CIE Biology A Level

diya_k1929

hi! im going to be in year 12 in September and I was just wondering what resources and textbooks were most useful for CIE Biology. Also, are the notes on PMT and Save my Exams detailed enough? Thank youu

Reply 1

Tulipbloom

11

Original post by diya_k1929

hi! im going to be in year 12 in September and I was just wondering what resources and textbooks were most useful for CIE Biology. Also, are the notes on PMT and Save my Exams detailed enough? Thank youu

Hey I did CIE Biology and got an A*. The only textbook I used was the Cambridge International AS & A Level Biology Coursebook (penguins are on the cover). Do not rely on PMT and Save me Exams. They explain concepts too vaguely and they don't cover all aspect of topics. They are good in terms of giving you a basic understanding of topics. The next step is to deepen your understanding using the textbook. But remember to keep in mind on what is important as the textbook tends to over explain and display facts that are irrelevant. The best resource at your disposal would be past papers (all available on PMT). You will find that each year for both AS and A level, there are 3 versions of each paper. The same questions come up again and again and the mark schemes are more or less the same. I made my own notes at the start but towards the exam, I added mark scheme answers and learnt them instead as I did not want to waste time writing answers extensively (listing key words instead of whole concepts will earn you marks). Hope this helps!

Reply 2

diya_k1929

OP

5

Thank you so much!! This was soo helpful x

Original post by Tulipbloom

Hey I did CIE Biology and got an A*. The only textbook I used was the Cambridge International AS & A Level Biology Coursebook (penguins are on the cover). Do not rely on PMT and Save me Exams. They explain concepts too vaguely and they don't cover all aspect of topics. They are good in terms of giving you a basic understanding of topics. The next step is to deepen your understanding using the textbook. But remember to keep in mind on what is important as the textbook tends to over explain and display facts that are irrelevant. The best resource at your disposal would be past papers (all available on PMT). You will find that each year for both AS and A level, there are 3 versions of each paper. The same questions come up again and again and the mark schemes are more or less the same. I made my own notes at the start but towards the exam, I added mark scheme answers and learnt them instead as I did not want to waste time writing answers extensively (listing key words instead of whole concepts will earn you marks). Hope this helps!

Reply 3

diya_k1929

OP

5

Original post by Tulipbloom

Hey I did CIE Biology and got an A*. The only textbook I used was the Cambridge International AS & A Level Biology Coursebook (penguins are on the cover). Do not rely on PMT and Save me Exams. They explain concepts too vaguely and they don't cover all aspect of topics. They are good in terms of giving you a basic understanding of topics. The next step is to deepen your understanding using the textbook. But remember to keep in mind on what is important as the textbook tends to over explain and display facts that are irrelevant. The best resource at your disposal would be past papers (all available on PMT). You will find that each year for both AS and A level, there are 3 versions of each paper. The same questions come up again and again and the mark schemes are more or less the same. I made my own notes at the start but towards the exam, I added mark scheme answers and learnt them instead as I did not want to waste time writing answers extensively (listing key words instead of whole concepts will earn you marks). Hope this helps!

also sorry I have another question! How did you prepare for paper 3 and 5 (the ones involving practicals)? thanks!

Reply 4

Tulipbloom

11

Original post by diya_k1929

also sorry I have another question! How did you prepare for paper 3 and 5 (the ones involving practicals)? thanks!

No need to apologize. For paper 3 there are 2 sections: the wet practical and the dry practical. For the wet practical almost no memorization is needed but you must know your theory and you must be able to follow a set of instructions. As you go through the topics, you will have gone through most of the tested practicals (food tests, enzyme experiment etc). Some experiments might be unfamiliar but the concepts they test are. Reading up on techniques such as dilutions is important and such questions come in the form of having to label and annotate diagrams. Understanding on topics such as biological molecules, enzymes, cell membrane and transport is required for the wet prac. With each prac done you will also have to comment on validty, precision, and accuracy and how you would go about improving each aspect (common one mark questions). This would be where reading mark schemes are useful as the same answers come up. Keep in mind the wording is specific for example: instead of just saying water bath say thermostatically controlled water bath. When I say that you must know your theory it means if the practical doesn't work (a question always comes up on the presentation of your results in a table) you have to fake results but in such a way that it is believable. This means that it is in line with the theory and makes sense. These questions can be worth 5 marks. Another thing you should take note of is the manner in which certain questions are answered. For example if you are asked to draw and label a results table: in order to gain 5 marks you must do the following: 1 mark for results in order, 1 mark for sensible results, 1 mark for proper table drawn with Independent and dependent variable, 1 mark for results to the same decimal place, 1 mark for units (this is just an example). For the dry prac you must simply know how to use a microscope, know your microscope calculations, converting between different units (usually other units to micrometers), how to identify microscope images of different parts of a plant (stem/root/leaves (normal vs dry leaves)) and how to label different bits. A comparison question might come up too in which you describe features that differ between a given image on the paper and the image produced by your microscope. The same type of microscope material always comes up: usually a blood vessel sample or a plant sample. You can practice drawing these as most of the dry prac section involves drawing out these samples in either a low plan manner (outline of different bits of the samples, basically showing layers but not in detail) or a high power manner (a more detailed version). How you draw is important: smooth lines with no gaps. But dw too much they will prep you well for this.

Paper 5: I actually got an AS experiment this year. This is when CORMS is tested as a 7 marker(sometimes 8 marker). You basically need to structure an experiment for someone to follow. There will be some other questions on experimental techniques. The second section will have you analyze different kinds of data (bar graphs/scatter graphs/line graphs etc). Learning the benefits of using different kinds of data (quantitative/qualitative) as well discontinuous and continuous data is needed. You will also need to know when it is useful to use certain correlation techniques and tests eg: Simpson's index of diversity vs Pearson's linear correlation. Paper 5 is a lot simpler (no pracs done during the exam itself) and doing a lot of past papers for me was enough. I made notes for each experiments that come up again and again. Reading the mark schemes for CORMS will be useful as you can easily score marks for simply saying repeat the experiment 5 times or this is a low hazard experiment. Hope this helps and feel free to ask anymore questions :biggrin:

CIE Biology A Level

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