Sample exam questions - homeostasis and response - AQAPractical questions

You will complete ten required practical activities if you are studying GCSE Biology and twenty-one if you are studying GCSE Combined Science. You could be asked questions about the methods, safety precautions you might take, results and conclusions of these experiments.

In this Homeostasis and response section there are two required practical activities:

1. Required Practical Activity 7 - Plan and carry out an investigation into the effect of a factor on human reaction time.
2. Required Practical Activity 8 (Biology only) - Investigate the effect of light or gravity on the growth of newly germinated seedlings.

There will be a number of different types of practical based questions. Some will be on the set required practicals, some will cover the working scientifically terms and some will be on other science practicals which you might have done in class. Use all the information given in the question particularly any diagrams to help you understand what the question is about.

This page contains AQA material which is reproduced by permission of AQA.

Sample question 1

Two students investigated reflex action times.

This is the method used.

• Student A sits with his elbow resting on the edge of a table.
• Student B holds a ruler with the bottom of the ruler level with the thumb of Student A.
• Student B drops the ruler.
• Student A catches the ruler and records the distance.
• Steps 1 to 4 are then repeated.

The same method was also used with Student A dropping the ruler and Student B catching the ruler.

The table shows the students' results.

Sample question 2

Gardeners sometimes use weedkillers to control the growth of plants.

A gardener wanted to get rid of daisy plants growing in a lawn. The gardener investigated the use of a weedkiller.

The gardener:

• recorded the number of daisy plants growing in different 10 m² areas of the lawn
• made solutions of the weedkiller (each solution had a different concentration)
• put 5 dm³ of each solution on different 10 m² areas of the lawn
• recorded the number of daisy plants growing in each area after 2 weeks

The gardener used arbitrary units to influence the concentration of water to weedkiller.

The table below shows the results of the number of daisy plants per 10 m² before and two weeks after the weedkiller was used:

Sample question 3 - Foundation

Charles Darwin investigated tropisms in plants. Some students did an investigation similar to Darwin's investigation.

The students:

• grew seeds until short shoots had grown
• used black plastic to cover parts of some of the shoots
• put the shoots in light coming from one direction
• put boxes over the shoots to keep out other light

The diagrams show how the investigation was set up.

Two days later the students took off the black plastic covers and looked at the shoots.

The diagrams show the results.