Pick your questions carefully

The higher level paper requires that you answer six questions. In question one, students are required to answer six short questions. My advice would be to try and do more than six if you can, in which case you will be marked on your best six. Once you have completed the short questions spend some time reading the rest of the paper and choose wisely which questions you will attempt. Don’t forget that question three normally has an option one and option two, so make sure not to do both. The layout of the ag science paper is very consistent from year to year, with question one being short questions, question two a question on soils, question three having two options – normally on some aspect of animal husbandry, question four the experiment question, question seven a genetics question and question nine normally requires you to give a scientific explanation for four different practical measures taken on a farm.

Go over your experiments

Once the practical exam is finished in May many students think they can forget about all those experiments done in class. Each year question four on the higher paper gives four experiments of which you have to write up two. It’s therefore really important to have a last look over your experiment copy in the lead up to the exam. The key to scoring well here is to write up as much detail as you can about the experiment and try to include a list of apparatus, method, diagram, and expected results where possible.

Know your definitions

Looking over past ag science papers, it is clear that there are a huge number of questions that require you to know the definition of key terms e.g. tillering, topping, transpiration etc. If you haven’t already made a list of notes on these I suggest checking the back of your textbook where often you will find a glossary of key terms with short explanations.

Get your timing right

From my experience one of the most common errors in the ag science exam is that students run out of time and don’t get six questions answered. At higher level you have two and a half hours so I suggest spending no more than 30 minutes on question 1 and then 20 minutes for each of the five remaining questions. This will leave you some extra time to read the paper thoroughly at the start and to go over your answers at the end. Ordinary level students tend not to be under too much time pressure and I suggest spending a maximum of 45 minutes on section 1 which leaves 105 minutes to answer section two.