The Student Room Group

How to succeed in A-level biology?

I do OCR A Biology and although I'm averaging a B/C, I feel like it's just not good enough.
After a lesson, I will go onto Notion and type down notes from the lesson there and make flashcards on Anki off my notes and check the information on the flashcards with the OCR textbook. Once I feel that I am fully knowledgeable in the topic, I do exam questions. However, I find doing exam questions very difficult. Throughout year 12, whenever I do practice exam questions for chem and bio, bio is the one where I get the lowest marks. I'm worried that if this continues into year 13 I'll flunk my real exams. If anyone could give me tips on answering exam questions it would be greatly appreciated.
Reply 1
it's cliche but really the more exam questions you do, the more you'll get used to the mark scheme. best thing would be to make flashcards based on specific questions in the mark scheme - some questions are really common, like those types of questions relating to practicals/dependent, independent and control variables are really common, so make flashcards to memorise exactly what kind of things you should be saying. just make sure whenever you do an exam question, you really think about what the mark scheme is looking for and for every question you get wrong, make sure you're taking something away from it/noting down the approach that the mark scheme took.
and revisit the same questions! come back to the ones you did wrong and see if you can do them this time. if you do loads of practice you WILL get better, it's just going to take time, but it's not impossible.
also consider what exactly you struggle with the most - is it graph questions, for example? understand what skills it is that you're missing and then do targeted revision where you're practising those specific question types. focus on developing a better approach to questions. good luck!!
Reply 2
Original post by oceanb1ue
it's cliche but really the more exam questions you do, the more you'll get used to the mark scheme. best thing would be to make flashcards based on specific questions in the mark scheme - some questions are really common, like those types of questions relating to practicals/dependent, independent and control variables are really common, so make flashcards to memorise exactly what kind of things you should be saying. just make sure whenever you do an exam question, you really think about what the mark scheme is looking for and for every question you get wrong, make sure you're taking something away from it/noting down the approach that the mark scheme took.
and revisit the same questions! come back to the ones you did wrong and see if you can do them this time. if you do loads of practice you WILL get better, it's just going to take time, but it's not impossible.
also consider what exactly you struggle with the most - is it graph questions, for example? understand what skills it is that you're missing and then do targeted revision where you're practising those specific question types. focus on developing a better approach to questions. good luck!!

Thank you for the advice!!
Reply 3
Original post by t0ky0trash
I do OCR A Biology and although I'm averaging a B/C, I feel like it's just not good enough.
After a lesson, I will go onto Notion and type down notes from the lesson there and make flashcards on Anki off my notes and check the information on the flashcards with the OCR textbook. Once I feel that I am fully knowledgeable in the topic, I do exam questions. However, I find doing exam questions very difficult. Throughout year 12, whenever I do practice exam questions for chem and bio, bio is the one where I get the lowest marks. I'm worried that if this continues into year 13 I'll flunk my real exams. If anyone could give me tips on answering exam questions it would be greatly appreciated.


I’ve found Clare Biology on YouTube a massive help in preparation for exams, her playlists go through each specification point for the exams with hints of what the mark scheme is looking for. It’s really helpful to let you know what to go through and the relevant information and the detail needed. Would really recommend, she saved me for the exams this year.
Reply 4
Original post by mitchley_
I’ve found Clare Biology on YouTube a massive help in preparation for exams, her playlists go through each specification point for the exams with hints of what the mark scheme is looking for. It’s really helpful to let you know what to go through and the relevant information and the detail needed. Would really recommend, she saved me for the exams this year.

I've heard about her but I thought she only did AQA. Thanks tho I will be checking her out.

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