BOSTES sample answers (1 Viewer)
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kashkow
Active Member
Can you provide an example?
Thanks for replying. Sure I can, an example would be 2013 HSC Biology:
Question 22 (3 marks)
Outline the work done by Morgan that has led to our understanding of sex linkage.
Sample Answer:
Morgan bred fruit flies and observed that the eye colour was not inherited in normal
Mendelian ratios. The white eye colour was common in males and rare in females.
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Another example:
Question 23 (4 marks)
Explain how TWO of the adaptations outlined above allow Spinifex to survive in hot, dry conditions.
Sample answer:
Curling the leaves reduces water loss from the stomates.
The roots grow deep to access water.
Question 23 (4 marks)
Explain how TWO of the adaptations outlined above allow Spinifex to survive in hot, dry conditions.
Sample answer:
Curling the leaves reduces water loss from the stomates.
The roots grow deep to access water.
kashkow
Active Member
Hmm seems a bit dodgy..
It's sorta hard to tell how accurate the sample answers are because I don't do bio. However if it seems too short I'd recommend using the ideas or concepts that the sample answers have (if they are correct answers) and adapting them to match the key word of "Explain".
So far it seems like the sample answers are just identifying, so I'd try changing them so that they are explaining.
Unless the sample answers are actually wrong somehow?
They are not wrong but I feel like they rarely are enough for full marks. Sometimes I know what they want and I understand the sample answer is just a guide but for example the fruit flies question I myself wasn't sure at all what they want from me so I was looking forward to looking at the sample answer.. but then I see that.. which I'm extremely confident will not get 3 marks.. Probably 1 mark..
I don't do bio, but the answers that are given as sample answers by bostes are not supposed to be like b6 answers or even complete answers, they have a disclaimer on the front of all their sample answers. If you want like actual sample answers ur gonna have to buy an excel success one book or something similar
kashkow
Active Member
Well if they are right then they may just be very specific. Remember the marker is only looking for the answer to the question and if you can do that in a word, then they have to give you the mark.
So in the second example, if they are looking for TWO things then they only want TWO things, not three, not four. If you properly EXPLAIN (key words are important to answering the question) the TWO things then I don't think they can downgrade you marks for that.
With your fruitfly example it is an OUTLINE which actually doesn't require much writing. The sample answer TBH seems more appropriate for that question than the second question IMO. They've outlined what he did and observed. So I think that would be 2-3 marks..
But again, I don't do bio, so tbh I'm not sure if the answers are actually right in terms of fully answering the question. E.g. I see "sex linkage" in the question and don't explicitly see those words in the answer, so I'm not sure if they actually addressed the full question or not.. But I'll let you decide that. But the second one, I feel is a bit brief for a four mark question... You may want to delve deeper into explaining cause and effect - especially if you know more content from your bio course for that. But remember, keep it related always to TWO examples, not three or four... I'm not saying provide more examples cuz I don't think that would help you at all. Rather, if you know more about those TWO examples, include more analysis (I would probably go for at least four points, two for each example) on EXPLAINING of those two. E.g. Keep synthesising on HOW "Curling the leaves reduces water loss from the stomates." and it's EFFECT, (e.g. cause and EFFECT). Now this may be just me rambling on cuz I don't know much about HSC bio...
Hope it helps though!
kashkow
Active Member
Good point. To add to that, get some exemplars online, I can give a link if you want. It gives students examples of B1-6 for different past papers.
I would appreciate the link
kashkow
Active Member
haha I first saw exemplars for physics and really wanted more badly, and took me a bit to actually find exemplars for other subjects. Then I found BOSTES provides 'em for almost ALL subjects and it was awesome!! They are really gold material and I really have found the jackpot (though they only have about 1-2 years of exemplars for each subject - but they have them for 2015 so they are pretty good and recent. Other exemplar are older like 2002.).
Here's the link: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/
Go to a subject, CTRL F or scroll down, "standards materials" and it should be all there.
For English, use the website "Search" function, as I've noticed they've taken down the direct link in the English section. Type "standard materials english" and it should come up.
There's another link as well with more exemplars which I think I've saved... It even has some for Maths past papers (don't think the first link has maths ones).
Anyway, I'm not sure how common these are and if everyone already knows about this, but if they haven't found this, I'd advice check them out because they are REALLY helpful and I know personally it was a took a little while to find.
kashkow
Active Member
I'm really sorry, I just looked and the link above ^^ doesn't have bio exemplars (that I saw). I think they are also missing engineering ones too, so it seems they are missing some from a few subjects (which is strange seeing how Bio seems pretty popular course, so they should provide some?)
Anyway I found the other link:
http://arc2.bostes.nsw.edu.au/?noredirect
This one has Bio exemplars from 2010. Hope this helps!
Anyway I found the other link:
http://arc2.bostes.nsw.edu.au/?noredirect
This one has Bio exemplars from 2010. Hope this helps!