Paper 5- Biology, help needed.

[Komail Sabba']

I am not able to answer the paper at all, and the marking scheme is of no help. Could anyone show me an example of an answered paper, or at least help me out? Note that I was not given any practice in lab at all, not for paper 3 nor paper 5.

Thanks in advance.

 

[bakhita]

The laboratory work is necessary if you aim for A/A*. At ordinary level, it could be done with notes and past papers but this is Advanced Level...It needs real skills...I don't know how the guys out there are preparing for it since I've posted many questions but no one answers. I am living in a remote area, I am doing all self-study and preparing every thing myself. My sister was half-prepared for exams in this June but when we saw those two practical papers, the situation was very tense. We didn't know what to do with it. I do not think you would find a lab in the whole Pakistan which is properly equipped and you can do some real practical work there. We are in an underdeveloped and a poorly equipped country. So, the only option we had was to make our own lab. We've started on this project. We've almost spent about a sum of a lac on it but still it's not complete. We've started our practicals now and you wouldn't believe, there is a huge difference between reading it and doing it with your own hands. In these papers, 5 and 3, we will be expected to do real practical work. We would be given apparatuses and equipments and told how to do it but believe me, if that's your first time in a lab, you wouldn't even know what is a stage micrometer. I always thought it would be an inch longer but in reality it's about the size of your eyeball. So, it's the real situation. I don't know about the students who go to school, whether they do any practical work or not but this is what we are doing now because we really want to score A* and show the world that it's your own brilliancy that works and not any standard school or institution can do anything unless you are determined to STUDY. We did the same in our O'Level, I got 3A*s and an A but INshAllah this time, straight A*s would be our fate.