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Reply 1
learn mark schemes off my heart and regurgitate them in the exam.
Reply 2
You'll have to ask your teacher what it is about your answers that make them B standard as opposed to A...is there anything particularly big that you're doing wrong?

I don't do Biology, but I know a lot of my friends found it really hard. I'd just say revise SOOO much :smile: and make sure you know all your topics inside out. If you really want, of course you can get an A :smile:
Eat, sleep & breathe past papers.
Reply 4
You have the right attitude to get an A which is great, and I think through reading the mark schemes and doing past papers you'd stand a very good chance of getting an A.

In a way I see what your teacher's saying, Biology marking schemes tend to be fairly picky about what they want (though this is certainly not always the case!) though you can use this to your advantage.

Just remeber its still early days, and you have several months to improve. I wouldn't worry about it.
Reply 5
bio,
there is a lot of content to learn, detailed answers are the key, also a lot of the questions, it is most difficult to work out what they want to hear, questions can be vague and they expect you to know what they want to ask you.

i did every single past exam paper produced since 2000 ...it worked for me
Reply 6
Your teacher doesn't sound very enthusiastic about trying to get you a better grade!

I always use past mark schemes and find they work well. I've also asked my Biology teacher to be very harsh in the way she marks my work, so that I get used to answering exam questions in more detail.
Reply 7
The most important thing is to turn up to lessons, obviously. But make sure that if you don't get something, you get your teacher to explain it until you do, and read over your notes on that topic afterwards until you're happy. In fact read over all your notes occasionally to refresh your memory, because there's loads to learn and it's easy to forget riveting details such as the intermediate stages of mitosis.

Past papers are a great resource, but save them until a month or so before the exams to get the most out of them. Provided that you turn up to the lessons you can pretty much get a good grade just by doing loads of past papers a week or two before the exam if you're too lazy to revise properly, but I wouldn't recommend it. *bad memories* :s-smilie:

I managed to get an A in AS Biology and I absolutely hated it, so I'm sure you can as well. Hope that helped.

OH, and don't pay any attention to predicted grades. Just try to get the best grade you can and hopefully you'll prove your teacher wrong. :wink:
Reply 8
:smile: The reason I'm predicted a B is that I don't do well in practicals. I know the coursework will be near on impossible and well, I'm worrying already.

The other thing is that I don't always understand the question, and usually have to ask for a bit of help as to what the question is wanting. (although most of the class are the same)
I also believe I don't go into enough detail.
Reply 9
Well if it's coursework and not a practical under exam conditions you'll be fine; the coursework in year 12 is nowhere near impossible and you have ages to do it.
If it makes you feel better for my first AS mock for bio I got an E.

After that I bucked up but still all I got was a steady stream of Bs and was being predicted a C just in case.

But come the exam I got an A and am being predicted one for A2.

The best thing to do is to ask any bio teacher (if you dont like the one who teaches you that is) how you could improve. Most of the time people improve by waffling less, including more key terms and including details. Oh and revise more, and build up consice notes and remember to read and make notes from at least two textbooks. This will broaden your knowledge and more things will fall into place which may have seemed tricky simply by using your school book.

Oh and if you can do really well in the exams and moderately okay in the coursework you can end up with an A overall, I got AA in the two exams and a B in the coursework. And the B wasn't even a high one :P

Hoped that helped :smile:
Democracy
Reply 11
Well, that's what I'm confused about. She said we'd be doing a practical before Christmas, one after and then we'd start coursework.

However my chem teacher said we only did 1 practical + coursework.

I found the coursework at GCSE hard, the teacher sort of left us to it with an instruction sheet and we basically had to answer question's on something we knew nothing about. (we'd done an experiment, but at the time I didn't know what variables and all this nonsense were)

We've got the same teacher this year, and I'm sure she'll abandon us again in the coursework.
Most other subjects at GCSE had coursework which was understandable. I only got my grade because I did well in the exam.
Reply 12
Pawsies
:smile: The reason I'm predicted a B is that I don't do well in practicals. I know the coursework will be near on impossible and well, I'm worrying already.

The other thing is that I don't always understand the question, and usually have to ask for a bit of help as to what the question is wanting. (although most of the class are the same)
I also believe I don't go into enough detail.


I have exactly the same problem with practicals i get nervous and I don't seem to do well! Just make sure you do well on the planning exercise that leads up to it so you can get as many points as possible and do loads of revision on the topics that could come up in the practical so you can at least get some points on the questions if you completely mess up the practical part! I got a C in the transport module that included the practical and I think that was because I picked up some points in the transport exam. Thankfully I did really well in the other 2 exams and scraped an A so don't fret it is possible!:smile:
Reply 13
Past papers. Do any you can find, not merely restricted to your own exam board; borrow text books from the public library and try and understand the concepts.

Once you've done and marked a past paepr, go through the mark scheme and note down any answers that you didnt get or didn't put down (even if you got full marks on that question).

Then one or two weeks before the exam consolidate your notes into revision cards and diagrams/ flow charts / colourful posters and banners.
create mnemonics to memorise things. eg,

Focusing on a Far away object
Ciliary muscles Relax
Suspensory ligaments sTretch FRTL
Lens becomes Less convex

Focusing on a Close object
Ciliary muscles Contract
Suspensory ligaments sLacken CCLM
Lens becomes More convex

Also, create revision timetables that you'll actually stick to and schedule what you want to watch on TV, or play sports, party etc ...
Reply 14
Effortlessly?
I'm targetted to get an A in biology AS and have consistently done well in our weekly tests, so, it looks like it'll happen. But, I don't find the subject easy, i revise to do well, so, I'm talking as someone whos in a similar position to you, but has got a method to suit her. For me, the key to doing well is thoroughly undertsanding the stuff. If you know why something is the way it is, you learn it, and remember it, because it makes sense. That means when asked a question, irrelevant of how its phrased, its easier to answer, because you no the words their using and the context. So yeh, make lots of notes, and make sure you undersatnd it all.

We haven't started yet, 'cause it's pointless to do so now, but when you get closer to the exam date, do past papers, as everyones said. But do that in the mind to get used to the exam, how they ask questions, interpreting how much a question is worth in terms of how much to write etc (generally familiarisation) not to memorise what's asked and word for word what to write.
I learnt from mark schemes like most other people - the important thing here is WORDING. Sometimes even if you get the answer right you get no credit if its not worded the same as in the mark scheme or if you miss out specific important words. I advise that you work on that cos doin that got my grades up from Bs to good As. Also when answering a question use all the resources you can, your textbook, internet, revision notes etc and try to do as many types of questions and past papers you can.

I find with biology although a lot of it is regurgitation, understanding what you're writing about makes it SO much easier. Ask your teacher or an older peer to help if there's something you don't understand cos normally once its in your head, it should stick :smile:
Reply 17
Hispanic-Impressions
Eat, sleep & breathe past papers.


Amen to that lol
read mark schemes and do lots of exam papers
Reply 19
Hard to say, without knowing exactly what sort of answers you write, what you should do to get them up a grade. I'd say you should ask your teacher to go through a couple of your B answers with you and tell you how they could be improved. Or you could post them up here and I'm sure people would be happy to give their tuppence worth.
An important thing is to take note of how many marks are available for the question and make sure you cover as many points in your answer. Otherwise the advice given so far is just right. I did AS as an external candidate and had no idea of how to answer exam questions, as I'd never done any before. But I got an A for AS because I was so afraid I'd fail that I revised tons and knew my stuff.
Good luck.

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