Tips for year 10/11/12 future & current biology students... (1 Viewer)

[ali777]

There's probably other similar threads in here but I can't be bothered searching 19 pages! So here's a fresh one - I just did the Biology exam yesterday and I don't really feel like studying for CaFS tomorrow, so I hope this helps someone!

Feel free to share your own tips, we're all here to help each other (awwww community moment! haha)

Don't stress if you haven't studied much in year 11!
I was averaging around 50% in year 11 Bio and had never studied a day in my life. Once year 12 started I decided I had to get my act together and start studying. Midcourse & Trial exams then worked a lot better for me, and I was up to 80%. Not as great as I'd like to be, but you've gotta admit thats a good improvement! You can always improve. Always always always. Even if you fail your trials - you can still improve dramatically before the HSC.

Work out how you learn best.
Some people learn by listening, or writing, or doing, or whatever. I figured out that I'm a visual learner. So rewording concepts in simple language, drawing my own diagrams, making flashcards, using different colours in my summaries, all these helped me to understand and remember concepts.

Summarising works!
Everyone says this, but the syllabus is your best friend!! Know it, write it out, summarise it. You can never have too many summaries. I had a first summary, which I handwrote, and basically it was the textbook copied out. Huge. Not exactly a summary as such. Then I had a second summary, on the computer, which was a lot more concise. Then I re-summarised all the experiments separately. Then I made a few flashcards for concepts that I didn't understand too well.

Know your experiments.
Unfortunately for me, I hadn't done about half of the experiments/first hand research. Partly because my school didnt bother doing a lot of them, and also because I may have missed a few in the many biology lessons I somehow didn't attend...oops. But this isn't a problem, as long as you can get a hold of the experiments somehow. The "Biology In Context - The Spectrum Of Life" textbook has quite a few of the experiments in detail. However it's written for the Victorian syllabus so be careful! The HSC Online website (hsc.csu.edu.au) is very good for getting an idea of what the experiments are about, if you happened to miss some of them like I did.

Practise your waffling/BSing skills!
If you can become good at guessing what the question is getting at, and applying any biology knowledge & common sense to making up a convincing answer, a lot of the time you will get lucky and get the marks that the incredibly intelligent biology whizz kids will get. Learn to be confident in your guessing skills! But check your results - if it appears that you're not the best bullshitter you'd be safer to increase your studying time/efficiency/effectiveness. Waffling is not a replacement for studying! (but if it works for you, then by all means use it!) But its almost impossible to study for every single possible exam question. So having some skills in BSing could help. BUT be careful you dont contradict yourself, because biology tends to be marked somewhat harshly in that regard, and you may not get the marks you deserve.

Don't rely solely on your teacher.
They're human, they're not perfect, and their teaching style will not always be the best thing for you. You have to take responsibility for your own learning. I only learnt biology because I taught myself at home, my teacher provided many interesting stories and lessons but didn't have the knack of cementing knowledge in my brain. So I relied on him in year 11, and failed. Then took it upon myself to learn in year 12 and improved by 30%.

Access as many resources as possible.
The good thing about having many different resources is that many bio resources can contradict each other (e.g. number of nephrons in a kidney is 1000's according to the Macquarie revision guide and 1 million according to my textbook), so you can kinda get an idea of what the average "right" answer will be. In the past, BOS hasn't made concessions for bad marks caused by using an incorrect textbook or source, and they're not likely to start now!
I thoroughly recommend the Macquarie Biology revision guide, I think it was better than the Bio Excel book but thats just my opinion. I used 2 different textbooks plus these 2 revision guides, as well as the Bio HSC online, Wikipedia, the resource section on Bored of Studies, and anything else Google managed to find for me!​

Well I think that's it from me...hope this encourages you to study & make the most of the time you have before next year's HSC. Oh and don't bother stressing about the almighty HSC - it's a harmless kitten compared with some of the rumours going around! There are a million backdoors into the uni course that you want, and you may as well enjoy your last months with your high school friends.

Ali

 

[ichiraku]

Wow those are some pretty good tips. I’ll add a few of the ones that helped me throughout the year.

With Biology, there is A LOT of content to remember, so my advice would be to start early and make your own notes on each module. I actually went ahead of my class and used each of the holidays to write up summaries one module ahead of the class, so when I came back to school, the information that was being taught didn’t seem so vague. Try not to make your summaries too wordy though, because then it becomes a lot harder to absorb. Dot points are fine and in fact I found out (towards the HSC) that I was able to recall dot points a lot faster and easier than whole chunks of information.

With textbooks, my suggestion would be to try to get one which you enjoy using and maybe supplement it with another when making dot point summaries. I actually was using 3 simultaneous textbooks and teacher’s notes during Term 1, but by Term 2, I seriously couldn’t be shitted reading through 3 whole chunks of information on pretty much the same content. In my opinion, just pick one textbook (personally I loved Macquarie HSC Biology) and stick with it. Most of the information will be the same between textbooks so don’t get stressed that your summaries might be missing something vital, because they probably won’t be.

I know it gets repeated a lot, but it’d probably be a good idea to revise your notes constantly, and as said above make summaries of summaries. Personally, I never did this and would end up having to mass revise a few weeks before exams which would usually accumulate to massive amounts of stress. Also, past papers are a good idea or at least try get your hands on the Success One book. But if you’re stressed for time, then just make sure you understand all the content before exams. What I’ve found is that if your memory is strong then try to make sure you know all the content inside out. If it isn’t as strong, then just do past papers to familiarise yourself with questions.

Also, don’t get discouraged by all the information you have to remember. Likewise, if you don’t do too well in these first set of assessments coming up, then don’t let that bog you down for the rest of the course. Hell, I came pretty much dead last after the first assessment last year (prac test) due to stupid things like drawing an uneven table. . But I dug deep, and ended up coming 7th out of about 60 people at a top 20 selective school, so don’t think it’s impossible to climb up.

Anyway, good luck to you all. I got to run and revise for Chemistry now

 

[4DOGS]

Number 5 race 3 at flemington on thursday!

Oh u mean bio unless u like it n really enjoy it get out y u can!

 

[Tim035]

As people have basically said, the sheer size of the biology syllabus means unless your teacher gives you a lot of homework and does a lot of marking of self research reports etc you WON'T learn everything you need to and in enough detail in the class room. So go to your local library and snatch all the biology texts books u can, see what each of them has to say about a particular point in the syllabus and add this to your syllabus summaries or atleast even just your class notes. You want to make sure no matter what they throw at you in an exam you can come back with an impressive amount of detailed non waffle information.

Secondly start looking for ways to expand you knowledge beyond the textbook, Watch Catalyst on the abc each thursday and write down anything relevant to the course (I got some great information on Malaria and a few other things, pity none of them turned up in the exam). Also ask your school library to subscribe to New Scientist or take out a subscription yourself, this was a resource I was able to use to an awesome extent in research assingments that saw me consistantly get a few marks higher then my competitors in each assingment. In this years HSC I was able to include a case study I had read on ethics with transgenic species in New Scientist to ensure I got those 4 marks for that question.

And lastly, besides the syllabus itself your new best friend is past papers. Nag the hell out of your teacher, tutor, friends from other schools, teachers from other schools Anyone you know who might be able to get hold of a couple of NEAP or Academic excellence or Heinman, idependant or Catholic trials for biology. Also a very wise investment would be Success One Biology as this contains answers to all the HSC's and a couple of STA's which are vital in seeing how your answers/syllabus summaries compare to answers written by the STA.

Good luck class of 07!

 

[2opinion8d]

Hey Biology 06'ers:wave: ! Thanx so much for the tips they were really motivating.

Good luck in uni!

 

[fnergance]

Biology was my favourite subject, and i dont think there is alot to remember. Most of the biology course is all connected in a way, so if you dont get some stuff in year 11 (for eg. Surface Area to Volume Ratio) you wont understand some concepts in year 12 (adaptations and capillaries etc etc..).

My tip is to read through the subject and write down simple yet meaningful points regarading the syllabus and at the end of the week, read over what you have written. Also, you can take your notes to your teacher and allow them to make any changes or such.

Also, KNOW YOUR EXPERIMENTS !!!. There will ALWAYS be a Question where they ask you to recall an experiment and also KNOW WHAT THE EXPERIMENT IS ABOUT !!! After they ask you to write down the experiment, they will ask you questions to conclude your findings and how it relates to the concept.

Finally, the Biology exam is 3 Hours, and trust me, thats more then enough time you need. Sit the exam carefully, and remember to ANSER THE QUESTION. If you dont know the answer, dont leave it blank, just write anything and everything you know about the keywords.

Well.. i guess thats all i have to say!

Good Luck 2007 Biology

 

[2opinion8d]

Biology was my favourite subject, and i dont think there is alot to remember. Most of the biology course is all connected in a way, so if you dont get some stuff in year 11 (for eg. Surface Area to Volume Ratio) you wont understand some concepts in year 12 (adaptations and capillaries etc etc..).

My tip is to read through the subject and write down simple yet meaningful points regarading the syllabus and at the end of the week, read over what you have written. Also, you can take your notes to your teacher and allow them to make any changes or such.

Also, KNOW YOUR EXPERIMENTS !!!. There will ALWAYS be a Question where they ask you to recall an experiment and also KNOW WHAT THE EXPERIMENT IS ABOUT !!! After they ask you to write down the experiment, they will ask you questions to conclude your findings and how it relates to the concept.

Finally, the Biology exam is 3 Hours, and trust me, thats more then enough time you need. Sit the exam carefully, and remember to ANSER THE QUESTION. If you dont know the answer, dont leave it blank, just write anything and everything you know about the keywords.

Well.. i guess thats all i have to say!

Good Luck 2007 Biology

You sat ur bio hsc in year 10 ?? how cool!

 

[FerengCheng]

Practise your waffling/BSing skills!
If you can become good at guessing what the question is getting at, and applying any biology knowledge & common sense to making up a convincing answer, a lot of the time you will get lucky and get the marks that the incredibly intelligent biology whizz kids will get. Learn to be confident in your guessing skills! But check your results - if it appears that you're not the best bullshitter you'd be safer to increase your studying time/efficiency/effectiveness. Waffling is not a replacement for studying! (but if it works for you, then by all means use it!) But its almost impossible to study for every single possible exam question. So having some skills in BSing could help. BUT be careful you dont contradict yourself, because biology tends to be marked somewhat harshly in that regard, and you may not get the marks you deserve.

Try telling that to my teachers. I got 75% in my half-yearly because I wasn't specific enough- for example, I didn't state that interrelated populations in a food chain have time lags, so I got no marks, despite writing everything else. And it was a question out of more than two marks! *angry*

 

[Brontecat]

*bump* haha i thought this deserved a bump - GOOD LUCK BIO HSC '09

 

[possessionless]

yay go bio hsc 09