BIOLOGY HIGH SCORERS ADVICE

haps Hi,
I did accelerated biology.

Hey,
I did biology accelerated this year and got a 49. Some things that helped me were:

1. Concepts > memorising: i found the content in bio super interesting so i always focused on understanding the concept i.e how this works in our body before trying to remember any facts. You don't need to memorise every name of everything just understand the general process (e.g. for cellular respiration know the basic concept of electron transport chain where electrons move through a membrane ect. but don't get caught up in details like names of proteins) as a lot of these details are actually outside the study design and not examinable just their for your understanding (and if these details are needed to answer a question they will be in question stem)
2. know where the marks are: biology is actually so easy to get marks in. the examiners give marks for almost any response with the right key words. some text books go into wayyy too much detail (my school used edrolo which was mostly good but did go into a lot of detail on some topics). once you understand the concepts go back and look at what you need to include in your answers to get marks (my teacher does marking for VCAA so she was excellent at this, and if you have access to any VCAA markers for sure talk to them but the examiners report is also good for this.)
3. the questions are WORDY: almost every single question in an exam is applying it to a scenario, so it is so important to practice this from day one.
4. ALWAYS get teachers input when your not sure how correct your answer is: when correcting questions you should be making sure youve got all the information you need not checking how accurate what your saying is (some people will disagree with this but i think it's important). If your not sure if your on the right track with what your saying get your teacher to read what you wrote and re explain the content if your not applying it right.
   My schedule for learning content was notes BEFORE class (always before), use class to consolidate and try and get some basic textbook questions done, then straight away applying it to exam style questions with scenarios. this will help you not only practice structuring answers but also make sure you understand concepts enough to justify answers.
   For getting ahead, my key advice would don't go too far ahead. It's hard to say without knowing your classes routine but I would probably say 2 weeks ahead on content MAX. I usually did all the subchapters in the chapter before the first class on that chapter (ie before we started 2A, I would have A,B,C and D done)
   As for the content: Unit 3 area of study 1 starts off not too bad but progressively gets harder as you learn about DNA manipulation techniques, its a lot of content towards the end but just focus on concepts and these questions are always asked in similarly ways so i usually have a set structure of dot points to explain the steps of the technique., Area of study 2 seems really content heavy but for photosynthesis and cellular respiration you ONLY have to know inputs, outputs and location. It's helpful to briefly know how the concept works but dont bother memorising enzymes, or molecules that aren't inputs/outputs.

Hope this helps

sandraa Your tips are so helpful but I wanna ask how did you know what content is outside the study design?

Sxy As i said my teacher was a VCAA marker so she was incredible at breaking it down to exactly what you needed to know for exams, but some other resources which would be helpful for this are:

• study design: i would go through it after each area of study as it provides a good indication of how much you need to know. if it says 'general'- you need to know very little, but some will have a list of terms with it these always seem to be somewhere on the exam so good dot points to make sure you know all those terms. heres some examples:
  • the role of Rubisco in photosynthesis, including adaptations of C3, C4 and CAM plants to maximise the efficiency of photosynthesis
  • the factors that affect the rate of photosynthesis: light availability, water availability, temperature and carbon dioxide concentration

• examiners reports: bio has gotten super into questions worth a lot of marks (4+), I ALWAYS dot point these answers and usually they are on a process like CRISPR, transcription/translation or insulin production so I would use previous examiners report to see what each mark was for so you don't waste time writing unnecessary information and have a rehearsed set of dot points for big concepts like that where they like to include big mark questions

• VCE Biology 2022–2026 – Frequently asked questions: this document is a god send. It's on the VCAA website and it basically clarifies exactly what you need to know for each of the seemingly heavy ones. If you're feeling overwhelmed with one where there's so many details, try and find the topic on this document and just learn what it tells you.

sandraa Thanks a lotttt!!!!

-MindsAhead-

hello!!
Bit of a full circle moment seems this was my original post from a year ago lols but i was very appreciative when people helped me out so im happy to share some tips that helped me get a raw 47 in bio last year!

I would recommend trying to aim to have gone over each lessons content before the lesson. Whether you want to stay one lesson ahead or one week ahead is up to you Coming up to sac time I would always aim to do all the practice sacs I was given, plus anything else I could find, and id get it all marked by my teachers and would go over it in depth with them. As we all know the biology marking scheme is definately a pain, so to get advice from teachers and examiners who have a lot of experience makes answering future questions much easier, as they give you the mindset of an examiner.

For exam period i started by going over semester 1 content in the september holidays and once i was happy with that i started doing some of the company practice exams. I think i got like 55% on my first bio practice exam because I was very harsh on myself to ensure i was targetting every apsect of the marking guide. I think in the end i did around 20 bio practice exams, finishing off with the vcaa exams from 2016 onwards and going over them with my teachers. All the current study design ones i did timed and got them fully marked and very heavily went over them.

Im happy to answer any other questions you have, and i hope this helps a bit!

matureagedstudent maybe for you

matureagedstudent

oml what are you on about. Can you stop replying to all my posts with this random stuff???

-MindsAhead-

I cant remember any specific parts of 1/2. A few aspects were less engaging but overall werent too bad.

If there was ever anything I wasnt greta at (like in 3/4 it was evolution and experimental design) I spent the last few dyas before the exam just focusing on them. I did nothing on any other aspects, I just focused on those parts which I found was definately useful!