Anger over AQA GCSE Higher Biology - any info?

I'm not sure the 16 year old students expected their twitter ramblings to be published in the DM any more than posters on here do when their thread gets published.

It may be possible that some schools are not preparing their pupils well enough if they are expecting the papers to look like previous ones. That isn't the fault of the board setting the exam though.

I have my own 16 year old who took this paper as well as being a teacher who has 3 classes who took it. So I have had parent and staff perspective and I've now seen the paper. It's really not that dissimilar to previous years and I think kids will have done better that they think. Twitter last night was really funny and I love teenagers when they get a cob on. That's why I work with them. I have not had a pop at anyone - just tried to get students to realise they must apply their knowledge. As I've taught them. But homosexual mosquitos and the many definitions of alcopos have given me a giggle today. I have yet to find a year 11 who knows what an alcopop is (I've had a lollipop made of booze and a can of coke with booze). I'm thinking AQA are stuck in the 90s.

The independent company thing was definitely on syllabus and taught. I think it was in revision guides too. DS wouldn't have known about it otherwise.

As long as there's an opportunity for some posters to take a pop at 16-year-olds students it's all good

doesn't mean that this year's won't take a different approach.

DD has practised several past papers and was getting As and As on them so she clearly knows how to answer GCSE biology papers from the last three years*

Just because last year's paper took one slant doesn't mean that this year's won't. Past papers aren't part of the specification, and the exam board is perfectly entitled to alter the assessment (including the balance of sizes of questions, the rubric and anything else) so long as it stays within the specification. There was some ludicrous debate on MN last year about how that year's GCSE whatever had some 8 mark questions, when on the past papers the questions were either 6 or 10 marks (or something like that), and how were children supposed to prepare? How about "by learning the material on the syllabus?"

DD realised that the mosquito one was about genetic engineering. She said she didn't have a clue about an independent company, but when she told me what she wrote I said that it was correct.

Some posters seem to be missing my point about the ambiguity of this paper compared to past papers. DD has practised several past papers and was getting As and A*s on them so she clearly knows how to answer GCSE biology papers from the last three years. She said that the wording on yesterday's paper was confusing in parts.

Genetic engineering was on paper. The pesky mosquitoes were GM and there were lots of questions on how they were modified and why. One of my students got slightly confused as they only released male ones and when asked why he stated because they were all homosexual.
Tell kids to look for the key phrases and words. It's about decay and CO2 ? Great, I will tell you everything I know about the carbon cycle.

I thought it was a harder than average paper but the "outrage" questions were perfectly answerable using the information provided in the question.

There is always stuff that doesn't get tested. It's a one hour paper. I'm still bitter at the lack of coordinate geometry on my A level Maths paper, and that was 27 years ago.

My slightly bemused tutor group discussed this paper with me this morning. Although they were surprised at some of the questions, all said that they could answer them, or attempt an answer. So I reckon that's a positive.

Ds had a moan that he doesn't know why he studied genetic engineering, the menstrual cycle etc when what he got asked about was drunk rats. I thought that he was just being a moaner until I read identical comments on twitter. He also realised last night that he answered the question about " independent company" wrongly and now he's worried,

Students need to look for the key words. Question about horse feet ? No, it was about evolution and natural selection. Drunk teenagers ? Interpret a graph and explain results. Independent company ? I asked some year 4s this today, explaining the context of a drug trial and every single one of them guessed it meant a company that had nothing to do with the trial. The paper had loads of biology in, and kids learn to apply their knowledge, not just regurgitate facts. Done now. Move on to next one.

As an actual science skill that's really important too. Whether you finish your science education at GCSE or take it further.

Definitely. I always warn my students that there will be questions where their first reaction will be "she didn't teach us that". Deep breath, look for key words, work out what's going on!

It was in line with the spec, they will have practised each skill before. The issue is that the scenario they are given is not known. The kids that actually learn how to apply the skill, don't just copy past exam/practice question answers, read the scenario, look at the question, recognise the skill being asked for and apply it to the new scenario.

The kids that have done the understanding part but missed the application bit of their lessons, look at the scenario, start to worry that they have missed something, they have never heard of toad fishing in the Ukraine, they don't know how to fish for toads. They barely read the question, in their growing panic don't recognise the skill being asked for and, even when they do, can't apply it as they have not been taught about toad fishing in the Ukraine.

It happens every year, in A levels too. As an ex A level teacher this was what I spent most of my time on... patiently explaining that knowing what was not enough. How To was more important.

I have taught the spec, and it tested skills that are clearly highlighted. The 2010 GCSEs in Science have always had a strong How Science Works emphasis, rather than rote learning.

It's all very well saying it was in line with the specification, but DD has done loads of mock exams and past papers and she said that the questions yesterday were completely different and were badly worded and ambiguous. She doesn't think outside the box unfortunately.

Inevitable consequence of social media I think Pique. Probably not a good one for students. We just had a moan about any tricky questions outside the exam room, then moved on. It didn't get splashed all over the papers for days afterwards.

There's no reason pupils shouldn't have known it. It does seem to have been part of the spec.

It was fine. In line with the specification.

I suppose we're stuck with this now e.g. perhaps 100,000 children do some exam and if 1000 of them subsequently complain about it on social media then a handful of places will call it 'news' and represent it as a big, bad universal problem.

AQA have responded to the criticisms of the paper here:

mobile.twitter.com/datateacher/status/732977402163384320

I am a science teacher and it was actually a really nice paper!

Sounds like the students wanted to get away with regurgitating facts they have drummed into themselves, rather than exhibiting scientific skills and application.

DD was upset because a lot of the questions didn't seem to cover the syllabus she had learnt. Quite a few relied on common sense rather than hard learning and DD doesn't have a lot of common sense.