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Tips for revising A level AQA biology?

I’m struggling with the memorising aspect of biology, I’m a lot better at applying my knowledge than memorising, what resources are good for biology? Just started using snap revise which is good but doesn’t cover all of the spec.
What exactly do you mean by “memorising aspect”?

and why do you want to memorise if you are better at understanding and application?
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Avatar for L-K
L-K
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Original post by ashvinsingh
I’m struggling with the memorising aspect of biology, I’m a lot better at applying my knowledge than memorising, what resources are good for biology? Just started using snap revise which is good but doesn’t cover all of the spec.


Have you tried Seneca Learning? My students have found it really useful for practising recall.
Original post by CaptainDuckie
What exactly do you mean by “memorising aspect”?

and why do you want to memorise if you are better at understanding and application?

I study maths and chemistry, and practice questions is all I need for them to do well, but with biology I tend to forget a lot of the content as it’s very content heavy.
Original post by ashvinsingh
I study maths and chemistry, and practice questions is all I need for them to do well, but with biology I tend to forget a lot of the content as it’s very content heavy.




Makes sense.

I used digital flashcards that I created by myself. I don’t really feel like anything more is necessary.

Also recall is 1000x easier if you just understand the theory.
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by L-K
Have you tried Seneca Learning? My students have found it really useful for practising recall.

I’ll give it a go thanks
Original post by ashvinsingh
I’m struggling with the memorising aspect of biology, I’m a lot better at applying my knowledge than memorising, what resources are good for biology? Just started using snap revise which is good but doesn’t cover all of the spec.


I had the same struggle as you when I was revising A-Level Biology. I found the questions I was being asked were more application-based than knowledge-based. I found that no matter how much I memorised the content, I wasn't able to answer the questions the examiner wanted, it was frustrating.
I got around this by practicing scenario questions using practice papers. I figured that it was more about applying the knowledge to different scenarios as opposed to simply recalling the knowledge. What helped was learning the knowledge (whatever way you learn best) and then applying it to my daily life, which made what I learned more applicable and realistic because I could 'see' what I was learning - if that makes sense.
Echoing what others have said, flashcards are an excellent way to memorise theory and terminology. The more you can do this earlier on, the more time you can spend focusing on areas you're really struggling with because it can take a bit of time to transition from recalling the knowledge to applying to knowledge to different scenarios.

For background, I also did AQA A-Level Biology around 3/4 years ago, so I'm not sure how much has changed since then! I hope this helps :smile:

Veronica
Student Ambassador

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