agricultural science

not bakunin

thursday morning nice and early....my last frigging exam and one which id better do well in!

so all you fellow babesiasis experts, whats going to happen?

smndly

I hope its a nice exam!! not like 2007 which was horrible IMO... Im the only person doing it in my exam centre doing it :pac: haha...

Saffy

I have a bad feeling that it will be a tough exam:(

But I predict that pigs will have their very own question!!


its not my last exam:rolleyes:

croker1

why cant my exams be fibished wednesday:(
if they were id be on such a high but i am totally f****d for this one!!
its my worst subject i just cant do it!!
anyway anyone got any tips on what i should try and study for the next few days?? i hope its not a really biologyish paper!!

not bakunin

apparently the topics from the 2001 paper havn't appeared in a while. id try and cover the genetics if i was you cos thats a full quistion thats easy enough if you understand it. but beware! theyll also quite often ask those sneaky definitions with the genetic cross....such as polyploidy.......

CaoimH_in

We didn't cover Pigs tbh.. Just sheep, dairy, cattle and cereals

smndly

Yea i didnt cover pigs either. They're very likely id say because when the paper was written the PCP stuff was all over the news.

Yggdrasill

So how's everyone fixed for ag science? I'm hoping a question comes up on pigs and grassland. I've a few experiments learned from the back of that rapid revision book as well.

CaoimH_in

I lost that ****ing book, I need to find it or buy another tbh.

did something today, did 1997's exam, went to look for Marking scheme, none, stop at 2002 tbh rage.

that exam didn't go to well tbh.. kidna scared now

Leggz

If u know soil nd genetics ur mre r less guaranteed 2 questions.......nd if u know ur experiments then u got another que in the bag,seeing as u gotta answer que one by that time ur flying!!:D,i know theres alot of experiments but alot of em are kinds spoofers.....

like "write an experiment on how u would measure the growth of an area of grassland".........u can maked those kinds things up as long as u make sense yno!!!

hopefully a nice grasslad que comes up!!!:D

ChiefBrody

smndly wrote: »

Yea i didnt cover pigs either. They're very likely id say because when the paper was written the PCP stuff was all over the news.

It's not hard, you could easily get it done in time for Thursday. I did it new 2 days before the mocks and answered a question on it.

Pat2107

What are yer predictions?

not bakunin

yeah, hopefully pigs will have a question, i hope that the questions 9s aren't too weird......does anyone know how much you are supposed to write for them?

Secoundrow

not bakunin wrote: »

yeah, hopefully pigs will have a question, i hope that the questions 9s aren't too weird......does anyone know how much you are supposed to write for them?

yeah just look at the marking schemes on www.examinations.ie
am you have to make three points for the marks so 4 or 5 points to be safe, write about 4-5 gud lines

IrishBlood

i dunno really, i came on this site to seeif anyone else had any! :P

but im going to focus on potatoes, cereal crops, livestocks or all types and everything to do with them (thats pretty broad i know) and maybe a bit of grassland managemant as well, my teacher is convinced thats whats gonna come up, so i'll stick to that!

ChiefBrody

Does anyone else find it funny that every other subject had pages full of comments just before the exam, and the farmer subject doesn't?

Damien671

Now that you raise the point its funny
But don't you know with all this good weather theyve been out cutting silage

Secoundrow

^^^^^
well im finished easyest paper
of the whole leavin cert but q1 was tricky

any how im goin cuttin silage for a few hours then time to go on the beer


^^
seriously its good weather for silage see ye:D

smndly

Pretty good weather for hay too. Excellent paper IMO. It just tested your knowledge of the course without using any tricks like other subjects.

Saffy

WHAAAT!?:eek:
easy!?
I found it kinda difficult.....:o

rainbowtrout

Saffy wrote: »

WHAAAT!?:eek:
easy!?
I found it kinda difficult.....:o

There were a couple of sticky questions, having said that some questions that appeared difficult on first reading were not looking for an awful lot of information on closer inspection.

What did you find difficult?

CaoimH_in

that ****ing fly question... man.. haha Grand tho. fair paper.

kevogy

half of question 1 was easy
q 3 option 2 could not have been more straight forward
half of question 5 and 6 was ok
7 was a joke didnt even attempt it
8 was ok
and 9 was really easy

b altogether

Saffy

rainbowtrout wrote: »

There were a couple of sticky questions, having said that some questions that appeared difficult on first reading were not looking for an awful lot of information on closer inspection.

What did you find difficult?

I was relying on Q 4 but I didn't recognise any of the experiments!:eek:
We didn't do any - just read about 20.

parts of Q5

I usually get 100% for Q7(genetics) but I couldn't get the genetic cross and I couldn't remember the fruit fly thing:rolleyes:

Q9 - just bluffed my way through it!!

rainbowtrout

CaoimH_in wrote: »

that ****ing fly question... man.. haha Grand tho. fair paper.

Q6?????? The insect one? Or Q7 Fruit flies?

kevogy wrote: »

half of question 1 was easy
q 3 option 2 could not have been more straight forward
half of question 5 and 6 was ok
7 was a joke didnt even attempt it
8 was ok
and 9 was really easy

b altogether

Q3 Option 1 wasn't actually that bad either. Q1 was very fair for the most part

I didn't think Q6b was worded particularly well. 'Describe the dental formula of a ruminant'

Was it looking for the actual dental formula or to state that a ruminant has no canines as they are herbivores or both

rainbowtrout

Saffy wrote: »

I was relying on Q 4 but I didn't recognise any of the experiments!:eek:
We didn't do any - just read about 20.

parts of Q5

I usually get 100% for Q7(genetics) but I couldn't get the genetic cross and I couldn't remember the fruit fly thing:rolleyes:

Q9 - just bluffed my way through it!!

Q4 : Percentage germination of a cereal was straightforward. Plant 100 seeds in a seed tray, water/light/nutrients etc, leave for a week. Count how many have germinated.


Selective herbicide: There isn't really an experiment for that, a lot of my students made it up, so they tell me, I'd probably say : Two/three areas of land with crops planted. One is a control:no herbicide, apply X amount to second plot. Apply Y amount to third plot. One without has weeds. One with small amount has no weeds but crops grow. One with large amount kills weeds and crops as too much selective herbicide has the effect of a total herbicide.


Bacteria in clover is the same as bacteria in anything else. Crush root nodules, spread on agar on petri dish, incubate, observe bacterial colonies.


Q7: genetic cross, something similar came up a few years ago but it was the incomplete dominance cross they used. You were supposed to figure out the ratio from the numbers given, 42:13 is roughly a 3:1 ratio. It also mentions starting with homozygous parents and suitable crosses so you had to do at least two.

Cross 1: GG x gg
Gametes: G g

Genotype: Gg
Phenotype: Green

Cross 2: Cross F1 genotype with itself

Gg x Gg

Gametes G, g and G, g

Genotypes GG, Gg, Gg, gg

Phenotype:
3 Green, 1 albino

Saffy

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Q7: genetic cross, something similar came up a few years ago but it was the incomplete dominance cross they used. You were supposed to figure out the ratio from the numbers given, 42:13 is roughly a 3:1 ratio. It also mentions starting with homozygous parents and suitable crosses so you had to do at least two.

Cross 1: GG x gg
Gametes: G g

Genotype: Gg
Phenotype: Green

Cross 2: Cross F1 genotype with itself

Gg x Gg

Gametes G, g and G, g

Genotypes GG, Gg, Gg, gg

Phenotype:
3 Green, 1 albino

yay!!! I got that - I thougt it was wrong though:o

rainbowtrout

Saffy wrote: »

yay!!! I got that - I thougt it was wrong though:o

Happy days!

not bakunin

nice exam overall.........wrote 2 pages on the ewe and lamb mortality bit...

what was the digestibility of grass over the growing season bit? i bluffed a bit, said that it had to do with carbohydrate levels, and cellulose in the cell walls. is that ok?

yeah, i got that genetics bit too! yaaaaaaaay


(but whats a lethal gene?)

rainbowtrout

not bakunin wrote: »

nice exam overall.........wrote 2 pages on the ewe and lamb mortality bit...

what was the digestibility of grass over the growing season bit? i bluffed a bit, said that it had to do with carbohydrate levels, and cellulose in the cell walls. is that ok?

yeah, i got that genetics bit too! yaaaaaaaay


(but whats a lethal gene?)

A lethal gene is a gene that can be mutated gene, and causes death (possibly premature) in an organism if it is the dominant gene (it would normally be the recessive one).... I didn't think it was a fair thing to ask to be honest. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but haemophilia in males is a recessive trait. It is thought that a female embryo carrying two haemophilia genes is often miscarried, hence the lack of female haemophiliacs. Don't quote me on that, but that's the best example I can come up with.


Digestibility of grass: High carb levels early on in the growing season (may), therefore high digestibility, after the seed head has flowered (june), carbs convert to fibre to support seed head, so digestibility drops as fibre levels increase and carb levels decrease. if you use the green ag book (breen and mullen) the graph is in ch 19 on grassland in the section, productivity, palatability, digestibility.

Spanglished

smndly wrote: »

I hope its a nice exam!! not like 2007 which was horrible IMO... Im the only person doing it in my exam centre doing it :pac: haha...

Ah, ag science, I did my exam in 2007 and was the only person in the centre too. The multiple choice short answer question is always a winner!
Best of luck to allstill doing exams:)

Secoundrow

Q7 that genetics question you know how you were supposed to work it out

I got a 3:1 ratio but it didnt devide in perfectly I mean 4 doesnt go into 55 evenly

was it still right do ye think???

rainbowtrout

Secoundrow wrote: »

Q7 that genetics question you know how you were supposed to work it out

I got a 3:1 ratio but it didnt devide in perfectly I mean 4 doesnt go into 55 evenly

was it still right do ye think???

ya it was fine, in real life it would be unlikely for a ratio to come out as exactly 3:1 and if they gave a perfect ratio like 39:13 it might be a bit too obvious what you had to do with the question.

koolciaran

Can anyone explain to me the whole concept of feeding suckler cows during and after pregnancy in relation to maintenance and production...completely lost here:D

star-pants

is this Ag science?

koolciaran

yeah.

rainbowtrout

koolciaran wrote: »

Can anyone explain to me the whole concept of feeding suckler cows during and after pregnancy in relation to maintenance and production...completely lost here:D

Well to start, a maintenance ration is enough feed to keep an animal healthy and alive, it doesn't gain or lose weight or condition. A production ration is maintenance ration plus extra feed enough to product milk, meat, or wool or whatever it is you want from your animal.

A suckler cow will need to be fed extra ration during pregnancy (production) for her unborn calf and after pregnancy to produce milk for the calf as it suckles her, after the calf is eventually weaned she will be back on maintenance ration.

pathway33

rainbowtrout wrote: »

A suckler cow will need to be fed extra ration during pregnancy (production) for her unborn calf and after pregnancy to produce milk for the calf as it suckles her, after the calf is eventually weaned she will be back on maintenance ration.

is it true that some farmers decrease the feed to cows in the later stages of pregnancy to have them 'fitter' for birth - leading to easier calving?

rainbowtrout

pathway33 wrote: »

is it true that some farmers decrease the feed to cows in the later stages of pregnancy to have them 'fitter' for birth - leading to easier calving?

yes, overfeeding can lead to them putting on too much weight which will make calving harder, so feed can be reduced a little, essentially what you want is that there is enough feed to allow the calf to grow and develop and also to maintain the cow, she doesn't really need to put on weight, a lot of it would go to fat at that stage rather than muscle.

koolciaran

thanks rainbowbout your brilliant:D

Seinas

Just looked at the exampaper there, its a shame that nothing at all came up on pigs.. A vital sector to the economy and then info in the ag.science book is completely outdated:mad:

rainbowtrout

Seinas wrote: »

Just looked at the exampaper there, its a shame that nothing at all came up on pigs.. A vital sector to the economy and then info in the ag.science book is completely outdated:mad:

Syllabus hasn't changed since 1969 and from what I understand publishers aren't all that interested in producing an ag science book because it's a minority subject. i.e. no profit. So the main book that is used is 20 years old.

Pigs was on ordinary level though.