Biology tips

donegal lassie

any tips on whats comin up folks?

ThrownAway

I think a question on plants - uptake of minerals/vegetative propagation/reproduction is going to come up. It does practically every year so it's well worth knowing your plant section in unit three.

smiling_time

It is unwise to fall into the trap of trying to predict what is coming up in the exams. For every one person who is successful and guesses right there is always someone else that got it wrong.

Ecology although a disliked topic is actually quite easy and features quite frequently. The mandatory experiments are an obvious one to know as they always come up. I advise to know both photosynthesis and respiration as they are frequent showers.

But as i said leaving topics out is a recipe for disaster. My revision tips would be to read about the topics from your book. Make out YOUR OWN set of notes in a way that you will remember - IE use bullet points. Draw each diagram several times as these are the key to a good mark. Find questions from the past papers about the topic and do them (first with your notes and then without) Then compare your answers to those found in the marking schemes (downloadable at www.examinations.ie)

dajaffa

Basically for bio there will be one genetics and one ecology question in both sections A + C, maybe another half Q of one/both in those do 2 of a, b, c questions.

For the exps you can pretty much rule out the ones that have come up already, I'd learn the ecology exps, there's 5 of them which are all simple enough, enzyme activitiy ones, osmosis, IAA growth regulator one AND most importantly photosynthesis. It was answered very badly as a section A Q last year so I'd make sure to know that one well.

For the article or 2 in section C, just take your time when them and just try + apply whatever you know about it (even if it's really basic) to your answers. The reproduction stuff is a traditional banker, but if you haven't covered much of it yet and you're happy enough with your genetics + eco I wouldn't bother.

I think the only concrete tip I'd have for section C is human defence system + viruses. It's quite topical as there was a lot of media talk bout avian flu around january when the papers would havw been being written.
There'll probably be some sort of plant thing in C aswell.

Section A is random enough, but just relax + go for it.

You've an hour to do A + B and 2 hours for C.
I'm in college now, but I've repeated so I've had all the papers of the new syllabus. Time wise you're grand. Just keep your eye on the clock + don't get bogged down on one Q. (I did EVERY question both years including those 2 of 3 bits in Qs 14 + 15. Yeah I was a big bio nerd, but it just shows that time is no problem once you stick to the facts and forget the waffle, it's science so how much u write doesn't matter. Just write down whatever comes to mind + it's been said before but NEVER LEAVE A BLANK SPACE, one word could score you 3 marks which is .75% which could mean 5 points. If it's wrong well at least you tried, it doesn't look good to an examiner if you don't bother + leave gaps.

In case u care I got a B1 in 2004 + an A1 in 2005. 3 years of LC bio education, I know what I'm talking about... and I tend to be right if I reckon a certain topic will be on a paper regardless of the subject + wether or not I'm any good at it.

bobneedshelpnow

Thanks that actually really helps - quiet calming:)

GrumPy

dajaffa wrote:

In case u care I got a B1 in 2004 + an A1 in 2005.

I might have missed something, but you got a B1.... why in god's name did you need to sit the paper again to get an A1?

ThrownAway

Might have repeated everything

Like you'd keep on your best 6 when repeating