Welcome to the subject of Biology! Here you get to learn about the smallest cells to the biggest ecosystems all in one course. Exciting, I know! I hope this guide gives you some guidance on how to work your way through this course and prepare for all your internal and external assessments.

In Biology, 50% of your grade comes from internal assessments, so it is crucial for you to get every mark possible to make the external exam easier for yourself. As you know, 10% comes from your data set, 20% from your student experiment and 20% from your research assignment.

Take good notes

Taking good notes all year long is super important to be able to study for the final exam effectively. At the end of each week, I would suggest that you summarise all the notes you took that week to refresh yourself on the content. Also, don’t just rely on one source of information. Use things such as crash course on YouTube and your textbook to support what your teacher has taught you. Further resources such as Studyclix or textbook questions are another way to help cement your understanding of the topic.

Check your writing

So many times, I came to the end of an assignment just wanting to get rid of it, that I
wouldn’t take the time and care to thoroughly proofread my work, causing me to lose marks on silly, little things. The best way I found to stop this is to get as many people as possible to proofread your work. If you don’t have anyone around or don’t want to involve anyone, you can use an application that reads back your work. This allows you to hear any mistakes you may have made and will enable you to hear if your writing is flowing smoothly.

Review previous assessments

If you completed a similar assessment piece in grade 11, go back and look over it. I
recorded all my grades for each assessment and which criteria got/lost for me, then worked on this section. I found this helped as I could identify which areas, I understood the criteria and which areas I may have needed some help in getting the highest marks.

Data Test

This assessment piece is based mainly on data (no kidding) but makes preparing slightly easier. As the questions are based on data, look through the current work you have done and see which bits could have data and do questions based on these topics. Practice exams are another great way to prepare for these assessment pieces.

Student experiment

Have fun with this assessment piece, as you have some creative freedom on what you can write your assessment on. Some important things to remember are: 

Research assignment

The best advice for this assignment is to ensure you are using peer-reviewed or credible sources. Google Scholar is one place where you can find some credible, peer-reviewed sources. For this assessment, I strongly suggest understanding the topic you have chosen and how you can relate this to the criteria. You may pick a great topic, but it may be hard to meet the assessment criteria if you can’t find the research to back it up.

Use the syllabus

If I learned anything from studying for exams, it is that you need to use the syllabus
as your first point of contact. Most exam questions will be based directly on the syllabus dot points, so ensuring you can create a response based on every dot point is essential. One way to do this is to write down the dot point on a blank piece of paper and then create a mind map based on all the information you know about this topic.

Don’t stick to one study method

This may sound strange but studying all different types of ways helps you retain information. For example, a study shows that teaching others is one of the best ways to learn, so whenever you have a chance, teach the people around you what you have been learning about. They don’t even have to be listening. Tell your dog about what you are studying. When group study is executed correctly, it is an excellent place for discussion and teaching, both of which help with retention.

Practise, practise, practise

The best way to prepare for any question they throw at you is to know a large range
of questions they may throw at you. With 50% of your grade coming from one
assessment piece, you must be prepared to smash it to get the best marks possible!

After practice exams

You can’t just do the exam and not check it. You need to make sure that what you are answering is what the marking guide wants you to answer.

Pre-exam

Take a deep breath; you’re almost there! You have well prepared for this, so now it’s
time to show the examiners what you can do. Everyone knows these tips but:

How to approach the exam

Multiple choice

NEVER EVER leave multiple choice questions blank! Even if you have no idea, you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting it right. You can rule out at least one answer in most cases, which is obviously not correct, leaving you at a 1 in 3 chance of getting the correct answer.

Short response

Markers often have a specific answer they are looking for, so make sure you read the question entirely. You never know what might get you marks, so make sure you attempt every question.Multiple choice NEVER EVER leave multiple choice questions blank! Even if you have no idea, you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting it right. You can rule out at least one answer in most cases, which is obviously not correct, leaving you at a 1 in 3 chance of getting the correct answer.