F215 (Control, Genomes and Environment) OCR Biology - Tuesday 31st January 2012

Oh, I heard of him. Meiosis aint much of a huge problem, its just the entire allele this, and allele that. And epistasis especcially.

Oh hi, I took this A2 early in year 12 and achieved 86/90 in Jan, 48/60 in ISA and 118/150 for june. Still achieved an A but I'm resitting this year for an A* because I'm a grade whore lol. Control, genomes and environment wont get me this time. How else are you revising? This is my brief plan:
So far revised topics 2, 3 and 4, so genetic engineering, ecosysytems and muscles and plants etc. Just the gentics topic 1 left to do, hopefully by yhis time next week. Then I have 2 full months to do practise papers, stretch and challenge etc. So far, I'm only using the big fat official OCR book, do you recommend any others or do you think this will cover everything?

Oh and btw lol, I did exact same as you, did a minimum amount of past papers, then when I got them marked I didnt even check my mistakes. I thought this stuff wont come up again. I think I focused too much on memorisation than applications etc, which is what all these exams are about.

Hi guys, I’m currently revising inheritance and genetic diagrams and not getting very far at all.

Anyone want to tackle this question for me and let me know how you did it?

Red-green colour blindness is caused by a sex-linked allele that is recessive to the allele for normal colour vision. In a family a boy and his grandfather both have red-green colour blindness. Is this grandfather the father of his mother or of his father?

I’ve been trying to find an answer for the past half hour and it’s driving me insane. I hate inheritance

Good answer Areeb

Would anyone be willing to go through the whole genetics part in detail page by page according to the Official OCR book so from page 8 (Meiosis) to spread 16 (chi test). I think this is the main part from the spec that everyone finds difficult.

Also from the June 11 paper, with only 10 marks on genetics, we can see whats more likely to come up in JAN 2012.

Hey i am also aiming for an A* in Biology aswell. However my coursework is pulling me down as i only got 30/60- no matter how much i try it always gets moderated down.

SO far i haven't even started revising yet lol, i've nearly finished F214 so i will be starting F215 probably this week and then should be finished by hopefully before christmas.
The way i revise is that i do all the stretch and challenge and all the questions in the book and past papers as i go through the syllabus. this for some reason helps me to understand the topics better and always makes it easier to remember certain key words as i am using them in questions if you get what i mean.

to be honest i only using the big fat heinemann book and sometimes the Biology 2 book however i think the heinamann book is they best and it most definitely does cover all the topics.
to get an A* you have to do all of of further reading aswell but what i do is watch youtube videos instead and i find them very useful to help understand the details better. when i tell people this they just laugh but seriously they are a good source of revision..

i believe you are applying for medicine- good luck with your application bro.

and also how was you able to complete the whole biology syllabus so early lol? are you in year 13 or on a gap year.

Hey people last year i really struggled on these topics aswell because my teacher was absolutely useful.
however when it came to half term i spend a whole week working on this area because i find it so difficult and confusing however at the end i was able to master genetics.

what i did was use a book called Biology 2 it is from the old spec however it explains genetics very well and much better compared to the heinemann book. this books goes through genetics extremely well in my opinion and is much less confusing. i also watched many youtube videos on how to work out inhetitance etc.

if anyone can't get a copy of this book i am more than happy to upload my notes which i made using the book- there not really notes i just ended up copying out the book lol. Just PM if you would like me to upload my notes or quote me on this thread.

and i also think the jan 2012 paper will have gentic questions as they never came up in jan 2011 paper.

good luck everyone.

Yeah year 13, I did A2 in year 12 so ive already done it once, then as soon as I got my june exam results in august, I was devestated I didnt get an A* after all the work I put in. At first I thought forget it, but then I started revising midway October after sending off my med application. I'm very good at memorising, (sorry for sounding arrogant) but my exam technique is generally quite poor so I need to work on that.

Yeah, ISA's are a pain in the backside. If it were up to me, they would have much less weighting.

Nice to talk to someone with similar aims, and yes could you please PM me the biology 2 book notes it would be really helpful. Thanks

Will you be able to uploads the notes or PM me. thanks

ill try and upload them later on this evening-- im currently just finishing module 1 on F214

no problem, thanks

Will you be able to uploads the notes or PM me. thanks

could you guys PM me your email adresses because the file which i made by scanning in my work is to big to upload lol. 29MB in a compressed folder.

Any luck with that??

sent

sent

Finally finished the content, now time to practise questions.

hey how long did it take you to learn the whole content- i started on tuesday and have just got onto apoptosis.

also how did you you learn the whole content- do you just read the book and try to understand the content or make notes as you go along

It took about 3 weeks but I have a bit of a talent for memorisation , I took notes and tried to understand it as well.

did you spend 3 weeks only on f215 or it took you 3 weeks learning f215 aswell as revising for other modules?

I spent equal amounts on all my january exams, this includes chem jan, D1 for maths, S2 for AS further maths, unit 4 physics. So yeah although, I did have a slight concentration towards the bio module. Hows your revision going?

cool, yeah im taking my time revising, last year i had to rush a lot of module 4 on f215.

if you dont mind me asking how many hours of independent study do you do each day on average?

and also could you possibly help me with meiosis. i am struggling with the terminology, e.g. what is the difference between chromatid, chromosome and what are sister chromatids.

in prophase chromatin (the dna in its unwound state) becomes a chromosome when it coils up on histone proteins becoming a chromosome. here we have two sticks attached to each other i.e a chromosome. my question is are the two sticks one chromosome, if yes, how come when they separate the single stick is also called a chromosome. i'm a little confused here. i never really understood this concept of biology

I spent equal amounts on all my january exams, this includes chem jan, D1 for maths, S2 for AS further maths, unit 4 physics. So yeah although, I did have a slight concentration towards the bio module. Hows your revision going?