Biology SL Paper 3

[Seung Hun Han]

Now that more than 24 hours have passed, we can discuss the paper 3 for Biology.

Personally, the section A was a disaster.

I did option A: Neurobiology and found some of the questions in section B to be confusing.

Especially, the last question in section B was "Explain nervous system that are used for you to read and respond to this question" and I was like .

I basically wrote BS about all I know about nervous system like visual cortex and retina are used to read the questions and motor cortex is used to control muscles in my hands to write down my answer.

Question: What was I supposed to write for question 2 (c) that asked "explain the pattern of the band in generation 3.0 or something." 

Questions to those who took Option A  What did you write for the question 1. 4 (5 maybe) that asked "Comment, using the scatter graph as an evidence, on the hypothesis "Humans have the highest body mass to brain ratio."  2. 6, the last question about nervous system that are used to read and respond. 

Additional question: What kind of questions were on option C? My friend who took option A just like me surprisingly answered option C for section B. He said except for one question, he was able to solve rest of the section just using his knowledge on ecology that was studied in the core topic. 

[sormaj]

Section A was a disaster for me as well, the Measelson Stahl question was really difficult and I really had no idea what to answer... What did you answer to those questions, regarding the N14, N15 generations, bands etc. ? 

I think that for SL at least, option C is by far the easiest. It's a lot of common sense (like, you kind of know why plastics in the oceans is harmful to the environment and things like that) and there is a lot of knowledge that is the exact same or very linked to the knowledge in Ecology. There was one question about trophic level and food web, one about realized niches, one about biomagnification, one longer question about how invasive species change the structure of a community and maybe some other question that I have forgotten. 

[The00333]

I agree, option C seemed by far the easiest. We basically covered all of option C in our grade 10 provincial curriculum. I found that the questions on the exam were really simple and the 4 point question about invasive species was almost identical to what was in the specimen paper. 

For section A, I had actually studied the Meselson and Stahl experiments before the exam, though it helped very little  The semiconservative vs. conservative question was easy. But I just wrote BS for the question about generation 3.0 having two bars.. Something like: it shows that the N15 from the new environment is being used and the N14 from the original DNA still remains in the newly-replicated DNA, which proves that replication is semiconservative. idek lol

[Guest]

Yes. Section A was so difficult. I didn't expect all those diagrams. 

I did Section D, the knowledge they demand is relatively easy. If you cover all topics, the section wasn't too tricky. 

I'm just disappointed in Section A. I made random guesses throughout the section....

[ellie]

I had the same in Section A -- I was so disappointed that all I learned about Meselson and Stahl was either included in the question or not asked about at all. I b.s.-d so much of the paper and walked out seriously exhausted. I don't even remember what I answered because I didn't understand the diagram. Ugh.

[MorwennavictimofIB]

Our class did Option D, further human physiology. It was relatively okay-except for that liver lobule part. I did make out some of the parts, but nobody ever mentioned that we had to know how to annotate the diagram of a sinusoid-the syllabus didn't even mention it. What the heck?! But still Option D was much better than Section A...

And yes section A was so hard-I do remember Meselson and Stahl but I never thought they would ask so much about it. I didn't know how to explain generation 3.0. Usually they only ask about what they proved and how they did it. I bsed my way out of most of section A. I didn't know what to write for that question asking about what possible errors there could be in collecting data for the osmosis experiment with potatoes. Only my classmate who did their IA on that would have known....is it just me that didn't know?

[Guest iblearner]

Section A was a problem for many students. Section B was okay imo. Paper 1 was good, Paper 3 was okay. Paper 2 was not the best. 

[Marie]

Guys please sign the petition! It will help the IB see how unfair they have been towards all the science students.

https://www.change.org/p/international-bacc-ib-biology-sl-examination-2016

[claudiah]

19 hours ago, Khanh Linh Nguyen said:

Yes. Section A was so difficult. I didn't expect all those diagrams. 

I did Section D, the knowledge they demand is relatively easy. If you cover all topics, the section wasn't too tricky. 

I'm just disappointed in Section A. I made random guesses throughout the section....

Totally agree I also did section D and it was okay... Section A is another story

[FrenchIB]

Wait what? Could we have chosen another option? Like another we didnt study in class? Because my teacher had told me we couldn't since the IB had a sheet with which option we did... 

Anyway i did option A and it was impossible, i almost cried. For the last question on the nervous system, i wrote the weirdest stuff hahaha i wrote something about the brain, and like its hemispheres and parts and i also talked about the synapric connectiond and our knowledge... Im not too sure though.

overall, the ib biology SL exam was so bad (paper 1 was probably the best, and it wasnt too good) The ib was so mean this year.. And is it me or did they put like nothing on the new syllabus? What's the point of changing the syllabus then ? Hahah