2. Understanding Standards: Advanced Higher Event
Biology

3. Aims of the day
To support teachers, lecturers and assessors in their understanding of national standards by:
reviewing candidate evidence
discussing this evidence and associated Marking Instructions with colleagues
asking questions and seeking clarification about national standards
the application of nationally devised Marking Instructions to candidate evidence

4. Advanced Higher Biology
Project report - standards

5. Abstract Must be before and separate from the Introduction.
Must contain a clear statement of the aim(s) and findings.
Findings must describe any effects and they must be consistent with those given in conclusions.
Multiple aims can cause difficulty for candidates.

6. Introduction
A statement of aims and hypotheses must be within the Introduction.
Information must be relevant to the stated aim(s).
The information should be at Advanced Higher level; sources of low reliability with little scientific rigour should be avoided.
The actual study being done must be justified – avoid overly tenuous links to, for example, commercial applications.

7. Procedures
A technique is not appropriate to the aims if it is not possible to use this method to accurately measure the dependent variable stated in the aim.
All information needed to carry out the procedure must be described in this section (not in an appendix).
Controls, or the justification for their absence, must be described.
An independent replicate is needed to allow valid conclusions to be drawn.

8. Procedures (cont)
Many candidates carry out useful pilot studies – where these preliminary experiments have a bearing on the final procedure they should be described in procedures.
Although safety rarely has a bearing on the marks awarded, centres have a responsibility to ensure candidate welfare is not compromised whilst undertaking their project work.

9. Results
All raw data must be recorded within the report but may be within an appendix.
Processed data must not have a claimed degree of accuracy greater than the raw data.
The format(s) chosen to present data must be appropriate for the data being presented – line graphs, bar charts, scatterplots and box and whisker plots are some of those commonly used.
Summarised data allows the main findings to be clearly understood by the reader.
Statements of trends should not be inferential.

10. Discussion
Conclusions cannot be valid if either the control of variables, sample size or replication is inadequate.
Candidates should address major issues relating to validity and reliability at the planning stage of their work; credit is not gained in the evaluation of procedures for pointing out that methods were not valid and/or reliable.
When evaluating procedures, candidates should focus their comments on aspects of the procedure that would have significant effects on the outcome.

11. Discussion (cont)
Evaluation of results should include an analysis of the variability of repeats and replicates.
Statistical evaluations of the results are encouraged, but candidates need to have a good enough understanding of the tests being used to allow meaningful discussion. Choice of an appropriate statistical method should be considered at the planning stage.
Candidates should discuss their findings in the context of the information provided in the introduction. The underlying biology presented in this section needs to have appropriate depth and breadth to allow this.

12. Presentation
The project report must have structure and should be organised under the following headings:
Abstract
Introduction
Procedures
Results
Discussion
References (Harvard or Vancouver systems of referencing must be used)
Appendix

13. Word count
The project report should be between 3000 – 3600 words in length.
There is no direct penalty for projects that are fewer than 3000 words. However, very short reports are unlikely to have enough information to score well.
The word count should be submitted with the project-report (indicated on the flyleaf).
If the word count exceeds the maximum by 10%, a 3 mark penalty will be applied.

14. Understanding Standards:
Advanced Higher Biology
Marking the Question Paper

15. Advanced Higher Biology Paper Specification
The Advanced Higher Biology Paper has two sections:
Section 1 (25 marks) – Objective test questions
Section 2 (65 marks) – restricted and extended response questions.
The paper includes questions that require candidates to:
demonstrate knowledge (minimum 20 marks)
Apply knowledge (minimum 20 marks)
Apply a variety of skills in a biological context (20–30 marks).

16. Advanced Higher Biology Paper Specification (cont)
Extended writing:
12-15 marks in total will be assigned to extended writing
one question will contain a choice (both options from the same unit)
one question with no choice
The paper will contain one extensive data handling question worth 7-10 marks. Candidates should be aware the data presentation is likely to be on a supplementary sheet.
Full details are in the Course and Unit Support Notes.

17. General Marking Principles
Marks must be assigned in accordance with the Marking Instructions.
If a word is underlined then it is essential.
Information that is (bracketed) is not essential.
Answers separated by / are alternatives.

18. General Marking Principles (cont)
Incorrect spelling is not penalised if the correct term is recognised when the word is ‘sounded out’.
A correct answer can be negated if:
an extra, incorrect, response is given
additional information that contradicts the correct response is included.

19. Preparation of candidates
Advanced Higher Biology candidates generally demonstrate the ability to state terms and definitions accurately.
The application of knowledge to unfamiliar contexts is more challenging and candidates should be given the opportunity to gain experience of this; past papers, the Specimen Question Paper and the Exemplar Question Paper and associated guidance provide useful sources of questions.
The Course Report provides a detailed analysis of candidate performance in specific aspects of that year’s course assessment.

20. SQA Marker Opportunities
Marking exam papers for the SQA is a valuable experience which inevitably will inform your teaching.
Application forms to become a marker are available at
Alternatively, for more information you can appointee management at