“The effect of caffeine on heart rate”
Question:
Does the amount of caffeine affect on your heart beat?
Pre-test:
Before I start my test I have found the number of heart beats of Daphnia before introducing the caffeine and after introducing the caffeine.
As the graph shows when we introduced the caffeine to it, its hearth beats increased and after 7 minute it starts to falling down to normal.
Prediction:
Yes, it does.
Caffeine is known as being a drug so as the amount of caffeine increases the hearth beat increase as well.
Scientific Reasons:
Coke contains caffeine.
Caffeine is a drug that stimulates the nervous system which causes the hearth rate to increase.
Boys are generally bigger than girls so giving the same amount of caffeine to them has less effect compared to girls.
Caffeine causes increased amount of stimulatory neurotransmitters to be released.
This is a preview of the whole essay
Peer Reviews
Here's what a star student thought of this essay
Quality of writing
The spelling and grammar in this piece could be improved. There are a number of times where the essay uses "hearth" instead of heart. Regardless of how strong the content is, slips like this will only make the examiner doubt your understanding of the topic. Similarly a few phrase don't make sense such as "to don't drink at all". In my opinion, a simple proof read before submitting a piece of coursework can save these slip ups from being unnoticed! Remember that there are often marks for quality of written communication, even in sciences.
Level of analysis
The analysis is weak in areas. For example, it is asserted that the same amount of caffeine in boys will have less effect. In my opinion, it would be key to describe how the caffeine concentration in the blood is thus lower, and will have less effect on the nervous system. Although a graph is mentioned, it isn't shown on this piece of coursework. It is essential to show graph-drawing skills and analysis of trends to gain the top marks! Although the essay mentions cyclic AMP and kinases, the understanding isn't shown. In my opinion, showing a diagram explaining what cAMP does will ensure the marker doesn't think this is just thrown in to sound clever. Similarly, they assert that caffeine helps weight loss in their conclusion. It is not right to conclude with a statement that has not been backed up by evidence, and this isn't relevant to the question whatsoever. Staying focussed will ensure the right level of analysis is done which answers the question.
Response to question
This piece of coursework offers a sound investigation into caffeine and heart rates, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Through the results collected, it makes it clear that caffeine increases the heart rate, but there is only a superficial explanation of why this happens. In my experience, to make it easier to gain top marks, a diagram and graph would have shown higher level understanding.
