Year 10 end of year Biology assessment - United Learning

[LaCerbiatta]

DD is in Y10 and has just had the result of her end of year biology assessment. She had a disappointing 28 out 45 which was significantly below what she expected although still the best grade of the class. Her predicted gcse grade is 9.

She's obviously very upset and disheartened after a lot of revising and feeling well prepared and struggling to understand how to improve. The teacher told them that the mark scheme is really specific and they feel they lost points for not using the exact wording required, which doesn't feel right....

Anyone in a United learning school had similar experience with Biology? She's just had a very good grade at physics so we're not talking about unrealistic expectations!

TIA

bump

Not a united learning school (is that a specific academy chain?).

She needs to go back through the exam and compare against the mark scheme and see where she lost marks. Then she'll start to understand what they are looking for. You do have to be quite specific with science answers but once she understands what they want I suspect it will click for her quite quickly if she is expected a 9.

e.g. Talking about enzymes she would need to use specific words such as substrate, catalyst, denatured.

I don’t teach in a United Learning school but I’m a Biology teacher and a lot of bright students (before they’ve practiced lots of past paper questions) have this exact issue, knowing the science of what’s happening perfectly well but not explaining it using the specific words needed, ie saying that something is moving by diffusion but not mentioning from a high to low concentration. Chemistry and Physics have this to a lesser extent as there’s more calculations / equations whereas Biology needs a lot of explanation and the mark scheme is very specific sometimes (I’m an examiner for AQA, not sure about other exam boards).

I think sometimes it must be possible for brighter students to miss marks by not stating the obvious (because it is so obvious they overlook it).
Also she needs to check she responded correctly to experiment based questions there is a difference in woding between when they want you to 'say what you see' in results (as in at low temperatures the rate of reaction is low, it then increases as temperature increases to 35C then decreases again) versus 'explain the results' (as in enzymes have a temperature at which they work best, if they get too cold they stop working and if they get too hot then the shape of the active site alters so the substrate no long fits and they become 'denatured').

It was drilled into my DS1 the importance of using the precise words for the science assessments.

We went over the specification and many mark schemes when he was doing past papers and practice papers, discussing which words to use when -- and what terms to avoid using. Some of it we understood why as his original answer wasn't really correct, but someimes it did feel like a bit much to me.

Here are a few full stops to go into my post above: . . . . .

The teacher is correct to say they will lose marks for not using exact wording. Have a look at mark schemes online (check exam board website) to see examples.

It took my ds a while to get his head around this - hopefully it's clicked now - it seems a common mistake for lots to make.

Was it not the same in the end of topic assessment that she was doing or was there more leeway?

Knowing how to pass exams is often just as important as knowing the subject well. Doing lots of past papers for the relevant exam board and checking the mark scheme afterwards to see where marks were missed helps with this a lot. Its not unusual for a students answer to be factually correct but not actually gain any/many marks due to matching the exact answer expected on the mark scheme. See also timings for questions based on available marks.

Biology is harder to get high marks in than physics

Yes, you do need to use the exact words, and use them very accurately

The important thing is she learns how she lost marks, and she goes better next time

Not sure what the relevance of the academy is - they all follow the same exam board spec regardless!

But yes Bio has to use the very specific words, more so than the other sciences (parent of postgrad biologist and I remember the frustration at GCSE level well!)

@TeenMinusTests

Here are a few full stops to go into my post above: . . . . .

Thanks all. I specified the academy because I understood that they were using a specific mark scheme (Welsh??) I'm foreigner and haven't been through gcses and I'm finding it all baffling! How can Biology be harder than physics?? How can using the exact wording be that important??

Anyway, thanks so much, it's really helpful to know that this is absolutely normal and she just needs to practice referring to the mark schemes!

One of my biology teachers used to explain it like the agility course at Crufts. You can get over the A-frame or the see-saw (answer the questions), but if you don't hit the touch points (specific words) it won't count.

There are different exam boards, AQA, OCR, Edexcel, and WJEC/Educas. If you are in Wales they'll almost certainly be using WJEC/Educas I suspect.
Biology isn't harder than Physics, it is different. In Biology there is more factual learning, whereas Physics has fewer facts, but more equations and applying them.
Precise wording is important because of using the correct technical terms. So to go back to my previous enzymes example you have to say 'the active site gets denatured if the temperature is too high' rather than 'the shaped bit goes wonky if the heat goes up'

From a WJEC mark scheme:

(Shape of) {active site/ region Y} changed (1)
{Substrate/ protein} cannot fit / {substrate/ active site} is no
longer complementary/ enzyme substrate complexes cannot
form/ (1)

Lots of technical language.

In my experience pupils do well in Physics earlier on in the GCSE course because they can pick up a lot of marks on calculation questions and exam technique isn't so important.

Biology marks for the first set of mock exams are usually pretty poor compared to Physics. They can't get 'easy' calculation marks and the terminology required is often so precise that they lose marks. I know that if I was able to do a viva style exam with my pupils I would be able to draw out the correct terms!

The good news is that the Physics and Biology marks equalise by the end of year 11. The reason for this is experience - the more exam questions and past papers they do, the better. They learn what examiners want.

I would also point out that although they are both sciences, Physics and Biology are very different. I think Geography is a better comparison subject for Biology.