Preparing for Access To Sciences course

It depends on what modules you have mate, is it via OCR? I only did Chem and Bio out of those so I can tell you what we did but it will prob be different next year.

Quoted just so it shows up in "who's quoted me

That's not a wall of text.

This is a wall of text!

The best pieces of advice I could offer are 1. Stay on top of things. Sometimes you'll get hit with four essays in one week, if you're anything like me (which I hope you're not) you might think "HOLY **** WHAT THE CRAP DO I DO NOW!?!?!". Just stay calm and stay organised, work on one essay at a time and just be methodical in your approach.

2. Actually learn the stuff. I'm a massive advocate of access courses and think they are excellent, but I do think it's possible to get through them with a pass without truly learning the material just going through books and regurgitating the material in a fashion of your own, ultimately you're only cheating yourself if this is what you do (not that I'm saying you will, but I know some on our course did). Put everything you have into every essay you're assigned and get it in on time.

As for your second question, it actually seems reasonably similar to what I did so here goes.

All of this is just a very brief overview by the way.

The main thing to take from this is that 10 months ago I didn't know what ANY of this stuff meant, and if I can do it, anyone can!

Atomic Structure and Fundamental Concepts, I should expect this will be the first unit you do and will be a basic introduction into chemistry. Structure of the atom is as it says, what makes up an atom so will likely focus on protons, neutrons, electrons, electron configuration, a basic grasp of the information on a periodic table. Fundamental Concepts will be as it says on the box, things like Avogadro's Law, Pauli Exclusion Principle and thermodynamics. We also did some work on molecular geometry in this unit. This unit should also give you a firm base in the language of chemistry, essentially learning what all the numbers mean, where they go and what they depict.

Moles will be about moles, oddly enough. You may do some titration experiments and try to work out the number of moles in a given substance but the main thing you'll probably focus on in this is working out Moles/mass/molecular mass. Essentially working out how much stuff you have!

Bonding will cover the various types of molecular bonds, ionic, covalent, electron sharing, polar/non polar molecules and hydrogen bonding.

REDOX is reduction and oxidisation reactions, basically where the oxidisation state changes in a reaction.

Organic will look at things like alkanes/alkenes and aromatic rings, organic chem is quite broad so you could be doing lots of stuff here.

Thermochemistry looks at the amount of energy exchanged/produced in a given reaction and will probably contain some work on enthalpy, equilibrium will just look at things like dynamic equilibriums which is... difficult to explain without having a decent grasp of the earlier topics!

As for your bio stuff...

Tissues will look at the different type of tissue/muscle in the body, the reason it's there and its structure/how it works (in the case of muscle).

Transport looks at the way things are moved around the body (in the blood for example) this might take in things like gas exchange also.

Nutrition and respiration is pretty much as is, the way your body processes food and the roles of the organs that are involved, you'll look at things like enzymes and the fluids involved with digestion probably.

Homeostasis is about the regulation of conditions within the body... This was covered over separate things for us so at a punt it could be about kidneys/sections of the brain responsible/endocrine system etc...

Genetics will probably look at things like DNA, genetic variation and genetic conditions, chromosomes, types of cell division (meiosis) perhaps, continuous and discontinuous variation... We also did work on protein syntheses.

Human disease and disorder is again as it says on the tin. It'll look at the body, pathogens and how the body deals with them, things like primary and secondary response, memory/B/T cells and how they work...

Off the top of my head I'm sure cell structure and operation, osmosis and such other things within biology will be covered.

I did biology and extended biology and had the same tutor for both, so I cannot in any way remember what's considered normal biology and what's considered extended biology haha!

Anyway like I say, reading that 10 months ago I wouldn't have had any clue what any of that meant, so if you understand some of it you're doing better than I was, if you don't understand any of it, don't worry, you will in 12 months .

Just ask if you've any more questions dude.

Cheers

Ash

Awesome man. I vaguely remember a couple of topics (not much at all) but I'm sure it will all come flooding back as I progress

I've taken your advice on-board, and as long as I work my butt off I'm sure i'll be okay.

One last question, is there ANY books I can read in preparation? (by books I mean things like AS Level Biology/Chem study guides etc) Would it be better to just wait?