Introduction ‘The A2 examination has two papers: © Paper 4 Structured questions © Paper5 Planning, analysis and evaluation Paper 4 tests Assessment Objectives A and B. Paper 5 tests Assessment Objective C. Paper 4 has two sections and you have 2 hours to complete it. Section A contains structured questions. You write your answers on lines provided in the question paper, Section B contains two free-response questions, irom which you choose one. Paper 5 is also a written paper. Although it tests your practical skills, you will not be working in a laboratory, You will take this paper in an ordinary examination room. As for Paper 4, you write your answers on lines provided in the question paper. You have 1 hour 16 minutes to answer this paper. ‘The marks for all the papers, both AS and A2, are given on pages 10 and 11. You can find copies of past papers at http:llwww.cambridgestudents.org.uk/ subjectpages/biology/asalbiology/pastpapers! Scientific language Throughout your biology course, and especially in your examination, it is important to use clear and correct biological language. Scientists take great care to use language precisely. 1f doctors or researchers do not use exactly the right word when communicating with someone, then what they say could easily be misinterpreted. Biology has a huge number of specialist terms (probably more than any other subject you can choose to study at AS and A2) and it is important that you learn them and use them. However, the examiners are testing your knowledge and understanding of biology, not how well you can write in English. They will do their best to understand what you mean, even if some of your spelling and grammar is not correct. Nevertheless, there are some words that you really must spell correctly, because they could be confused with other biological terms, These include: ‘© words that differ from one another by only one letter, for example amylose and amylase words with similar spellings but different meanings, for example glycogen and glucagon; meiosis and mitosis; adenine and adenosine; thymine and thiamine. In the Syllabus Content section of the syllabus, the words for which you need to know definitions are printed in italic. You will find definitions of some of these words in the Definitions section of the syllabus.