Teaching myself Biology

grimloch

Right, I've reached the conclusion that my Biology teacher is a twat.

Today, and this wouldn't be the first day I'll add, reading one introductory paragraph was the sum total of the periods productivity.

The teacher also said in a roundabout way that he wasn't looking to get people A's.....

Anyway to skip me ranting on, has anyone done the subject on their own and which is the better of the revision books?

On another note, do we have to hand up our lab notebooks as part of our grade for the LC, my teacher maintains that we do and I'm reasonably sure he's wrong. If anyone could clarify this I would be very happy.

Thanks in advance.

Turner

Aye revision books and past papers are all you need for exams.

Alot of teachers focus on giving a general education which is good but realistically you are only in it for the results and college points.

Stick to the past papers, find the trend and study the topics that come up regularly. Its been 7 years since my LC but i presume Fucus and platyhelminthes are still coming up!!!

xinran

I taught myself biology last year and used the less stress book, which was good in terms of cutting down the amount to learn.
About the practical books, the department can check up on your hardbacks but the chances are very slim but you dont need it for your grade.
Good luck with it anyway!

EdgarAllenPoo

xinran wrote:

I taught myself biology last year and used the less stress book, which was good in terms of cutting down the amount to learn.
About the practical books, the department can check up on your hardbacks but the chances are very slim but you dont need it for your grade.
Good luck with it anyway!

I had the same experience, I taught myself biology (along with economics,business,geography and most of the maths course). Use Leaving Certificate Biology by GillMcMillan and the less strees book. Your practicals will never be checked.

angeldelight

Chief--- wrote:

Stick to the past papers, find the trend and study the topics that come up regularly. Its been 7 years since my LC but i presume Fucus and platyhelminthes are still coming up!!!

That's not as easy as it sounds. The LC Biology course changed recently. 2004 was the first year the new course was examined so there's only 2 past papers to go on. The course has been changed drastically, the things you mentioned aren't on the course at all. Genetics is always gonna be important though, and you definitely should be able to teach yourself as it's not really understanding, just learning. If you have any questions at any stage though just ask here!

abercrombie

angeldelight wrote:

That's not as easy as it sounds. The LC Biology course changed recently. 2004 was the first year the new course was examined so there's only 2 past papers to go on. The course has been changed drastically, the things you mentioned aren't on the course at all. Genetics is always gonna be important though, and you definitely should be able to teach yourself as it's not really understanding, just learning. If you have any questions at any stage though just ask here!

thats true!!

on the subject of genetics, it's done really well in less stress!! and genetics is one of the hardest bits of the course...i love it tho!!!

Aoibheann

Genetics, as mentioned, will presumably be important; I hope so anyway, it's my favourite section.
Ecology-once you know it, it's such an easy question to get marks in. I mean, I did my bio homework in 5 minutes the other day(was rushing to get somewhere), and I got full marks in the exam question we had. So like I said, it's a grand question, and worth doing.
The Less Stress book is alright, I think it sometimes leaves out some (perhaps minor) details which we'd have learned in class and who knows, may come up! But go through the papers and it together, check if there's anything that it may be missing, etc.

And like everyone else said, no, you dont hand up your practical copy. The chances of it even being checked are slim to none, tbh.

Best of luck anyway, you'll probably do a much better job by yourself than with that sort of teacher.

grimloch

Oh good, that eejit has been hassling and pestering our class to have our practical books in pristine condition for when we have to hand them up to get marked on them.

Thanks for the help folks.:)

Lord Oz

I'm in the same situation except with english instead of biology. I'd be screwed if english was any harder.

d4gurl

Grimloch they could come in to your school one day i.e inspectors and go we want to see grimlochs hardback and if you havnt it completed youre not allowed sit the old LC! So your teacher is just doing it for your own good, then again as people have said the chances are slim....but you are far to clever to allow any glitches!

abercrombie

thats true! that happened to me in chemistry! an inspector came in and asked to see our chemistry experiment copy...thank god that week i had made sure i was up to date on everything

d4gurl

Ye In your school those inspectors are always coming in!!

4Xcut

they don't just turn up out of the blue, there is some warning. Also since when was putting unnessecery pressure and miss-informing students doing whats best for you. There is no excuse for poor teaching.

Scarinae

I thought they had to tell you a week in advance if they were coming to check your experiements? I mean it would mean a week of scrambling to get notes on experiments you'd missed so I'd advise keeping up to date with your experiments anyway - and they're DEFINITELY worth learning, because they are so important on the paper and can come up in the long questions. I found the Rapid Revision book very good personally, but I'm sure Less Stress is very good as well.
Doesn't it suck when a teacher is no use though? Especially since if you work really hard and get grinds etc and get yourself an A1, they will be praised for it

abercrombie

yeah that sucks alright!! do you know what i think...teachers should be assesed after a certain years of teaching because some of them really havent got a clue

Anto and Moe

You should probably read through Michael O' Calahan's Concise Leaving Cert Biology. It's a full textbook, I don't know if it's a good idea to sit the LC on the strength of a few revision books never having gone through the material in it's entirety in the first place? Good luck!

telemachus

Given that someone's referred to a change in 2004 i'm not sure how relevant my experience of the course is (I did it 3 years ago), but I found out of all the subjects i did it was by far one of the most straightforward in terms of a simple slog through learning the material. Your primary concern should be getting some high quality revision notes summarising the material efficently in a structure you can easily break up into chunks, then you just need to work out a timetable that'll allow you to cover it all and stick to it. I found there was very little in depth understanding or intuition required, it was straightforward slog requiring time and determination (at least in my case, I had almost no interest in the subject material).

killermonkey

i was in a verrrry similar situation to you last year. in fifth year we were being taught the OLD biology course by a sub who didnt have a clue, so in sixth year our teacher came back and issued us all with a copy of the present syllabus and informed us that we had done about 5% relevant material to the course we would be examined on! turned out she was absolutely appalling teacher too and basically i taught myself the course between march and june. (did the LC this year)its very doable if u have any interest in it - i used michael o callaghans "Biology" and found it excellent and 100% focused on the exam material while making it a good read. i had less stress more success too but very rarely used it. about the whole teaching yourself thing, its not necessarily the worst thing to have to do, im in first year medicine and literally everyone has to read all the material themselves. no matter what course you might do in college (if youre planning on going on to 3rd level) youre going to have to read and learn material without any guidance so its fairly good experience i think. be clever about how you approach the exam though... given its a brand new course predictions are extremely easy to make even though you obviously need to learn everything. for example the chances of the 3 experiments we got this year coming up for ye are virtually non-existent. on that note, dont worry about lab copies at all, especially for biology. even if they are ridiculously bad, nothing happens to you, i think it just reflects badly on the teacher - so maybe be vindictive! it definitely without a doubt does not affect your grade in any way. best of luck with it, try to enjoy the subject if possible, it makes it so much easier to learn.