The Student Room Group

Scroll to see replies

Nice!

Worth noting - a lot more people these days are getting extra help with online tutors. MyTutor and Tutorful both offer lessons on stuff like this from about £15 an hour, which is nice.
Lifesaver! Many thanks
Original post by oak12
oak12


These notes will be extremely handy - thanks!
These are beautiful, thanks a bunch man!
This is so helpful!
can i rely on ur notes like if i revise from only ur notes do u think i would be able to get an A* as well?
Original post by lifeofamedic
Hey guys,

I did AQA A-level Biology last year and got an A*.

I spent a lot of time when revising creating 1-page summaries for each topic in Biology and I've finally got round to scanning them and uploading them for all of you.

Here's the notes for all of the year 1 content:
https://lifeofamedic.com/alevel-biology-summary-notes-year1/

Here's the notes for all of the year 2 content:
https://lifeofamedic.com/alevel-biology-summary-notes-year2/

Best of luck, hope these are useful!



1.

2.

7

3.

about a minute ago

4.

Report post
can i rely on ur notes like if i revise from only ur notes do u think i would be able to get an A* as well?

Original post by moiz12345678

1.

can i rely on ur notes like if i revise from only ur notes do u think i would be able to get an A* as well?



Obviously I can't say that using these notes would definitely get you an A*, nothing can guarantee you a grade. It's all to do with how well your understanding is and how much practise you do.
All I did was memorised these notes then did loads of past papers, so in terms of content, I would say these notes are sufficient for the AQA specification

Here's the notes for all of the year 1 content:
https://lifeofamedic.com/alevel-biol...y-notes-year1/

Here's the notes for all of the year 2 content:
https://lifeofamedic.com/alevel-biol...y-notes-year2/
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by lifeofamedic
Obviously I can't say that using these notes would definitely get you an A*, nothing can guarantee you a grade. It's all to do with how well your understanding is and how much practise you do.
All I did was memorised these notes then did loads of past papers, so in terms of content, I would say these notes are sufficient for the AQA specification


how did u revise for practical part of the course and also any tips for the 25 marker question?
Original post by moiz12345678
how did u revise for practical part of the course and also any tips for the 25 marker question?



For the essays, the main thing to remember is that it’s all about putting in a lot of detail as well as making sure what you write is correct and relevant to the question. If you memorise the content in biology well, you should be fine for the detail part and also for making sure that everything you write is accurate. I literally mean for you to word-for-word memorise things so you can just write it out in the essay without having to think about it too much.

To make sure what you’re writing is relevant to the question in the essay I would say even if you don’t have time to practise every single essay question properly, make sure you think of potential topics you could write about for each of the past essay questions. Do a kind of brainstorm so you get better and choosing topics.

The required practical sections, if I’m completely honest, I kind of ignored them because I didn’t know what to do for them and I always thought the marks that are available for them are so few so it’s not really worth the effort. We had revision sessions leading up to the exam in our college, where we could ask for certain topics to be covered and a lot of people requested the practical stuff, so I just tried to absorb as much as I could then. On the morning/night before the exam I also read over the practical handouts just so I was familiar with the method in case it popped up. I didn’t really do anything specific, but I don’t recommend for you to ignore it like me. See if you an get your teacher to recap each one and go over potential questions and things like that.
Original post by lifeofamedic
For the essays, the main thing to remember is that it’s all about putting in a lot of detail as well as making sure what you write is correct and relevant to the question. If you memorise the content in biology well, you should be fine for the detail part and also for making sure that everything you write is accurate. I literally mean for you to word-for-word memorise things so you can just write it out in the essay without having to think about it too much.

To make sure what you’re writing is relevant to the question in the essay I would say even if you don’t have time to practise every single essay question properly, make sure you think of potential topics you could write about for each of the past essay questions. Do a kind of brainstorm so you get better and choosing topics.

The required practical sections, if I’m completely honest, I kind of ignored them because I didn’t know what to do for them and I always thought the marks that are available for them are so few so it’s not really worth the effort. We had revision sessions leading up to the exam in our college, where we could ask for certain topics to be covered and a lot of people requested the practical stuff, so I just tried to absorb as much as I could then. On the morning/night before the exam I also read over the practical handouts just so I was familiar with the method in case it popped up. I didn’t really do anything specific, but I don’t recommend for you to ignore it like me. See if you an get your teacher to recap each one and go over potential questions and things like that.


and how did u find the all the bio papers last year were they hard since it was the new spec?
Original post by moiz12345678
and how did u find the all the bio papers last year were they hard since it was the new spec?


I didn't think they were much harder than the previous specification past papers. There was a lot of graphs and analysing data type of questions, the essay questions were quite nice though. Make sure you practise the paper that was sat last year, so you can get a better of idea of what your exam might be like.

The grade boundaries are always ridiculously low for Biology, so that's good!
Original post by lifeofamedic
I didn't think they were much harder than the previous specification past papers. There was a lot of graphs and analysing data type of questions, the essay questions were quite nice though. Make sure you practise the paper that was sat last year, so you can get a better of idea of what your exam might be like.

The grade boundaries are always ridiculously low for Biology, so that's good!


hi! big fan of your blog, when did you finish revising/memorising the content and concentrating mainly on past papers?
Original post by lifeofamedic
I didn't think they were much harder than the previous specification past papers. There was a lot of graphs and analysing data type of questions, the essay questions were quite nice though. Make sure you practise the paper that was sat last year, so you can get a better of idea of what your exam might be like.

The grade boundaries are always ridiculously low for Biology, so that's good!


thank u so much for all the information :-)
Original post by AliG123
hi! big fan of your blog, when did you finish revising/memorising the content and concentrating mainly on past papers?


Beginning of the Easter holidays.
Original post by moiz12345678
thank u so much for all the information :-)


You're welcome...good luck with the exams! :smile:
Original post by lifeofamedic
You're welcome...good luck with the exams! :smile:

Hi, thank you so much for posting your bio notes - they're very helpful.
I have a question, did you do any essay plans for your 25 marker as part of your revision and what did you do to make sure you weren't forgetting content as its both AS and A2 information? Thank you.
Original post by fauziaa
Hi, thank you so much for posting your bio notes - they're very helpful.
I have a question, did you do any essay plans for your 25 marker as part of your revision and what did you do to make sure you weren't forgetting content as its both AS and A2 information? Thank you.


Hey,
Yes I did....I didn’t write all the essays out as I didn’t have time, so I planned them all instead.
I went over the content regularly, a few topics every other day when I first learnt them. When I started practising papers I knew the content well enough so I didn’t have to recap it as often, and the constant recall of the knowledge to answer the questions helps you to remember the content too
Reply 19
Original post by lifeofamedic
Hey guys,

I did AQA A-level Biology last year and got an A*.

I spent a lot of time when revising creating 1-page summaries for each topic in Biology and I've finally got round to scanning them and uploading them for all of you.

Here's the notes for all of the year 1 content:
https://lifeofamedic.com/alevel-biology-summary-notes-year1/

Here's the notes for all of the year 2 content:
https://lifeofamedic.com/alevel-biology-summary-notes-year2/

Best of luck, hope these are useful!


Thank you so much, they look so nice and are so useful!!! :smile:

Latest