As mentioned quite a few times before, two out of the six units you take in A Level sciences will involve practical work. Practical knowledge will be assessed in all six units. So, you can be asked about experiments and procedures in your Unit 1, 2, 4 and 5 tests. Unit 3 and 6 are specifically focused on practical skills and knowledge. International students will not be able to take the actual practical assessments and so the alternative is the practical written paper which replaces practical units (Unit 3 and 6).
The written alternative to internal practical assessment have the unit codes:
Unit 3B: 6BI07 + 6CH07
Unit 6B: 6BI08 + 6CH08
The unit titles are listed below. Click each title pair to download the respective specification.
Biology Unit 3B: Practical Biology and Research Skills
Biology Unit 6B: Practical Biology and Investigative Skills
>Specification here.
Chemistry Unit 3B: Chemistry Laboratory Skills I Alternative
Chemistry Unit 6B: Chemistry Laboratory Skills II Alternative
>Specification here.
Biology Unit 3B: Practical Biology and Research Skills
Students are expected to develop experimental skills, and a knowledge and understanding of experimental techniques, by carrying out a range of practical experiments and investigations covered in Units 1 and 2.
The paper will contain two questions. Question One will definitely test you on the core practicals listed in the AS Biology Unit 1 + 2 specification. Question Two will test your reporting skills. In the original coursework unit for Unit 3, you would have had to complete a report so this is why you are being tested as such. Check page 80 of the original specification for more information on the report.
The paper will contain two questions. Question One will definitely test you on the core practicals listed in the AS Biology Unit 1 + 2 specification. Question Two will test your reporting skills. In the original coursework unit for Unit 3, you would have had to complete a report so this is why you are being tested as such. Check page 80 of the original specification for more information on the report.
Biology Unit 6B: Practical Biology and Investigative Skills
Students are expected to develop experimental skills, and a knowledge and understanding of the necessary techniques, by carrying out a range of practicals while they study Units 1 and 2.
The practical written examination covers the areas of physical, organic and inorganic chemistry and the following types of practicals:
Chemistry Unit 6B: Chemistry Laboratory Skills II Alternative
This unit contains a practical written examination that covers the content of Units 4 and 5. There is no specific content for this unit.
Students are expected to develop experimental skills, and a knowledge and understanding of the necessary techniques, by carrying out a range of practicals while they study Units 4 and 5.
The practical written examination covers the areas of physical, organic and inorganic chemistry and the following types of practicals:
Students are expected to develop a wide knowledge and understanding of experimental procedures and techniques throughout the whole of their Advanced Level course. They are expected to become aware of how these techniques might be used to investigate interesting biological questions. This unit will assess students’ knowledge and understanding of experimental procedures and techniques and their ability to plan whole investigations, analyse data and to evaluate their results and experimental methodology.
This paper is a step up from the AS paper. You will have to answer three questions. Question One tests knowledge and understanding of the experimental principles and applications of the practical work they have undertaken in Units 1, 2, 4 and 5. Yes, ALL units need to be studied for this paper. Core practicals from any given unit may turn up. The specification did not explicitly state that only core practicals will show up in question one. You may be provided with the procedure of an unfamiliar experiment which relates to a topic in your specification.
Question Two tests your data handling skills. This question will test students’ ability to tabulate and manipulate raw data and to recognise anomalous results and explain how they may be dealt with appropriately. They will be expected to be able to suggest suitable statistical tests and interpret their results.
Question Three will test students’ ability to plan a safe scientific investigation, suggest ways in which the data collected might be analysed and evaluate the limitations of their planned methodology. Note: the nature of the investigation will most likely not reflect any familiar examples of practical experiments mentioned in the specification. As such, you will have to carefully think about how you approach this question.
Here's a list of the core practicals (taken directly from the specification):
>Unit 1
1. Describe how the effect of caffeine on heart rate in Daphnia can be investigated practically, and discuss whether there are ethical issues in the use of invertebrates.
2. Describe how to investigate the vitamin C content of food and drink.
3. Describe how membrane structure can be investigated practically, eg by the effect of alcohol concentration or temperature on membrane permeability.
4. Describe how enzyme concentrations can affect the rates of reactions and how this can be investigated practically by measuring the initial rate of reaction.
>Unit 2
5. Describe the stages of mitosis and how to prepare and stain a root tip squash in order to observe them practically.
6. Describe how totipotency can be demonstrated practically using plant tissue culture techniques.
7. Describe how to determine the tensile strength of plant fibres practically.
8. Describe how to investigate plant mineral deficiencies practically.
9. Describe how to investigate the antimicrobial properties of plants.
>Unit 4
10. Describe how to carry out a study on the ecology of a habitat to produce valid and reliable data (including the use of quadrats and transects to assess abundance and distribution of organisms and the measurement of abiotic factors, eg solar energy input, climate, topography, oxygen availability and edaphic factors).
11. Describe how to investigate the effects of temperature on the development of organisms (eg seedling growth rate, brine shrimp hatch rates).
12. Describe how DNA can be amplified using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
13. Describe how gel electrophoresis can be used to separate DNA fragments of different length.
14. Describe how to investigate the effect of different antibiotics on bacteria.
>Unit 5
15. Describe how to investigate rate of respiration practically.
16. Describe how to investigate the effects of exercise on tidal volume and breathing rate using data from spirometer traces.
17. Describe how to investigate habituation to a stimulus.
Chemistry Unit 3B: Chemistry Laboratory Skills I Alternative
This unit contains a practical written examination that covers the content of Units 1 and 2. There is no specific content for this unit.Students are expected to develop experimental skills, and a knowledge and understanding of the necessary techniques, by carrying out a range of practicals while they study Units 1 and 2.
The practical written examination covers the areas of physical, organic and inorganic chemistry and the following types of practicals:
-qualitative observations
-quantitative measurements
-preparations.
Chemistry Unit 6B: Chemistry Laboratory Skills II Alternative
This unit contains a practical written examination that covers the content of Units 4 and 5. There is no specific content for this unit.
Students are expected to develop experimental skills, and a knowledge and understanding of the necessary techniques, by carrying out a range of practicals while they study Units 4 and 5.
The practical written examination covers the areas of physical, organic and inorganic chemistry and the following types of practicals:
-qualitative observations
-quantitative measurements
-preparations.
*Both of these exams test qualitative (descriptions, things you can see and place into categories but not measure using numbers) observations, quantitative measurements (numbers and calculations involved!) and preparations. Be sure to look at the document I mention below. You will have a clear idea of the practical work that you must be aware of for your Chemistry exams.
* Qualitative observations include things such as flame colour tests, colours of familiar compounds/elements, overall physical properties of compounds (both organic and inorganic), things you see from reactions (both organic and inorganic), smells etc.
*Quantitative measurements include things such as calculating moles/masses/volumes using titration information, finding the empirical formula of an organic compound, finding enthalpy changes and rates of reactions etc.
*Preparations include performing experiments to obtain a desired product which may be both organic and inorganic. You will need to know why certain things are done in various steps of the preparations.
Click here to download the document which maps out all the practical related work in the Chemistry specification. This will be very very helpful when you are studying for all your unit tests.
hi...do you where i can find physics and chemistry unit 6 written practical january 2010 past year papers with answers?? i really need them.
ReplyDeleteYou simply copied and pasted the spec.
ReplyDeletehello, the links don’t work?
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to post new ones?