I have decided that I'll do a bit of revision for General Studies. I have examples of questions from past papers. However, I do not get, what in Section B they are asking.

For instance:
a) Identify the stages of the argument in this passage (4)
Does this mean basically sum up the conclusion of each paragraph and the reasons for the conclusion?
Name and give examples of 2 types of knowledge used in this passage (2)
What can you look for to help you find the different types of knowledge?
c) To what extent does Lovelock justify his claim that eminent scientists hold up on progress? (4 + 3 for written communication)
I haven't a clue what to say here

Please help!

I posted this on another forum but no replies so far

Not really!!!

Anyone else got any ideas? We have a panicking Nicki on our hands.

Part of the problem, Nicki, is that these questions are on comprehension of a passage you haven't given us.....

As far as the types of knowledge go, a quick google gives me this. It might help you to figure out what you're looking for.

Cheers

katyjay

Article, typed up, copyright for Edexcel, adapted from The Ages of Gaia, James Lovelock OUP 1995.

More than 100 years after his death, Darwinism is still the great enlightenment of biology, yet, perversely, zealous disciples of Darwin, by taking words as if they were relevations, not just the thoughts of a scientist, are making a creed for biology and so hindering its natural development.

Science, unlike religion, does not deal in certainties of truth, we scientists look only for the most probably of explanations. We try to follow the wise words of the founders of the Royal Society, who 300 years ago chose as their motto: Take nothing on authority.

Now we are at thelimits of Darwin's vision. We begin to see that organisms do not just adapt to a world defined by geology. We no longer see the word 'adapt' as a passive a verb but one that is active also. Organisms can and nearly always do change their environment as well as adaot to it. To describe a planet with abundant life, the close coupling between organisms and their world must also be taken into account. In no way does this mean that Darwin's insights are wrong, any more than were Newton's when Einstein offered relativity as a better way of seeing things. Why should biologists look beyond Darnwin's vision, when from it has emerged such splendours as molecular biology and it seems to explain evolution completely?

Biologists cannot forever ignore chaos and complexity that are there just beyond and sometimes just inside their frontier. Some palaeontologists on the basis of fossil evidence have put forward the hypothesis that evolution was not as Darwin said, gradual, but punctuated by periods of rapid change. The idea was that species coexisted with little change in diversity or numbers for long periods. Then suddenly new organisms emrged and formed a new steady state, which persisted until the next punctuation. Such wasthe faith in Darwin's writings that this harmless notion was taken as heresy. It took the emergence of the new science of complexity to make punctuated evolution respectable. Stuart Kauffman has demonstarted the probability that communities of organisms evolving by natural selection will indeed make sudden changes to new stable states.

A paradoxical saying goes: The measure of a scientist's eminence is the length of time he or she holds up progress in the field. The story of punctuated evolution would seem to support this view.

Hmmm, this is how I'd attack it (and it's not guaranteed to be anywhere near the right answer, but may give someone else a starter towards the answer)

-----------------

Question a

Identifying the stages of the argument.....

1. He explains the background to the situation (that scientists can't know anything absolutely, only a probable explanation)
2. He describes the situation (Darwin's explanations work most of the time but don't work for absolutely everything). He uses examples and analogy to illustrate this.
3. He develops an illustration of the argument from the situation (some scientists believe Darwin was absolutely right and are not prepared to consider examples where Darwin doesn't provide the whole answer. So those scientists are not moving on as new ideas are considered.)
4. He uses this illustration to generate the argument (that eminent scientists hold up scientific progress).

Question b

2 types of knowledge - explicit and tacit
Explicit knowledge in the extract: Darwin has been dead for 100 years.
Tacit knowledge in the extract: "Darwin is the great enlightenment of biology"

Question c - to what extent does Lovelock justify his claim that eminent scientists hold up progress?

Lovelock's anecdote about punctuated evolution does not give an example of an eminent scientist holding up progress - it is the scientist's over-enthusiastic followers who are trying to do this by being hostile to a new idea which doesn't fit Darwin's original theories.

Not only that, but the progressive idea (punctuated evolution) was developed in any case, and as other scientific knowledge emerged, the progressive idea became acceptable despite the "Darwin zealots".

And Lovelock only gives this one example, not a general proof of the claim. Presumably it would be possible to find a counter example of an eminent scientist continuing to make new discoveries.

----------------------

How's that?

Cheers

Katyjay

Right - decided, you can sit the exam for me

Sorry old bean, they might get a bit suspicious when this oldie ambles in to take the paper......

Edit: KJ's answers are far better than mine - you can ignore this


OK, I'll do my best at answering

a) This seems to be asking you to create a precis of the argument, sum it up fairly briefly - basically, show you understand what's going on. I'd just try paraphrasing certain bits.

I'm not completely sure what it means by different "types" of knowledge. Has a question asking about knowledge come up before?

c) Well, in the penultimate paragraph Lovelock relates an example about how anti-Darwin views were seen as heresy. And then explains how the other theory was eventually adopted as the correct one. This shows a situation where it has happened and so supports the claim. However, he gives no other examples which weakens it. Pad that out a bit, then come to a conclusion - mine would be that he supports it to a partial extent (but I always take the middle-road). The Quality of Written Communication you should find fairly easy to get being an English-taker, just use proper syntactical constructions and the occasional long word.

Hope this helps (and don't get too worried)

Thankyou

Part of the problem was I didn't really understand the text!

I'm afraid that's because it's not particularly well written, Nicki. The statement he makes to start with isn't the argument he's trying to make at the end.
Not only that, but his paragraphs don't seem to have a link from one to the next, they shift quite dramatically in content, and the introduction to them doesn't really tie them up.

It's a bit like a politician's speech - bombard you with vaguely-connected information from a variety of angles, and come up with a conclusion out of it which is lacking in logic and different from the introductory point you made at the start.

I just give up I hate it. We do nothing in lessons, get no past papers, and it is complusory. If I do badly, it'll reflect on my other AS grades...which are currently As

There is no need to tell unis (if that's what you're worrying about) you even did it. And if you get 4 A's in the other subjects, I'm sure they wouldn't care. [cynical] It's an annoying habit of schools to make it compulsory to boost the grades their students get and get money from the government [/cynical]

It's just like the comprehension tests you probably got when you were younger.

The trick is read the questions first, then read the text. And then decide what the point of the text is, and go from there.

Reading that brought back memories of general studies exams: I don't know how they do it but they always manage to find the most badly written text that uses rather obscure phrases just for the tests .

Don't worry about doing no work in the lessons for general studies exams, noone does, it's just for the league tables as Trebor says... Don't worry about the grade in general studies at all, very few universities accept it and no university that's looking at As in your other A-levels will include it in your offer. Then you can report your A-level results as I do: 4 As (and completely omit the B in General studies ) .

Can I ask, what is General Studies?!

An "A-level" which involves generally a bit of English, a bit of Maths/Science and a bit of Current Affairs.

oh.. Ok, thanks! I'd always wondered. We don't have that.

We're made to do that, and Key Skills (I have that exam today) which are pointless - I am sure they stop my progress in other subjects.
Take General Studies lesson yesterday. Did we do any work, no. I could have been doing some homework in that time.

Take it with you next time .

Seriously though, don't let work for those subjects interfere with your others. If it's damaging your other subjects just stop working for general studies alltogether: I don't know many people who actually did any work for it anyway, and it's really nowhere near as important as your other grades: they will determine your university place; general studies will not (unless you fail all of your other A-levels, which is very unlikely...).

The thing is at the moment I don't have that much I can do in my general studies lessons and I still want to do well in it. Isn't it worth like 6 UCAS points?

Have you ever seen any university offers? The importance of general studies only really exists for students looking at Ds and below, very few universities will even consider it as an extra if you're down a grade on one of your other subjects. Don't get too hung up about the absolute value of UCAS points either: if you apply to a good University, to do history for the sake of argument, it's very likely that you'll see an offer something like:

X UCAS points from 3 A-levels, excluding general studies, including an A in history; or simply ABB in three A-levels, excluding general studies, with at least a B in history.

So although some universities will phrase the offer in UCAS points they won't let you get around having what they want, and if you rang up and said 'I got ABC in my A-levels but got an A in general studies' or 'but I have grade 7 flute' they'll most probably turn around and say 'sorry, we can't let you in then' (unless they would have accepted ABC regardless of general studies due to no one better turning up).

I don't like to say 'oh it's worthless don't work for it' for the sake of it, by all means if you have the time do work for it (if you can work out what sort of work to do for it!) but it's really not worth sacrificing any other A-levels for it, they're far more valuable.

Thanks very much. Out of curiosity, as IL had his summer exams, I checked when mine are. My first one is general studies. However, for my summer exams, I'll definitely be concentrating on my proper ones. It is just at the moment, I have work for the other subjects but not much, so I feel I should be doing something.