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How do you get good grades in AS Level Biology?

I really want to get as high grades as I can, but I have heard lots of talk about notes taken in class not being enough so you should read around the subject.

I am currently typing up my biology notes from today, and I am wondering if learning everything in the course text books (like at GCSE) is the best way to go or if someone could point me in the right direction so I can flesh out my notes and make them great tools for exam times.

Reply 1

Rezy

Original post by SteamboatMickey

From my experience (I recently completed AQA A2 Biology), I would say what worked for me was not only learning all the content really well but also making sure you do a lot of past papers. The reason I put a lot of emphasis in past papers is because the board I did asked a lot of how science works questions and their mark schemes were really harsh.

I would say for A2 reading around your subject also helps because there was a large essay at the end of unit 5 where you would get marks for outside knowledge. However, if you really enjoy Biology there's no reason why you shouldn't be reading around your syllabus anyway!

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 2

spiritless98

For AS get the core textbook
And fish around for online resources - I did this and achieved a high B at AS (I'm retaking one unit to bump this to an A)
Good luck!!

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Reply 3

Rorschach II

From experience, having done AS last year, I'd (I wish I knew this at the beginning) make your own notes from your booklets, perhaps do questions, but every time you do a question/a set of questions, update your notes, as you'll find that the notes in the booklets (if they would be anything like mine) are all jarbled up, repetitive in areas, which keeps being expanded upon later, and are not concise. There's also a lot of unneeded information, which we aren't told about. Make sure not to add application of knowledge knowledge to your notes, unless you won't get it otherwise, and/or it comes up a lot.

In this case, the earlier you do questions, the better, because you'll be learning the correct stuff.