Leaving Cert: Teacher gives reaction to biology exams
Liam Hennelly, a biology teacher at Belvedere College in Dublin said the Higher Level paper gave students plenty of choice and allowed them to show off what they know.
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"Some of the questions were challenging in places and required an in-depth knowledge of subject material, as you would expect with any Higher Level paper," he said.
"In Section A, the short questions, the topics of Food & Biomolecules, Plant Structure, Respiration, Cell Structure, Bioprocessing, Digestion and the Scientific Method came up.
"In Section B, the experiment questions, students faced questions on Ecology, Movement Through Membranes and Leaf Yeast.
"In Section C Q. 13 on metabolism, photosynthesis and enzymes was quite straight forward. Q.15 was a lovely question on Ecology but in part (b) (iv) 1. students needed to be very careful to draw the predator-prey relationship graph with the curves out of phase with each other.
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"There were 4 questions on Human Biology on the paper that students could have attempted for 200 marks out of 400 or 50% of the exam. This would have been a relief for a lot of students. Overall, this was a very student-centered, fair and current paper that would have been well received."
Mr Hennelly said the Ordinary Level paper had a wide selection of questions ranging across a broad number of topics.
"Short questions included Food, Ecology, A True/False Question, Cell Structure, Tropisms, the Nervous System and Mitosis. Experiment questions included Food Tests, Enzymes and Factors that Affect Germination.
"The long questions gave students a lot of choice across Ecology, Genetics & Protein Synthesis, Photosynthesis & Respiration, Plant Structure, Human Reproduction and microbiology amongst other topics. Overall - the paper was very fair and accessible and students had a lot of choice."
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