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How hard would self-taught biology be?

My cousin wants to do it but it's filled in her school. They said they can enter her for the exam but she'll have to teach herself the stuff.

She's pretty much an A* student all round, and she's rather good at biology as far as I know. Would it be too difficult for her to do this?
Reply 1
Avatar for jontylol
jontylol
11
I was going to say the hardest bit would be sorting out somewhere to do the ISA, but if its through her school and they're entering her that shouldn't be a problem. And if shes an A* student i dont see why she cant do it, you just need to stick at it i assume. :smile:
Reply 2
Avatar for tehsponge
tehsponge
11
AS? I reckon it's doable if she has the commitment. There's lots of stuff to cover, and the concepts aren't that difficult.
Reply 3
Avatar for krisblade
krisblade
8
Its all personal. If she enjoys the subject and is good at it I don't see why not. The only bits I would say she might struggle with is the small biochemistry bits - the Krebs cycle, glycolysis. It can be tad hard to get your head round the first time you go through it - but everything else I'd say anyone who is generally clever and likes biology would be able to teach themselves very easily. And even those bits if you spent enough time on it, it could be eventually be grasped. I'd say go for it - it will be good prep for uni to develop independant learning skills. And I'm sure if she did past papers or questions she could get the teachers to have a look at it for her or even run through some of the more difficult things outside of lesson times. But that is assuming her teachers are nice :smile:
Reply 4
Avatar for Creative
Creative
10
Very doable; she just needs to like the subject and have good resource material. As I recall, Biology involved doing coursework and field work in my school; I'm sure the boards must have some other arrangement for people who can't do that.
She needs to sort out the practical/ ISA stuff with the school.

But for the actual content we pretty much self-teach anyway...
Reply 6
Avatar for Doughboy
Doughboy
9
She must WANT to study Biology. If she's just doing it just cause, then she will struggle.

If she's genuinely interested in the subject, she will find the time to do the work on her own. I pretty much self-studied AS Biology and I got a nice A :smile: In A Level Biology, you need to be comfortable with everything in the syllabus because those evil examiners can ask any question on any little thing from the syllabus >_>

Just tell her to always find time the to read, read and read and never let the work pile up. I'm doing A2s now and I'm struggling because so all the work I put off for later!

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