Exam Focus

Exam Focus

Temperature regulation appears in approximately 2 out of 5 recent AQA Paper 2 exams and earns 4–8 marks when it appears, often as a 6-mark extended response question.

Edexcel (1BI0/2): Temperature regulation is tested on Edexcel Paper 2 (1BI0/2) within Topic 7. Edexcel questions frequently provide a scenario — for example, data showing body temperature during exercise — and ask students to explain the mechanisms shown. Context-based questions such as "suggest why a person's skin becomes red after exercise" are common; the expected answer is vasodilation increasing blood flow near the skin surface. Ensure you can explain both the too-hot and too-cold responses and link each explicitly to negative feedback.

How it is tested:

• 6-mark response: "Describe and explain the body's response to overheating" — requires vasodilation, sweating (with evaporation mechanism), hairs lying flat, and negative feedback restoration.
• Vasodilation/vasoconstriction: Explain the mechanism — vessel diameter changes, effect on blood flow, effect on heat loss. Do not say vessels "move."
• Why sweating cools (evaporation): Must explain that evaporation of water from the skin removes heat. Simply producing sweat is not enough.
• Shivering mechanism: Muscle contractions → increased respiration → heat released.
• Link to enzyme function: Why does temperature need to be maintained at 37°C? Because enzymes have an optimum temperature and denature at high temperatures.