[Catalist] Y12 Biol WACE paper - a couple of questions to ponder (Physicists/chemists may want to weigh into Q 14 and 20 too?)

[Stephen Treloar]

Would be interested in your takes on a couple of questions:

MCQ 14. When they say fur traps a layer of air close to the body “and” reduces heat loss by…
Does the “and” mean “and as such/and by doing this” i.e. Referring to the layer of air, or mean “and” referring to what the fur does apart from trapping a layer of air i.e. An additional thing (which is the literal meaning of the word “and”), so really referring to the hair not the air?
I would argue that b. conduction (which is the answer they want I think as air is a poor conductor of heat), c. radiation - as radiant heat loss from the skin is reduced/trapped by the hair (physicists may take me to pieces here if that’s not right) or d. convection - as the air (as stated) is trapped so can’t convect….are all plausible answers??
Is it a badly worded question (use of the word “and” which can be interpreted in either way I reckon?), with 2 possible answers even if we are just talking about the air , or am I thinking too hard?

MCQ 20 (ATP equation) might conflict with how exo/endo thermic reactions are written by chemists/physicists? (I could be wrong).
Is it ATP= ADP + P + energy or ATP= ADP + P – energy (i.e. Is the energy released in the breakdown of ATP written as a + or a - ?). I think there may be 2 schools of thought here depending on what science you are studying? Or my chem is a dimmer memory than I might think. 3/4 of my Biol class did chem as well, so regardless of what the Biol text may have in it…you would hope there is consistency here between disciplines of science?

Q35 c (graph) is a blank space, no grid. They say don’t do a line graph. If a bar graph is OK (I think it would be) then not providing a grid makes this tough to do accurately, so I’m guessing they are pointing towards them doing a pie graph (or leaving it open) – in which case, all kids need to have a compass and a protractor on them (that could be a moot point – NOT “standard items") to do a pie graph, or they have to do a dodgy bar graph with no grid provided. Also no % are given for 2 of the tabulated plant types, so presumably they are 0%….should they not have put 0 in there then, rather than blank spaces? Blank means….no data? If it was zero, good science would have been to put 0? Just saying…

The rest all looked pretty good.




Stephen Treloar
Head of Senior School

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