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Thinking of taking biology A level

Any advice guys n
It want to go down the route of a physchologist in particular a sports one so I figured since I never done pe it would be good for me to have a science under my belt. How hard is it to take everything in. Would it completely destroy my social life

Reply 1

username1292215

Original post by S.Defc123

Biology is very good, don't stress. Just make sure you revise after/before each lesson

Reply 2

lightwoXd

It's a lot of content, but the questions are more about applying it than recall. The tricky bit is the fact that you have to use very precise wording in your answers - not sure about other exam boards, but OCR was super anal about this. That said, it is something you get used to with practice so isn't too much of a headache provided you do a fair few practice questions.

Reply 3

Fox Corner

I moved this to the biology forum for you :smile:

Reply 4

fefssdf

biology is hard. very hard.

Reply 5

Lord_Karni

To do well you need to be able to memorise a lot of stuff! Most people say that if you want to do well it is all about application. Although I agree to some extent that doing past papers and other questions will with no doubt help, if you are able to memorise your course books you will do just fine.

Reply 6

alanaro

Get ready to learn lots of markschemes ....

Reply 7

khateshumans

Biology is the easiest out of the sciences. Thats for sure. However, in terms of physical content its a lot greater (IMO) then physics (chemistry being the hardest science, at a-level), however, if you feel like youre not just taking it as a means to an end like people who do chemistry (medicine, engineering, etc.) then you'll thoroughly enjoy it, I myself got an A* at gcse however at A-level ive been working at Ds,Es, and Us, consistently. However depending on what youre doing biology can definitely be a more relaxed subject then some!
PS REVISE MARK SCHEMES, OMG I CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. IT IS SOOOO PRECISE AND SENSITIVE TRUST ME!

Reply 8

Ordo

Lots of content
I did AQA Exam board papers - they're looking for very very specific answers - make sure you learn these :smile:

Reply 9

S.Defc123

Thanks a lot everyone !

Reply 10

AvWOW

Original post by khateshumans

Biology is the easiest out of the sciences. Thats for sure. However, in terms of physical content its a lot greater (IMO) then physics (chemistry being the hardest science, at a-), however, if you feel like youre not just taking it as a means to an end like people who do chemistry (medicine, engineering, etc.) then you'll thoroughly enjoy it, I myself got an A* at gcse however at A- ive been working at Ds,Es, and Us, consistently. However depending on what youre doing biology can definitely be a more relaxed subject then some!
PS REVISE MARK SCHEMES, OMG I CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. IT IS SOOOO PRECISE AND SENSITIVE TRUST ME!

I totally disagree with you.
I did Biology, Chemistry and Physics myself, and although Biology was my favourite subject It was definitely the most challenging. Questions need to be interpreted correctly. Mark schemes must be studied but not memorised word to word cause even those change.
Whereas for Chemistry it stays about the same (unit 4 is really really easy and unit 5 is also something that can easily be tacked.) Physics is a little bit more challenging, as answers requiring explanations must be written to point)

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 11

Jabruq

I think Biology would not only be useful for the course which you aspire to undertake but generally, Biology as a subject which is very content heavy although incredibly interesting and this interest will lead you to have a passion and want to learn more and work hard to understand and make sense of the concepts. Now respective of the other responses, there are varied mentions of how challenging Biology is as a subject - I would say this is mixed according to the individual's personal subject choice as they probably tend to make a comparison with the difficulty of their other subjects. I did both Bio and Chem and found them both to be challenging but in different ways but you have to understand that although both subjects are in some ways linked the subjects in themselves are challenging/easy in different ways to each other and have different demands that you have to fulfill. As long as you keep on top of the content, I mean studying before and after the lesson may not always be feasible but perhaps instead read a page of the textbook that the lesson will be about so that you feel somewhat more comfortable and a little more confident going into the lesson. With regards to revision people work in different ways and do some advice given may not work best for yourself but works well for others and with regards to that you will I'm sure be aware of how you learn and process information. It's about refreshing that knowledge throughout the year not just cramming it all in a few weeks or months before the exam - that may have worked at GCSE for some but it not work for A levels and Uni so it's better to get out of those habits early on not only to be able to know the info but also for ease of mind when it comes to exam time. Also with Biology as many have mentioned and especially with OCR they tend to be very picky and specific with their wording and so not only do you have to go through the challenge of learning the knowledge you also have to be able to manipulate it so past papers are a must and learning from mark schemes is also a very good idea especially when you come to the 6 mark questions you will find they can maybe ask a q that was similar but worded in a different way to a q asked in a past paper exam or even be very similar but anyway you will find the markscheme points will be very similar and often - esp for AS even mentioning certain key words or phrases will get you the marks but make sure you use them in the right context and not just aimlessly throw them around everywhere because you could get penalised and end up losing marks which you don't want to do. I want to stress that Biology having it's challenges is advantages is completely manageable and do not at all think that it will affect your social life and you have to believe you can do it because as long as you manage your time well you will do great and make sure you keep learning along the way - perhaps not from say September but when you do notes or however you will process the content at the end of the day you need to learn in to be able to answer the question. Now if you do this earlier on not only will it make you more confident but also it will make it easier for you as Iater when it comes to refreshing it in your memory it will be quicker but you may find that you will take longer to learn certain topics and shorter for others and sometimes you will have to relearn things again but this is all normal and part of the learning process. I hope this long response has been of use and I wish you the very best with everything.

Reply 12

yoda123

Original post by alanaro

Get ready to learn lots of markschemes ....

Exactly

Biology is a LOT of content and you may feel overwhelmed sometimes because they could ask u anything on the spec which is a lot.
However, in my experience, it definitely is the easiest science.

Just learn the marking points from the markscheme and make your own notes using the spec and you will do very well.