What this practice covers
These questions are drawn from past CIE 0654 Co-ordinated Sciences papers and filtered to biotechnology and genetic modification. You answer, you find out immediately whether you were right, and you get the reasoning for the correct option and for each distractor. Wrong answers go to a mistakes locker so you can come back to exactly those.
Practice is free. You need an account only so your progress and your mistakes are still there next time.
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What examiners see students get wrong here
These are the errors that cost marks on biotechnology and genetic modification, taken from our own topic notes. Read them before you practise and you will recognise the traps in the questions.
- Saying yeast respires aerobically in brewing. Fermentation is anaerobic.
- Saying bread rises because of the alcohol, or that beer is made from the carbon dioxide.
- Saying biological washing powders work best in a very hot wash, when heat denatures the enzymes.
- Saying a fermenter is heated, when it usually has to be cooled.
- Forgetting that everything in a fermenter must be sterilised first.
- Saying restriction enzymes join DNA. They cut it; ligase joins it.
- Using different restriction enzymes on the human DNA and the plasmid, so that the sticky ends would not match.
- Saying bacteria make an insulin-like substance. The genetic code is universal, so they make human insulin.
Revise it first
If any of the above is unfamiliar, work through the notes before practising: Biotechnology and genetic modification revision notes.