Earth and Environmental Science 2018 HSC exam pack (archive)

Students should:

• readily identify cause and effect relationships
• use clear scientific language to describe phenomena and provide a clear descriptions of terms and show a progression of thought
• reduce paraphrasing of questions and focus more specifically on providing a response that answers the question
• provide supporting arguments and stating evidence for judgements
• use fully labelled diagrams to help support or explain their responses
• appropriately utilise the data supplied in stimulus material to support statements, conclusions and/or judgements
• read the question carefully and combine knowledge from several units of work into the response
• draw scientific diagrams, interpret data and assess information for accuracy, reliability and/or validity
• support questions requiring an opinion with facts, data and/or evidence
• draw upon their knowledge across several units and create connections with data and evidence to support judgements.

Question 21

There is no feedback for this questions, refer to the marking guidelines.

Question 22

In better responses, students were able to:

• identify impacts of meteorite impacts such as earthquakes, volcanism and ejecta (b)
• extract information from a table and recognising the date for a mass extinction event (b).

Areas for students to improve include:

• identifying the difference between a localised extinction event and a mass extinction event (b)
• identifying cause and effect relationships between changes in climate and mass extinction (b)
• using clear scientific language to describe the extinction of entire families, genera, species etc (b)
• identifying meteor impacts that cause global impacts (b).

Question 23

In better responses, students were able to:

• demonstrated a clear understanding of the source of, and identified an established strategy for reduction of each gas (a)
• links the strategy to the source of the gas and provided reasonable alternatives eg using solar power instead of burning coal for electricity (b).

Question 24

In better responses, students were able to:

• provide a judgement on the effectiveness of technology (b)
• make comparative statements between different technologies and what disasters they are useful or not successful in predicting the disaster. For example: tiltmeters can detect change in slope of a volcano, indicating that the magma chamber is swelling and thus an eruption is coming. However, an earthquake does not show definitive, clear signs that it will happen, so a seismometer detecting vibrations is not a true indicator of an earthquake (b).

Areas for students to improve include:

• supporting their judgements with evidence based argument.

Question 25

In better responses, students were able to:

• describe the formation of the ‘iron-rich’ layer of BIFs
• demonstrate an understanding that iron reacts with oxygen to form the precipitate iron oxide
• recognise that stromatolites are structures which contain cyanobacteria that produce oxygen
• show that they understand that BIFs are no longer forming due to a lack of dissolved iron in the oceans.

Areas for students to improve include:

• showing an understanding of the formation of the ‘iron-poor’ layer (b)
• incorporating all features of the environmental conditions in their diagrams (b).

Question 26

In better responses, students were able to:

• identify the importance of being a local species and their importance in the local ecosystem (b)
• use the specific terminology from the table when justifying their response (b).

Question 27

In better responses, students were able to:

• use the table to identify the features of all three types of shock waves (primary, secondary and surface).
• sequentially link these features to multiple impacts on both the natural and built environments.

Question 28

In better responses, students were able to:

• use correct terminology and provided clear descriptive terms for example: egg with shell instead of lays egg or stronger leg bones instead of has legs
• use high level language and supporting arguments for features, for example, claws or teeth for defence, predation and movement.

Question 29

In better responses, students were able to:

• understand the nature of rehabilitation and how it could be achieved, often giving a definition of rehabilitation as an introduction
• link the goals to examples that illustrated how the goals were achieved
• made clear judgement/s about how the examples showed effectiveness or non-effectiveness
• write a cohesive response.

Question 30

In better responses, students were able to:

• demonstrated an understanding of plate tectonic super cycle as it applied to the formation and break-up of Pangea
• incorporate the stimulus diagram and relate this to the plate tectonic super cycle
• relate the provided data to the extinction and evolution of species
• relate the formation and destruction of a super continent as the driver of climate and environmental change.

In better responses, students were able to:

• summarise information succinctly using correctly constructed tables (b)
• graph data accurately, understand and apply lines of best fit and identify trends and variables including outliers (d)
• provide a clear judgement of the role of science and include an understanding of 9.1 outcomes in a coherent, well planned response using appropriate scientific terminology (e).