Infection and Response | AQA GCSE Combined Science Trilogy Biology, Higher tier (8464)
Infection and Response
- 117 questions
- 8 subtopics
- Biology Paper 1
- Biology Paper 1
Infection and Response is examined in Biology Paper 1.
It covers communicable diseases and how pathogens spread; viral, bacterial, fungal and protist diseases; human defence systems and vaccination; and antibiotics, painkillers and the discovery and development of drugs.
Sample questions from Infection and Response
Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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Communicable (infectious) diseases
Describe how a pathogen carried in the air passes from one person to another.
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An infected person coughs or sneezes out droplets containing the pathogen, and another person inhales them. -
Viral diseases
What symptoms does HIV cause when a person is first infected?
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A flu-like illness. -
Bacterial diseases
How is the spread of Salmonella controlled in poultry in the UK?
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Poultry are vaccinated against the bacterium. -
Fungal and protist diseases
Give two ways of treating a rose plant with black spot.
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Spraying it with a fungicide, and removing and destroying the affected leaves. -
Human defence systems
How does the stomach defend the body against pathogens?
Show the answer
It produces hydrochloric acid, which kills pathogens that are swallowed in food or mucus. -
Vaccination
Explain why the response to a pathogen is faster in a vaccinated person than in someone meeting it for the first time.
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The white blood cells that make the correct antibody are already present, so the antibody is produced without delay. -
Antibiotics and painkillers
What is meant by a resistant strain of bacteria?
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A strain that is not killed by an antibiotic which kills other strains of the same bacterium. -
Discovery and development of drugs
What is meant by the toxicity of a drug?
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How harmful the drug is to the body.
The 8 subtopics
One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.
| Subtopic | What it covers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Communicable (infectious) diseases | Pathogens and the four types of microorganism, spread by direct contact, water and air, reducing spread through hygiene, isolation and vaccination, and how bacteria and their toxins, and viruses inside cells, make people ill. | 14 |
| Viral diseases | Measles symptoms, spread and vaccination, HIV from its first flu-like illness to late stage damage to the immune system, antiretroviral drugs and spread through sexual contact and shared needles, and tobacco mosaic virus in plants. | 14 |
| Bacterial diseases | Salmonella food poisoning, its symptoms and toxins, and control by vaccinating poultry and cooking thoroughly, and gonorrhoea, its symptoms, sexual transmission, resistance to penicillin and control with antibiotics and condoms. | 12 |
| Fungal and protist diseases | Rose black spot, its symptoms, spread and treatment with fungicides, and malaria, caused by a protist carried by mosquito vectors, with its fever symptoms and control through mosquito nets and stopping mosquitoes breeding. | 12 |
| Human defence systems | Non-specific defences of the skin, nose, trachea, bronchi and stomach, why damaged cilia cause chest infections, the specific immune response and immunity, and phagocytosis, antibodies and antitoxins produced by white blood cells. | 14 |
| Vaccination | What a vaccine contains and how it stimulates antibody production, why vaccinated people respond faster to a pathogen, protection when most of a population is immunised, and the timing of vaccines, second doses and vaccinating babies. | 12 |
| Antibiotics and painkillers | How antibiotics such as penicillin kill specific bacteria, resistant strains and why they are a concern, why antibiotics do not work on viruses, what painkillers do, why drugs that kill viruses are hard to develop, and refusing antibiotics for viral illness. | 13 |
| Discovery and development of drugs | Traditional drugs from plants and microorganisms such as digitalis, aspirin and penicillin, drugs synthesised by chemists, testing for toxicity, efficacy and dose, preclinical testing, clinical trials starting with very low doses, peer review and caution over media claims, and placebos, double blind trials, random allocation and the ethics of placebos. | 26 |
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Nearby topics
AQA GCSE Combined Science Trilogy Biology, Higher tier Active Recall Guide
Every topic, not just this one. 1,080 questions with their answers.