PART THREE:

How To Get
Full Marks

For Open-Ended Questions,

Every Single Time
THATBIOTUTOR
 Part 3 – How to Get Full Marks for Open-
Ended Questions, Every Single Time
This isn’t exaggeration. You should go into every biology exam knowing it
is possible to get full marks for OEQs, even the higher mark ones. At first, I was
just like you in the sense that I didn’t believe it was possible.

But by analysing how all the full-mark answers were written, I began to
notice certain patterns that held true for successful answers. I modelled after
and learnt from those patterns, and soon enough, I began to write countless full-
mark answers, even during major exams. Below are a few of such answers I
wrote during exams:
 I show you these not to brag, but to inspire you that it is fully possible to
score full marks for OEQs. While these are JC questions, the same skills apply for
the ‘O’ levels. The fact that they can be applied for harder JC questions and still
work shows how truly effective they are. Biology is a science, and much like
math, if your answer is correct, you will definitely be awarded the mark.
Furthermore, higher mark questions tend to have more possible marking points
in the answer scheme than the marks awarded – giving you even greater
opportunity to score full marks.

Without further ado, let’s dive into how we can make you a serial full-
mark scorer.

a. Identifying the enemy

Ok, maybe ‘enemy’ is a bit too harsh. But you have to identify the question
types you are up against so you know how to attack them:

Question type Question requirements

State A short, to-the-point answer. No explanation needed.
Describe Give details. If there is data that you need to describe, e.g. a
table or graph, quote data in your answer.
Explain Give reasons, which are not directly found in the question but
have to be inferred from your content knowledge.
Suggest A creative yet logical answer that involves taking what you’ve
learnt in the syllabus and applying it to a new situation. (Truth
is, suggest questions are often explain questions in disguise.)
b. The number one reason why you lose marks

The biggest mistake when doing OEQs is… you ready? Lack of relevance.
Not only are irrelevant points not worth any marks, they also waste your
precious time during an exam – time which could have been used to score marks
elsewhere. To avoid this, keep this principle in mind while writing your answers:
every point must directly answer the question.

Other than that, to write a relevant answer, you must answer every
aspect of the question by following command word(s). E.g. “Describe and
explain the shape of the graph”. You would need to (1) describe the trend and
quote data, as well as (2) give reasons for why the trend is as such.

Another tip is to Write with an end in mind. Every point should flow
logically to the next, eventually ending up with a pre-planned conclusion that
addresses the question directly.

Lastly, trim the fat. Aim to be concise, removing as many filler words as
possible so that your answer is saturated with keywords and marking points.

You’ll be able to witness all these come into play in some of the example
answers I provide later on.
c. The ultimate OEQ checklist

Some answers score really well, while others don’t. What are the patterns
that make up highly successful answers? It turns out there is a certain thought
process used when creating answers that perform really well. I’ve condensed it
into this framework below.

Use the FIRED acronym to know if your answer is on track:

FIRED What to look out for

Focus What is the focus of the question? Which topic(s) is it testing?
Knowing this gets you thinking of the relevant concepts and
keywords.
Irreplaceable This refers to the keywords that must be in the answer, because
words these are the very words markers look out for to award marks.
(A list of all the keywords for each chapter is available in part 4)
Relevance Every point you write must directly answer the question.

Elaboration To elaborate, give specifics. Vagueness is your enemy, as vague

answers never score reliably well.
Depth Depth is about how deep and specific your answer should be.
This depends on the marks allocated. Aim to write one point for
every mark allocated.
Depth is sometimes hinted by the number of lines provided for
you to write your answer.
Let’s try applying FIRED to a sample question:

Q: Describe and explain the shape of the graph from 0°C to 35°C. [4]

FIRED Applying FIRED to the thought process

Focus Enzymes, nutrition in plants
Irreplaceable Substrates, active site, enzyme-substrate complex,
words optimum temperature/pH, Kinetic energy, chance of
collision, photosynthesis
Relevance Quote data and give details about the graph from 0°C to
35°C. Explain the shape of the graph from 0°C to 35°C.
Elaboration Be specific

Depth Allocate 1m to describing and 3m to explaining. We will

need 3 points in our explanation.
A:

[Describe]
• As temperature increases from 0°C to 35°C, rate of photosynthesis
increases from 10 units to 270 units.

[Explain]
• Increasing temperature increases kinetic energy of enzyme and substrate
molecules involved in photosynthesis,
• Increasing chances of collision, hence enzyme-substrate complexes form
faster,
• The rate is highest at 35°C as this is the optimum temperature.

Look at the FIRED table once more and see for yourself how this answer
obeys it. When you get the hang of using FIRED, it becomes a fast and easy
mental checklist that nudges your answer in the right direction.
d. How to (legally) cheat in every bio exam

What I’m about to share with you is 100% legit. Promise. Now, this will
take effort upfront, but it’s definitely worth it. It takes advantage of a loophole
in the system – which is why it feels like “cheating”.

Have you noticed that there’s a pattern to OEQs? For each topic, there
are questions that come out more than once – and when you’re doing practice
questions, you realise, “Hey, I remember writing out a similar answer, to a
similar question before.” That’s because you’re on to something… the truth is,
all the answers to OEQs are the same!

You see, every year, examiners and test setters make questions appear in
different forms, but the syllabus they’re testing on doesn’t change much. So, the
answers to those “new” questions will be very similar to the same old answers
that generations of students have been writing.

The examiners also have a habit of testing certain concepts more than
others. That’s why you keep seeing the same few questions appearing – and
they are what I refer to as Commonly Asked Questions (CAQs). For each topic,
there are at least a few of them.

How you can take advantage of this:

1) Look through assessment books/TYS/worksheet questions to figure out

which are the CAQs per topic.
2) Make a list of CAQs per topic.
3) Make their corresponding model answers.

Now, every time you have an upcoming bio test/exam, just refer to the
CAQs list to revise the topics that will come out. By learning these well, you’re
studying smart – because the chances they will come out in some form is
extremely high. When you see it in your test, just copy + paste the answers from
the CAQs you studied.

Does this work for application questions? Yes! Application questions are
nothing more than the usual content questions, with real-world context added
to it. Hence most of the time, their answers will still be based on the CAQ
answers.

To Be Continued In Part 4… All Keywords CHEAT

SHEET!