Look inside the OCR GCSE Biology A, Foundation tier guide (J247)

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Look inside the OCR GCSE Biology A, Foundation tier guide

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OCR · GCSE · J247
Biology A Foundation
Active Recall Guide
981 questions
Biology A FoundationContents
Contents
6 topics, 60 subtopics
  1. Cell Level Systems188
  2. Community Level Systems86
  3. Genes, Inheritance and Selection144
  4. Global Challenges272
  5. Organism Level Systems144
  6. Scaling Up147
ii
Community Level SystemsQuestions
Community Level Systems
Cycling materials, and the role of microorganisms
  1. What is meant by saying that a material cycles through an ecosystem?
  2. Name two elements that are cycled between the living and non-living parts of an ecosystem.
  3. What are the abiotic components of an ecosystem?
  4. What are the biotic components of an ecosystem?
  5. Which cycled element do organisms need in order to make proteins?
  6. Which cycled element forms the framework of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins in living things?
  7. Explain why materials such as carbon and nitrogen must be recycled in an ecosystem.
  8. Name a material other than carbon and nitrogen that cycles between organisms and their surroundings.
  9. Which two groups of microorganisms act as the main decomposers in an ecosystem?
12
Community Level SystemsAnswers
Answers
Cycling materials, and the role of microorganisms
  1. It moves repeatedly between the living organisms and their non-living surroundings, being used and then returned rather than used up.
  2. Carbon and nitrogen.
  3. The non-living parts, such as the air, water, soil and rock.
  4. The living organisms, such as plants, animals, fungi and bacteria.
  5. Nitrogen.
  6. Carbon.
  7. The supply of them is limited, so they have to be returned to the non-living surroundings for other organisms to take up and use again.
  8. Water.
  9. Bacteria and fungi.
13
Genes, Inheritance and SelectionQuestions
Genes, Inheritance and Selection
Genome, environment and mutations
  1. What two things together determine the phenotype of an organism?
  2. What is discontinuous variation?
  3. Give an example of a human characteristic that shows discontinuous variation.
  4. What is continuous variation?
  5. Give two human characteristics that show continuous variation.
  6. Explain why height in humans shows continuous variation.
  7. Two plants carry the same alleles for height, but one grows much taller than the other. Explain how this can happen.
  8. How is a characteristic showing discontinuous variation usually controlled?
  9. Where do all genetic variants originally come from?
34
Genes, Inheritance and SelectionAnswers
Answers
Genome, environment and mutations
  1. Its genome, and the interaction of that genome with the environment.
  2. Variation in which individuals fall into a small number of distinct categories with no values in between.
  3. Eye colour.
  4. Variation in which individuals can take any value across a range, with no distinct categories.
  5. Height and weight.
  6. It is controlled by several genes acting together, and it is also affected by environmental factors such as diet.
  7. The environment also affects the phenotype, so differences in light, water or minerals produce different heights from the same genes.
  8. By a single gene, or a very small number of genes, with little or no influence from the environment.
  9. From mutations.
35
Organism Level SystemsQuestions
Organism Level Systems
The nervous system and coordinated responses
  1. Which two organs make up the central nervous system?
  2. What is the job of a sensory neurone?
  3. What is the job of a motor neurone?
  4. Where are relay neurones found and what do they do?
  5. What is a sensory receptor?
  6. What is an effector?
  7. How does the shape of a sensory neurone differ from that of a motor neurone?
  8. What is a synapse and how does an impulse cross it?
  9. What is meant by a coordinated response?
56
Organism Level SystemsAnswers
Answers
The nervous system and coordinated responses
  1. The brain and the spinal cord.
  2. It carries electrical impulses from a sensory receptor to the central nervous system.
  3. It carries electrical impulses from the central nervous system to an effector.
  4. They lie inside the central nervous system and pass impulses from sensory neurones on to motor neurones.
  5. A cell that detects a stimulus such as light, sound, touch, temperature or a chemical, and starts an electrical impulse.
  6. A muscle or a gland that carries out the response when an impulse arrives from a motor neurone.
  7. A sensory neurone has a long dendron bringing impulses to a cell body set on a side branch part-way along it, while a motor neurone has its cell body at one end with short dendrites and a long axon leading away.
  8. A junction between two neurones where a chemical neurotransmitter is released and diffuses across the gap to start an impulse in the next neurone.
  9. A response in which information from receptors is processed so that the right effectors act together in the right way at the right time.
57
Keep going
981
questions
60 subtopics

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981 questions
Across 60 subtopics, every one of them from specification J247.
One PDF
Print it, or work from a screen with a notebook beside you.
Answers after, not beside
Covering the answers is a matter of not turning the page, which is what makes the closed-book pass possible.

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.

  1. Step 1 · Closed book

    Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

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