Biology

Assessment

The A-Level Biology course is taught over two years with external exams to be taken at the end of the Upper Sixth year. The A-Level exam consists of three written papers. Paper 1 assesses the course content taught in the Lower Sixth year and makes up 35% of their A-Level. This is a two hour exam consisting of a mixture of short and long answers and also an extended response question worth 15 marks. The total for this paper is 91 marks. Paper 2 assesses their Upper Sixth work in the same way as Paper 1 with the same marks and time allocations. Paper 3 is a synoptic paper that covers material over both Lower and Upper Sixth years and includes a 25 mark essay as well as 15 marks based on experimental work carried out over the two years. This is a two hour paper worth 78 marks and 30% of the final A-Level grade. There are no controlled assessments for A-Level Biology but students will undertake 12 specific investigations that they will be asked questions about in Paper 3.