AQA GCSE Biology Paper 2 Foundation June 2023 question paper 8461/2F

Hormones are important for controlling many processes in the human body.

Hormones are produced by glands.

Which organ system has glands that produce hormones?

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How are hormones transported around the body?

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Figure 1 shows glands in a woman’s body.

Draw one line from each gland to the name of that gland.

Which gland in Figure 1 produces insulin?

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Which organ does insulin mainly affect?

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Give one effect of insulin.

Some hormones control a woman’s menstrual cycle.

Which hormone causes an egg to mature in the ovary?

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Which two are hormones that help to maintain the lining of the uterus during pregnancy?

Tick (✓) two boxes.

Contraception prevents pregnancy.

Give two methods of contraception that use hormones.

Students estimated the population of buttercup plants growing on a lawn.

The lawn is a rectangle measuring 15 m 10 m.

Figure 2 shows the lawn.

This is the method used.

1. Measure the length and width of the lawn.

2. Choose five locations to sample.

3. Place a 1 m 1 m square frame at each location.

4. Record the number of buttercup plants in each square frame.

Complete the sentences.

Choose answers from the box.

The length and width of the lawn should be measured

The 1 m 1 m square frame is called a.

How should the students choose the five locations to sample?

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Table 1 shows the results.

The students used their results to calculate the population of buttercup plants.

Complete the sentences.

Choose answers from the box.

Multiply the length of the lawn by the width of the lawn to give the

Add up the total number of buttercup plants and divide by 5 to give

The students calculated that the population of buttercup plants on the lawn was 300.

How did the students use the results in Table 1 to calculate the population?

How could the students improve the accuracy of the estimate?

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One abiotic factor that affects the number of buttercup plants on the lawn is soil pH.

Give one other abiotic factor that could affect the number of buttercup plants on the lawn.

Do not refer to soil pH in your answer.

Different species in a habitat may depend on each other for food.

Figure 3 shows a food chain.

The grass needs energy to grow.

What is the source of energy for the grass?

Table 2 lists different types of feeding relationship.

Write the name of one organism from Figure 3 in each box in Table 2.

Each organism may be written in one box or in more than one box.

The first box has been completed for you.

Figure 4 shows the appearance of the snowshoe hare in the summer and in the winter.

Figure 4

Snowshoe hare in summer
Snowshoe hare in winter

The snowshoe hare has a different fur colour in the summer than in the winter.

Explain how the different fur colour increases the chance of survival of the snowshoe hare.

Figure 5 shows how the number of snowshoe hares and the number of lynx varied in one area between 1900 and 1935.

Figure 5 shows that the number of snowshoe hares and the number of lynx increase and decrease several times.

Suggest two reasons why the number of snowshoe hares increases.

The number of snowshoe hares increased and decreased four times between 1900 and 1935.

What effect does an increase in the number of snowshoe hares have on the number of lynx?

Suggest one reason why the number of lynx decreased from 1915 to 1919.

Use information from Figure 5.

When the snowshoe hare eats grass, about 90% of the biomass of the grass is lost.

Give two ways the biomass is lost.

Some farmers keep cows indoors in large sheds.

Other farmers keep cows outdoors in fields of grass.

Figure 6 shows cows being kept indoors and outdoors.

Table 3 shows the energy inputs and energy outputs for keeping cows.

Calculate the total energy input for keeping cows outdoors.

Use data from Table 3.

The total energy input for keeping cows indoors is 16 000 kJ/m²/year.

Calculate the percentage efficiency of keeping cows indoors.

Use the equation:

The percentage efficiency of keeping cows outdoors is 0.03%.

Why is it more energy efficient to keep cows indoors than to keep cows outdoors?

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Diseases in cows can cause problems for farmers.

Suggest why diseases spread more quickly when the cows are kept indoors.

One species of bacterium causes a disease in cows.

Scientists investigated the effect of eight different antibiotics on the growth of this species of bacterium.

The scientists put discs containing the different antibiotics onto a Petri dish containing the bacteria.

Antibiotics A to H were used in the investigation.

Figure 7 shows what the Petri dish looked like after 2 days.

This species of bacterium is resistant to some of the antibiotics.

Give the letter of one antibiotic the bacterium is resistant to.

Complete the sentence.

Choose the answer from the box.

Antibiotic resistance in a single bacterium is caused by a change in the

Complete the sentence.

Choose the answer from the box.

A change in one bacterium can cause millions of bacteria to become resistant to the antibiotic.

Suggest why the production of millions of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a problem for farmers.

Bacteria are one type of organism that cause decay.

Which other type of organism causes decay?

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Students investigated the effect of temperature on the decay of milk.

The decay was caused by bacteria in the milk.

Figure 8 shows the apparatus used.

This is the method used.

1. Set up the apparatus as shown in Figure 8 with the milk at 20 C.

2. Record the pH each day for 7 days.

3. Repeat with more samples of milk at 5 C and at 30 C.

What was the dependent variable in the investigation?

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How could the students keep the milk at 30 C for 7 days?

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As the milk decays, the bacteria digest fats in the milk.

What type of acid is produced by digestion of fats in the milk?

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Figure 9 shows the results.

Why did the pH not fall below pH 4.5 at 20 C?

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The digestion of fat was fastest at 30C and slowest at 5 C.

Give one reason why the rate of digestion was faster at 30 C than at 5 C.

Calculate the rate of digestion at 30 °C from day 2 to day 3.

Complete the following calculation.

Use data from Figure 9.

The rate of digestion at 5°C from day 2 to day 3 is 0.1 pH units/day.

How many times faster is the rate of digestion at 30°C than the rate of digestion at 5°C from day 2 to day 3?

Use your answer to Question 05.7.

The kidneys filter the blood.

Figure 10 shows filtration in the kidney.

Glucose molecules are found in the blood plasma and in the filtrate.

Protein molecules are only found in the blood plasma.

Draw one line from each substance to the reason for where the substance is found.

Substance Reason

The kidneys control the volume of water in the body.

Table 4 shows information about a person on one day.

Calculate the volume of water reabsorbed into the blood.

A person with kidney disease may be treated by dialysis or by having a kidney transplant.

Figure 11 gives information about dialysis and kidney transplants.

A doctor states:

‘It is better to treat a person with kidney disease by using a kidney transplant rather than by dialysis.’

Evaluate the doctor’s statement.

Use information from Figure 11.

A kidney transplant costs £17 000 in the first year and then £5 000 in each of the following years for drugs.

Calculate the total cost of treatment by kidney transplant over the first 5 years.

Many different species can live together in the same habitat.

What name is given to all of the organisms living in the same habitat?

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Figure 12 shows four species of bird from the same habitat in the UK.

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla)
Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula)

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Which species of bird in Figure 12 do scientists think are most closely related?

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Scientists think the brambling and the bullfinch belong to different species.

What evidence is used by scientists to classify the brambling and the bullfinch as different species?

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Four other species of bird (A, B, C and D) live in a habitat in the UK.

Figure 13 shows how the numbers of each species of bird varied during one year.

Use information from Figure 13 to answer Questions 07.4 to 07.6

Describe what happens to the number of birds of species A during the year.

In June and July, a disease affected the populations of some of the species.

Which species had the lowest resistance to the disease?

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One species migrates between the UK and other countries.

Which species migrates between the UK and other countries?

Give a reason for your answer.

A person’s eyes can focus on objects at different distances.

A person looks at a distant object.

The person then looks at a near object.

The person’s eyes make adjustments so that the near object forms a clear image.

Which term describes the adjustment of focus from the distant object to the near object?

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Figure 14 shows the eye.

Which structure in Figure 14 is where the image is focused?

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Which structure in Figure 14 is a muscle that contracts when focusing on a near object?

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What happens to the shape of the lens when focusing on a near object?

The eyes can function in dimly-lit areas and in brightly-lit areas.

The iris contains muscles.

Describe how muscles in the iris help the person to see clearly when moving from a dimly-lit area to a brightly-lit area.

It is important to be able to react quickly.

Many people think that drinking coffee decreases reaction time.

Plan an investigation to test the effect of drinking coffee on reaction time.

You should include:

• the test for reaction time that you would use

• how to make the investigation valid.

Reproduction can produce offspring which are:

• genetically different or

• genetically identical.

Farmers grow tomato plants in greenhouses.

The tomatoes are sold in supermarkets.

Suggest one advantage of growing tomato plants that are genetically different.

Suggest one advantage of growing tomato plants that are genetically identical.

Scientists can grow genetically identical tomato plants using tissue culture.

What is tissue culture?

Genetically identical tomato plants growing in the same garden do not all grow to the same height.

Give one reason why.

The sex of dogs is determined by X and Y chromosomes in the same way as in humans.

Complete the Punnett square diagram in Figure 15 to show the inheritance of sex in dogs.

Use the symbols X and Y.

Figure 15

A female dog gave birth to six offspring.

Why would you expect there to be three male offspring and three female offspring?

Use your answer to Question 09.5.

Farmers keep chickens for:

• meat production

• egg production.

Some varieties of chicken grow more quickly and are more suitable for meat production.

Other varieties of chicken produce more eggs.

A farmer keeps two varieties of chicken, A and B.

The farmer investigated the growth rates and egg-production rates of both varieties.

Figure 16 shows the results.

Suggest two control variables the farmer should have used in this investigation.

Figure 16 shows mean values from 500 chickens of each variety.

Give the reason the farmer used a large number of chickens.

The farmer wants to produce a new variety of chicken that is good for both meat production and egg production.

Describe how selective breeding of chicken varieties A and B can produce the new variety of chicken.