Asexual reproduction and cloning

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Peter Terry 10GS

Asexual reproduction.

When organisms reproduce asexually, there is no fusion of sex cells. A part of the organism grows and somehow breaks away from the parent organism. The cells it contains were formed by mitosis, so contain exactly the same genes as the parent. A sexual reproduction produces offspring that are genetically identical to the parent, and genetically identical to each other.

A sexual reproduction is common in plants. For example, flower bulbs grow and divide asexually each season to produce more bulbs.

Asexual reproduction also occurs in some animals such as the Hydra, a small freshwater animal, which reproduces asexually by ‘budding’.        

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Artificial cloning

Artificial cloning of animals is now commonplace in laboratories. The most famous example of animal cloning is Dolly the Sheep, born in the UK in 1996 using a technique called embryo transplanting.

Here's how it was done:

  1. An egg cell was removed from the ovary of an adult female sheep, and the nucleus removed.
  2. Using micro-surgical techniques, the empty egg cell was fused with DNA extracted from an udder cell of a donor sheep
  3. The fused cell now began to develop normally, using the donated DNA.
  4. Before the dividing cells became specialised the embryo ...

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An extra space is seen in some words which detracts from the meaning of that sentence slightly. Otherwise, grammar, spelling and punctuation are fine. Overall layout is good and flows well.

Asexual reproduction and the process is explained basically. The candidate includes examples but these are quite basic and whilst pictures are used they do not really aid the explanation or clarify how asexual reproduction actually works. However, the process of embryo transplant is explained clearly although the uses of such cloning in animals are not explained explicitly and could be further explained rather than using a table. However, good points are made on the advantages and disadvantages of embryo transplant. Cloning could be explained in a bit more detail but an attempt at a conclusion is made even though it is not an explicit one.

Overall a well laid out and done piece. Response to the question does not cover asexual reproduction in enough depth, and the process and its examples should be explained in greater scientific detail. The process of embryo transplants is explained well and clearly, but again slightly more scientific depth could have been achieved to gain higher marks. A more marked conclusion should be used.