
And what was the inheritance of the pedigree, got so confused

I got recessive, sex linked characteristic on the X chromosome

[bimberfairy]

Sex-linked recessive if I remember right? The sons in the second gen couldn't have had the characteristic if it was autosomal, since one of the parents "had no recessive allele"

Yeah I wrote sex-linked recessive too. If it was autosomal, all the offspring would not have the trait.

[elysepopplewell]

Thank you! OMG Last minute, I changed my answer to that hahah

That, my friend, is a very good feeling

[ben.roberts13]

For the Beadle and Tatum, did you guys talk about how knowledge of how certain genes produce certain polypeptides ( and hence proteins) has allowed transgenic species because we can take out specific genes to allow specific proteins to form in the organism?

[Natasha.97]

For the Beadle and Tatum, did you guys talk about how knowledge of how certain genes produce certain polypeptides ( and hence proteins) has allowed transgenic species because we can take out specific genes to allow specific proteins to form in the organism?

That's the approach I took as well!