The Student Room Group

How to get an A in a Biology test

Hello there!
I was wondering if anyone could share their study tips with me. I've got a Biology test on Thursday and I could really need some help. Can you recommend me any good Biology websites or YT-videos?

Thanks in advance :smile:
Reply 1
I do have some study tips. I tend to break the questions down into few types and I practised tackling each type.
I wrote this on another thread. Click here.

All the best.:wink:
Reply 2
Original post by chershen
I do have some study tips. I tend to break the questions down into few types and I practised tackling each type.
I wrote this on another thread. Click here.

All the best.:wink:


hey i couldnt find ur post on that thread! could u possibly copy and paste it? thanksss!
there are 139 pages, i doubt ill find it haha


Posted from TSR Mobile
Memorise textbook
Do past paper questions

sorted
Reply 4
Original post by ranz
hey i couldnt find ur post on that thread! could u possibly copy and paste it? thanksss!
there are 139 pages, i doubt ill find it haha


Posted from TSR Mobile

OMG I'm sorry hahaha. I hope this doesn't violate any rules.:biggrin:

FOR BIOLOGY:
IMO, Biology's syllabus isn't too hard. It's all fact, hence what you need to do is to get the fact in your textbook very clear.

Next you can start by doing the past year questions, preferably sorted by topics so you can focus on each topic at a time. After doing a whole question, mark your answer according to marking scheme. Pay attention to how your answer differs from the marking scheme even if your answer conveys the same meaning. This is important because normally the marking scheme will have answer that is more effective and shorter answer than your own answer, or even the answer copied from textbook. This improves answering techniques.

After doing some past year questions, you'll probably notice that there are certain types of questions that you can always find direct answer from textbook (hence memorisation) and some question types that you can't find direct answer (the suggest-why/suggest-how questions) from the textbook.

Obviously the former is where we can surely get the marks from.
These question types include:
a)STATE/NAME/DRAW/DEFINE-question (normally easier mark them with * ) b)PROCESS/STRUCTURE/FUNCTION/ADVANTAGE/IMPORTANCE-question (longer answer needed, more marks awarded hence I'll mark them with ** )
The SUGGEST-WHY/HOW-questions are marked with ***.

(The no. of * denotes the degree of uncertainty.)



A normal reading of textbook will normally equip you with enough knowledge to answer the STATE/NAME/DRAW/DEFINITION-question (*) question.

Some definition questions are camouflaged and they sound like they are not asking directly about the definition.

For instance, explain why Tuberculosis is an infectiousdisease.
But you can just answer by relating tuberculosis to the definition of infectious disease, e.g. ...caused by pathogen ( direct definition of disease),
...can be transferred from a person to another (direct definition of infectious), ...caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis/bovis (Relating Tuberculosis in the context).



To tackle the (**) question, while doing past year papers I will always attempt to write my own answer based on my reading FIRST. Mark. Then rewrite the answer using the all the keywords given in the marking scheme. Then you need to COMPARE between your first script and your script after marking.

Why? Because even if you know what the answer is, your answer will not necessarily include the important markpoints, or sometimes you won't even expect certain related-but-not-directly-related points being awarded marks. By rewriting and comparing, you can accustomed to the answering techniques and how the marks are awarded in the marking scheme.

Also these (**) questions tend to come out many times in the exam, so I highly recommend that you rewrite 'the perfect answers' in papers so that you can revise in the future. I find it very useful to group these questions into:
a) PROCESS, e.g. translocation of sucrose from source to sink, cyclic & non-cyclic photophosphorylation, procedure of electrophoresis, mitosis & meiosis etc.
b) STRUCTURE & FUNCTION/IMPORTANCE - e.g. explain how mitochondria function in a plant, describe how structure of xylem is suited for its function etc.
c) ADVANTAGE/DISADVANTAGE - e.g. what are the advantages of batch culture, immobilised enzyme etc.

Easier (**) questions can be very general, e.g. Outline the role of antibiotics.
Some of the (**) questions are not as general as my examples and are hence harder to answer when you first look at the questions, e.g. Outline the role of antibiotics in the treatment of infectious disease, such as TB.

DON'T panic! You can take the key points from the role of antibiotics as a frame, and add on the context of infectious disease into this frame.
E.g. ...kill bacteria (role of antibiotic),
...prevent bacterial growth (role of antibiotic),
...do not affect human cells (role/properties of antibiotic),
...prevent death (role of antibiotic with context),
...prevent transmission of disease (role of antibiotic with context)

The top tip to answer BIOLOGY structured question is that you can't jump from the questions to the answers straightaway. You must analyze the question type and break down the questions, then finally you answer the broken-down questions according to the frames you are familiar with. The frames are you ASSETS!



OMG the thread is getting very long!

Finally, the (***) questions came out more frequently in A2 level.
These questions are normally related to the syllabus but are in another unfamiliar context. In this case, we can only make smart guess by, again, analysing info from the questions. Normally these questions will have a very clear context with lots of info and hence they accept quite a lot of possible answers.

For example,
The introduction of the whole question:
When preparing infertile women for in-vitro fertisation IVF, the growth and maturation of several ovarian follicles are stimulated by giving injections of glycoprotein hormone called follicle stimulating hormone (FSH).

(c) Recombinant human FSH (r-hFSH) can be produced by adding the genes coding for the α and β polypeptide chains of FSH to mammalian ovary cells.
Suggest why mammalian cells are needed to produce r-hFSH, rather than bacterial cells. [1]
Upon reading the question, what do you think?
Because mammalian cells are closer to human?
Because bacterial cells are different?
But you can't put them in words like that.

What is the difference between bacterial cell and mammalian cell?
Why can't we use bacterial cell to produce a glycoprotein hormone?
As you keep on reading back the questions and asking yourself questions like this, you may have already known the answer - bacterial cells cannot modify proteins into glycoproteins [1] because they don't have Golgi body [1].

Hence you have all my secret ways to answer Biology structured questions.
I hope this is helpful for all of the bio students.
Reply 5
Original post by chershen
OMG I'm sorry hahaha. I hope this doesn't violate any rules.:biggrin:

FOR BIOLOGY:
IMO, Biology's syllabus isn't too hard. It's all fact, hence what you need to do is to get the fact in your textbook very clear.

Next you can start by doing the past year questions, preferably sorted by topics so you can focus on each topic at a time. After doing a whole question, mark your answer according to marking scheme. Pay attention to how your answer differs from the marking scheme even if your answer conveys the same meaning. This is important because normally the marking scheme will have answer that is more effective and shorter answer than your own answer, or even the answer copied from textbook. This improves answering techniques.

After doing some past year questions, you'll probably notice that there are certain types of questions that you can always find direct answer from textbook (hence memorisation) and some question types that you can't find direct answer (the suggest-why/suggest-how questions) from the textbook.

Obviously the former is where we can surely get the marks from.
These question types include:
a)STATE/NAME/DRAW/DEFINE-question (normally easier mark them with * ) b)PROCESS/STRUCTURE/FUNCTION/ADVANTAGE/IMPORTANCE-question (longer answer needed, more marks awarded hence I'll mark them with ** )
The SUGGEST-WHY/HOW-questions are marked with ***.

(The no. of * denotes the degree of uncertainty.)



A normal reading of textbook will normally equip you with enough knowledge to answer the STATE/NAME/DRAW/DEFINITION-question (*) question.

Some definition questions are camouflaged and they sound like they are not asking directly about the definition.

For instance, explain why Tuberculosis is an infectiousdisease.
But you can just answer by relating tuberculosis to the definition of infectious disease, e.g. ...caused by pathogen ( direct definition of disease),
...can be transferred from a person to another (direct definition of infectious), ...caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis/bovis (Relating Tuberculosis in the context).



To tackle the (**) question, while doing past year papers I will always attempt to write my own answer based on my reading FIRST. Mark. Then rewrite the answer using the all the keywords given in the marking scheme. Then you need to COMPARE between your first script and your script after marking.

Why? Because even if you know what the answer is, your answer will not necessarily include the important markpoints, or sometimes you won't even expect certain related-but-not-directly-related points being awarded marks. By rewriting and comparing, you can accustomed to the answering techniques and how the marks are awarded in the marking scheme.

Also these (**) questions tend to come out many times in the exam, so I highly recommend that you rewrite 'the perfect answers' in papers so that you can revise in the future. I find it very useful to group these questions into:
a) PROCESS, e.g. translocation of sucrose from source to sink, cyclic & non-cyclic photophosphorylation, procedure of electrophoresis, mitosis & meiosis etc.
b) STRUCTURE & FUNCTION/IMPORTANCE - e.g. explain how mitochondria function in a plant, describe how structure of xylem is suited for its function etc.
c) ADVANTAGE/DISADVANTAGE - e.g. what are the advantages of batch culture, immobilised enzyme etc.

Easier (**) questions can be very general, e.g. Outline the role of antibiotics.
Some of the (**) questions are not as general as my examples and are hence harder to answer when you first look at the questions, e.g. Outline the role of antibiotics in the treatment of infectious disease, such as TB.

DON'T panic! You can take the key points from the role of antibiotics as a frame, and add on the context of infectious disease into this frame.
E.g. ...kill bacteria (role of antibiotic),
...prevent bacterial growth (role of antibiotic),
...do not affect human cells (role/properties of antibiotic),
...prevent death (role of antibiotic with context),
...prevent transmission of disease (role of antibiotic with context)

The top tip to answer BIOLOGY structured question is that you can't jump from the questions to the answers straightaway. You must analyze the question type and break down the questions, then finally you answer the broken-down questions according to the frames you are familiar with. The frames are you ASSETS!



OMG the thread is getting very long!

Finally, the (***) questions came out more frequently in A2 level.
These questions are normally related to the syllabus but are in another unfamiliar context. In this case, we can only make smart guess by, again, analysing info from the questions. Normally these questions will have a very clear context with lots of info and hence they accept quite a lot of possible answers.

For example,
The introduction of the whole question:
When preparing infertile women for in-vitro fertisation IVF, the growth and maturation of several ovarian follicles are stimulated by giving injections of glycoprotein hormone called follicle stimulating hormone (FSH).

(c) Recombinant human FSH (r-hFSH) can be produced by adding the genes coding for the α and β polypeptide chains of FSH to mammalian ovary cells.
Suggest why mammalian cells are needed to produce r-hFSH, rather than bacterial cells. [1]
Upon reading the question, what do you think?
Because mammalian cells are closer to human?
Because bacterial cells are different?
But you can't put them in words like that.

What is the difference between bacterial cell and mammalian cell?
Why can't we use bacterial cell to produce a glycoprotein hormone?
As you keep on reading back the questions and asking yourself questions like this, you may have already known the answer - bacterial cells cannot modify proteins into glycoproteins [1] because they don't have Golgi body [1].

Hence you have all my secret ways to answer Biology structured questions.
I hope this is helpful for all of the bio students.


thankkkk uuu!


Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by chershen
OMG I'm sorry hahaha. I hope this doesn't violate any rules.:biggrin:

FOR BIOLOGY:
IMO, Biology's syllabus isn't too hard. It's all fact, hence what you need to do is to get the fact in your textbook very clear.

Next you can start by doing the past year questions, preferably sorted by topics so you can focus on each topic at a time. After doing a whole question, mark your answer according to marking scheme. Pay attention to how your answer differs from the marking scheme even if your answer conveys the same meaning. This is important because normally the marking scheme will have answer that is more effective and shorter answer than your own answer, or even the answer copied from textbook. This improves answering techniques.

After doing some past year questions, you'll probably notice that there are certain types of questions that you can always find direct answer from textbook (hence memorisation) and some question types that you can't find direct answer (the suggest-why/suggest-how questions) from the textbook.

Obviously the former is where we can surely get the marks from.
These question types include:
a)STATE/NAME/DRAW/DEFINE-question (normally easier mark them with * ) b)PROCESS/STRUCTURE/FUNCTION/ADVANTAGE/IMPORTANCE-question (longer answer needed, more marks awarded hence I'll mark them with ** )
The SUGGEST-WHY/HOW-questions are marked with ***.

(The no. of * denotes the degree of uncertainty.)



A normal reading of textbook will normally equip you with enough knowledge to answer the STATE/NAME/DRAW/DEFINITION-question (*) question.

Some definition questions are camouflaged and they sound like they are not asking directly about the definition.

For instance, explain why Tuberculosis is an infectiousdisease.
But you can just answer by relating tuberculosis to the definition of infectious disease, e.g. ...caused by pathogen ( direct definition of disease),
...can be transferred from a person to another (direct definition of infectious), ...caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis/bovis (Relating Tuberculosis in the context).



To tackle the (**) question, while doing past year papers I will always attempt to write my own answer based on my reading FIRST. Mark. Then rewrite the answer using the all the keywords given in the marking scheme. Then you need to COMPARE between your first script and your script after marking.

Why? Because even if you know what the answer is, your answer will not necessarily include the important markpoints, or sometimes you won't even expect certain related-but-not-directly-related points being awarded marks. By rewriting and comparing, you can accustomed to the answering techniques and how the marks are awarded in the marking scheme.

Also these (**) questions tend to come out many times in the exam, so I highly recommend that you rewrite 'the perfect answers' in papers so that you can revise in the future. I find it very useful to group these questions into:
a) PROCESS, e.g. translocation of sucrose from source to sink, cyclic & non-cyclic photophosphorylation, procedure of electrophoresis, mitosis & meiosis etc.
b) STRUCTURE & FUNCTION/IMPORTANCE - e.g. explain how mitochondria function in a plant, describe how structure of xylem is suited for its function etc.
c) ADVANTAGE/DISADVANTAGE - e.g. what are the advantages of batch culture, immobilised enzyme etc.

Easier (**) questions can be very general, e.g. Outline the role of antibiotics.
Some of the (**) questions are not as general as my examples and are hence harder to answer when you first look at the questions, e.g. Outline the role of antibiotics in the treatment of infectious disease, such as TB.

DON'T panic! You can take the key points from the role of antibiotics as a frame, and add on the context of infectious disease into this frame.
E.g. ...kill bacteria (role of antibiotic),
...prevent bacterial growth (role of antibiotic),
...do not affect human cells (role/properties of antibiotic),
...prevent death (role of antibiotic with context),
...prevent transmission of disease (role of antibiotic with context)

The top tip to answer BIOLOGY structured question is that you can't jump from the questions to the answers straightaway. You must analyze the question type and break down the questions, then finally you answer the broken-down questions according to the frames you are familiar with. The frames are you ASSETS!



OMG the thread is getting very long!

Finally, the (***) questions came out more frequently in A2 level.
These questions are normally related to the syllabus but are in another unfamiliar context. In this case, we can only make smart guess by, again, analysing info from the questions. Normally these questions will have a very clear context with lots of info and hence they accept quite a lot of possible answers.

For example,
The introduction of the whole question:
When preparing infertile women for in-vitro fertisation IVF, the growth and maturation of several ovarian follicles are stimulated by giving injections of glycoprotein hormone called follicle stimulating hormone (FSH).

(c) Recombinant human FSH (r-hFSH) can be produced by adding the genes coding for the α and β polypeptide chains of FSH to mammalian ovary cells.
Suggest why mammalian cells are needed to produce r-hFSH, rather than bacterial cells. [1]
Upon reading the question, what do you think?
Because mammalian cells are closer to human?
Because bacterial cells are different?
But you can't put them in words like that.

What is the difference between bacterial cell and mammalian cell?
Why can't we use bacterial cell to produce a glycoprotein hormone?
As you keep on reading back the questions and asking yourself questions like this, you may have already known the answer - bacterial cells cannot modify proteins into glycoproteins [1] because they don't have Golgi body [1].

Hence you have all my secret ways to answer Biology structured questions.
I hope this is helpful for all of the bio students.


What exam board are you on? This cannot be AQA!
Reply 7
Original post by Reanna11
What exam board are you on? This cannot be AQA!


Hahaha how do you know?
That's CIE. We don't have AQA here.

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