A1 in Biology

LC2010HIS

I want an A1 in Bio. Unfortunately, I was so stressed on the second week of exams in June, I bombed and got a D2.
But I got a B2 in the pres...
Anyone have any tips in how to do well in Bio?

ihavequestions

I got a A1 and I'll tell you what I did and you can decide whether or not you want to take my advice!

Firstly, I learned NOTHING off by heart- no definitions or experiment methods (I don't know if people actually do , but I'm telling you this anyways !) I found it much easier to try remember it in my own language and as I went through the year my own language of remembering turned into proper biology language-if that makes sense!

I drew out all the diagrams in detail about 3 times in the year and kept one set to revise at the end of the year. Other times during the year I sketched them very quickly or drew them in my head as I was learning!

I revised what I hated the most (for me plants)the most often and I left out genetics (you CAN do that!)

I did every single exam question (even pass questions) and wrote the answers in my exam papers next to the question.

I left my serious revision of the experiments untill the end of the year right before the exams because I found them very easy to remember because I was a bit of a swot and a perfectionist when we were doing them in class!

Well thats what I did anyways, hope I help you some bit!

Neddieog

ihavequestions wrote: »

I got a A1 and I'll tell you what I did and you can decide whether or not you want to take my advice!

Firstly, I learned NOTHING off by heart- no definitions or experiment methods (I don't know if people actually do , but I'm telling you this anyways !) I found it much easier to try remember it in my own language and as I went through the year my own language of remembering turned into proper biology language-if that makes sense!

I drew out all the diagrams in detail about 3 times in the year and kept one set to revise at the end of the year. Other times during the year I sketched them very quickly or drew them in my head as I was learning!

I revised what I hated the most (for me plants)the most often and I left out genetics (you CAN do that!)

I did every single exam question (even pass questions) and wrote the answers in my exam papers next to the question.

I left my serious revision of the experiments untill the end of the year right before the exams because I found them very easy to remember because I was a bit of a swot and a perfectionist when we were doing them in class!

Well thats what I did anyways, hope I help you some bit!

Your own language? care to explain? lol

ihavequestions

Neddieog wrote: »

Your own language? care to explain? lol

Well like in my own language "Ligament connects bone to bone" becomes "bhuy aba gyu a gyu."

No seriously, I mean like instead of learning that "the biosphere is the regions of the surface and atmosphere of the Earth where living organisms exist " I would say "biosphere is everywhere."

I dunno, it worked for me!

KnifeWRENCH

If you know all the experiments and the first two units (The Study of Life and The Cell) you'll have covered 80% of the paper by doing only about 50% of the course.

Genetics and ecology are pretty much definite long questions, and there'll usually be a long question on either photosynthesis or respiration (the entire question may not be based on those areas, but the majority will; the other part may have something to do with enzymes, and all that is in Unit 2 "The Cell" anyway.) Knowing all those areas will (hopefully) mean you only have one more long question to do, and then you can answer on whichever area you know best from Unit 3 "The Organism".

"The Organism" is by far the longest unit but only takes up about 20% of the paper, so you don't really need to know it as well as the first two units or the experiments.

(Please note that all this is not 100% guaranteed but it is pretty reliable, based on exam trends.)

babo9

KnifeWRENCH wrote: »

If you know all the experiments and the first two units (The Study of Life and The Cell) you'll have covered 80% of the paper by doing only about 50% of the course.

Genetics and ecology are pretty much definite long questions, and there'll usually be a long question on either photosynthesis or respiration (the entire question may not be based on those areas, but the majority will; the other part may have something to do with enzymes, and all that is in Unit 2 "The Cell" anyway.) Knowing all those areas will (hopefully) mean you only have one more long question to do, and then you can answer on whichever area you know best from Unit 3 "The Organism".

"The Organism" is by far the longest unit but only takes up about 20% of the paper, so you don't really need to know it as well as the first two units or the experiments.

(Please note that all this is not 100% guaranteed but it is pretty reliable, based on exam trends.)

Does anyone know if this is still definately the case? When I did the LC in '04 I remember I knew this for sure, I think the syllabus even mentioned the exam structure, afaik the syllabus hasn't changed since '04.
But looking at syllabus online I can't see any mention of the exam structure, so maybe I knew through some other means...

However I found other pages/documents (here and here) that mention the structure, showing unit 1, unit 2 and practicals make up 80% of the exam. Just not sure how accurate or up to date they are.
Trying to find out for someone else so don't want to pass on the wrong info!

seriouslysweet

I agree with what was said here, I don't learn anything off word-for-word. I understand it and am able to explain it back.

Victoria.

I got an A1 last June in biology. Its just all regurgitating facts accurately.

The thing about it is that its one of those subjects where there's no room for rambling on you're either right or wrong. Simple one word answers can seriuosly add up.

I did every single past exam question I could find and you'll see that they're repetitive. If you know all the answers from the last couple years I would be very surprised if you didn't get at least an B without even opening the text book. Only reason you wouldn't get an A is because you wouldn't know the experiments.

The same things come up all the time. You want to be concentrating on respiration
photosynthesis
plant reproduction
human reproduction
ecology
genetics

A third of the paper comes from each unit. If you think about unit 1 there isn't a lot there at all so usually you get questions on just food, ecology, microscope. All really manageable. Experiments to look out for here are viewing cells under microscope, food tests and ecology experiments.

In section 2 the long questions are usually either photosynthesis, respiration or genetics. You can get away without genetics at all if you want but I wouldn't advise that because you could get caught out in the short questions or if 2 other long questions are tricky you'll be left with a bad question when the genetics one could be easy enough so don't write it off. The first chapter on the basic structure of DNA and replication and stuff if you know that one you'll be grand for the short qs anyway. Experiments in this section would be the enzyme ones, they're really important, photosynthesis.

Unit 3 start crossing off systems like circulatory system, endocrine etc. Plant and human reproduction is big here always a question on either or. Theres always a nice long question on some body system. Experiments here would be the heart dissection, all the plant ones are important. Diagrams are really important in this unit. Draw them out all the time.

Revise wise is the best revision book, the little leaflet thing I can't remember the name of it was great for the experiments, I even used it on the morning of the exam.

Good luck hope that helps you out

WhiskeyGoblin

I also am aiming for a A, but oh lord, does photosynthesis mess me up, any advice for that little section?

Victoria.

marko93 wrote: »

I also am aiming for a A, but oh lord, does photosynthesis mess me up, any advice for that little section?

The only way to do that is to note down all the things going in, what happens to them and what the end products are. I had a table with 3 columns for that. Another thing that really helped me was a type of spider diagram thing so I could visualise it kinda like this one



I had bullet points for respiration and photosynthesis and I learnt the whole lot off too. Worth it for a section that's as guaranteed as those two.

Try some exam papers as well, maybe you might get an idea of the type of thing that comes up and how much they expect you to know.

Good luck its one of the sections that our class found the hardest