AQA Biology A2 Unit 4 Revision Thread

Urghhh Biology, disgusting disgusting subject. I spent like 4 frees today doing stupid biology ( ) and then couldn't even attempt a disgusting question.

Aww, well maybe try making your notes pretty? It's a fairly boring topic, but I'm sure you can get amazing grades - you're on TSR for goodness sake! I'm about to tackle the evil that is photosynthesis.

Why don't you like Christmas?

thank you dear:P

oh i love xmas....it's just....it reminds me how of fast the year's gone by

Thats amazing but only 1/3 of the paper is knowing the facts the rest is application.
How do you get taught?

Bloody damn ISAs. Well, actually, the Biology ones aren't too bad.

What style of teaching might this be?

basically, we burn through the entire syllabus in about 1/3 of the term, taking notes, and only taking notes. Minimal discussion, no experiments, no videos or anything.

Stage 2: The tests. Oh god the tests. I guess its hard to explain to an outsider, but in my school, our biology teacher is legendary for his testing method. You're almost guarunteed an A if you arent braindead.
From the syllabus, he draws up a test, of about 250-300 questions. Once every lesson, you do these questions. They are always the same. They are usually in the same order. You have about 20 minutes to answer these questions. You dont have them on a sheet, he justs stands at the front and recites the questions. Do the maths, you have about 4 seconds per question. You have to pay attention, and you have to be fast writing the answers. It literally forces the knowledge into your head, when you have to recall it that often and that quickly. (For instance the question "draw the light independent reaction" is worth 6 marks. You have roughly 20 seconds to do it. With that amount of time, there really isnt any time for thinking about it, you just have to know. And thats what this is all about.)

You get "the little quiz" once a lesson until the exam. There is no danger of becoming rusty.

With the rest of the time we get in lessons, its past exam questions. LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of past exam questions. I reckon I've got every question on the topics we're doing since the mid 90s in my biology folders.

It is undeniably boring, hard and unforgiving. Quite a few people drop out. But if you learn how to cope then its just easy sailing for an A. I'm on an A from AS level and I did absolutely no work outside the classroom.

I've finally got my head around limiting factors! Although I'm about a month ahead in revision compared with AS, I have a mock tomorrow and I know I don't know enough to pass it

What is there to understand? I mean, I just thought that all you need to know is that rate of photosynthesis is limited by the factor which is at it's least favorable value. So no matter how much you increase other factors by, the rate will always be limited by a particular factor and changes only to that factor would increase the rate.

In addition, you may need to know about compensation points, and how there is no net gas exchange i.e co2 absorbed = co2 released during respiration.....

Mainly, it's so deadly boring that I just CBA to learn it the first time around, and now I have to learn it from scratch haha. Also, the Nelson Thornes book is crap for it and my teacher just confused the hell out of me. I'm fine with most of the unit 5 stuff, but limiting factors just do my head in. Everyone finds different things different and the wording of all the explanations just further confused me. I just looked at diagrams instead.

Also, the spec. is really vague on how muh detail you need to know.

I doubt there will be a whole question on limiting factors, it will be more linked to data interpretation of a graph testing our ability to apply our knowledge from the specification.....

And limiting factors is in chapter 4 not 5

So there's a week til the test. Saw a similar thing in the CHEM4 thread, where someone posts a question, another person answers it and posts their own question... and it goes round like that.

So if anyone's up to doing that, I'll start with a question:

How are NADPH and ATP used in the Calvin Cycle?

NADPH is used to reduce GP to TP
ATP is used to provide energy for the above reaction



Name the enzyme that fixes CO2 in the Calvin cycle

RuBisCO



Give two advantages of ATP that allow it to be used as an immediate source of energy in cells.