ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE Science => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Biology => Topic started by: TheAntiSocialist on January 03, 2013, 09:22:28 pm
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What I do in Biology - study - understand concepts - and then the last part - where I have trouble - to consolidate and memorize information in my head.
What ways do you guys use to memorize the ton of information we get in Bio?
Cards?
Small booklets of notes for each chapter?
Reviewing in small chunks - or big chunks?
Concept maps?
I know there is a lot of different techniques - and that it varies from person to person.
But so far the methods I have been using have not been working really well for me - that's why I'm looking for other ways...
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Don't rote learn! Try and understand the concept and relate it to reality :)
E.g. When you add sunflower oil to water, it remains at the top of the solution and does not dissolve, why? because oils contain polyunsaturated fatty acids and therefore they do not have the ability to dissolve in water. Also, oil sits on the top because it has a lower density than water, hence why fat people can float in water (as they are more buoyant) than skinnier people.
Biology doesn't require memorising material if you apply it :P
Also I would recommend having a collection of resources (biozone is amazing and A+ notes is comprehensive). If you are in year 12, then I wouldn't recommend writing up summaries because it gets time consuming. If you are in year 11, then go for it if you think it's the best way to learn :P
Personally, I would watch a lot of youtube videos that give an idea of how a process can work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGV3fv-uZYI
Do Checkpoints, NEAP smartstudy and practice exam questions. Questions will help you understand the application of biology and the solutions provide you a better way to answer the questions.
Hope I helped.
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Though people usually say dont rote learn - usually myself as well - sometimes there are situations that you need to. If you dont even know the content yet its a bit hard to understand the content and apply it.
If you are really having trouble remembering key points and topics what help me a lot was cards with a couple of words that relate to that topic - not slabs of info. also another thing that helps is to get other people to then test you on this info to see how much you actually know. From there you can apply techniques like kanye east said to help you apply and relate your knowledge.
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Don't rote learn! Try and understand the concept and relate it to reality :)
E.g. When you add sunflower oil to water, it remains at the top of the solution and does not dissolve, why? because oils contain polyunsaturated fatty acids and therefore they do not have the ability to dissolve in water. Also, oil sits on the top because it has a lower density than water, hence why fat people can float in water (as they are more buoyant) than skinnier people.
Biology doesn't require memorising material if you apply it :P
Also I would recommend having a collection of resources (biozone is amazing and A+ notes is comprehensive). If you are in year 12, then I wouldn't recommend writing up summaries because it gets time consuming. If you are in year 11, then go for it if you think it's the best way to learn :P
Personally, I would watch a lot of youtube videos that give an idea of how a process can work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGV3fv-uZYI
Do Checkpoints, NEAP smartstudy and practice exam questions. Questions will help you understand the application of biology and the solutions provide you a better way to answer the questions.
Hope I helped.
That did help! Thanks for reading!
But what is your advice when there are difficult definitions/terms? Sure, I can understand them thoroughly, but when it comes to sac/exam conditions, I can very easily forget them - especially the lengthy and complicated ones....
Would rote learning help this problem? Or should I attempt at using these particular terms more often in my revision?
EDIT: btw, what is "NEAP smartstudy" ? I know what NEAP is - but what do you mean about 'smart study'?
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you need to do a combination of conceptual understanding and to a degree, also rote learning. for instance, understanding the process of transcription is imperative in unit 4 biology, but if asked the individual steps, rote-learning the independent events that occur within this provcess may be necessary.
my recommendation would be to first read through all the content and understand it first. then, when youre done with that, go on to memorise the minor details that season your overall understanding of the content. Thats what i did anyways. Hope this helps
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you need to do a combination of conceptual understanding and to a degree, also rote learning. for instance, understanding the process of transcription is imperative in unit 4 biology, but if asked the individual steps, rote-learning the independent events that occur within this provcess may be necessary.
my recommendation would be to first read through all the content and understand it first. then, when youre done with that, go on to memorise the minor details that season your overall understanding of the content. Thats what i did anyways. Hope this helps
Thanks! That's something that could work for me - basically what happened last year was that I went from extreme to extreme - from only rote-learning to only understanding concepts - a good balance between them should work!
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My rote-learning basically consisted of me listening to Douchy's Biology Podcast from like 5.30 to 6.30 in the morning to wake me up. (Sounds insane but hey)
Then I'd keep listening to the podcasts over and over and over while I was on the way home from school.
It did work though.
Watching animations and lots of videos would also be a good way to review a concept, rather than just reading it. It's much easier to memorise a process by visualising it. It's really cool and entertaining as well! The videos we watched while studying for the immune system were hillarious and it really trapped the information in my head.
This was a part of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yc5lkbdG-4
It's pretty random LOL
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5uq-ta4km0
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EDIT: btw, what is "NEAP smartstudy" ? I know what NEAP is - but what do you mean about 'smart study'?
It's just the name of the study guide. It's called "NEAP Smartstudy Revision Guide"
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I had summary books for each semester and worked really hard and only got a 36. I think for biol you really need to practise hard questions and use reading time really well in the exam and don't rush. Because the material isn't hard to understand, but vcaa makes it hard to apply it through their questions.
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I had summary books for each semester and worked really hard and only got a 36. I think for biol you really need to practise hard questions and use reading time really well in the exam and don't rush. Because the material isn't hard to understand, but vcaa makes it hard to apply it through their questions.
so is that what you needed to do you to get a higher score?
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It's important that you understand each concept you learn. Rote learning can only get you so far, in that it's an okay way of learning how to use scientific language correctly (VCAA examiners are extremely pedantic about this).
To understand a concept, and thereby be able to apply it to various scenarios (as you will likely encounter in the exam) there are a number of things you can do:
- Write summary notes, based off both your teacher's handouts/theory notes (if applicable) and the textbook. Diagram EVERYTHING; it helps your comprehension and it prepares you for the occasional diagram question in the exam, as with exam 2 2012
- Get the latest possible edition of the Biozone book, and do all questions therein; this aids your comprehension of each specific idea in the biology course, and helps you develop the sort of critical thinking and link-making between ideas that will help you immensely in the exam
- Always ask your teacher questions, get them to correct every piece of non-assigned work that you've done. These people (generally) know the subject matter extremely well, so you would be remiss in not taking advantage of them
Best of luck!
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Does the difficulty of biology mainly come from understanding the concepts or conveying your understanding of the concept to the examiner? I know of many people who seemed to understand the concepts extremely well but received study scores lower than I expected.
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To ensure that I understood the information that I was reading in my textbook, after reading and understanding each chapter I would then begin to do Checkpoints questions, which pretty much tests your understanding of the course. I think in some chapters such as immunity,mitosis/meiosis and often evolution you do have to memorise some key definitions, words etc. But, I mostly found Biology as a subject where a deep understanding of the concepts plays a more important role( imo 70% of your understanding of the biological concepts comes from doing as many questions as you can). Hope this helped :D
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Does the difficulty of biology mainly come from understanding the concepts or conveying your understanding of the concept to the examiner?
The latter. In the exam, you have to keep in mind that you're writing to please an examiner. Hence, make all your answers suitably complex but not too full of biological jargon that it's difficult for the examiner to discern what you're saying.
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With regards to your question BadStudent, I think the difficulty of biology comes from not answering the actual question asked and often not expressing your answer clear enough. I think I often faced this problem, I understood pretty much all the theory but when it came to answering the questions I often found difficulty in writing a cohesive and accurate response.(and that's when good English skills can save you from facing this problem)
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What I find is really effective is having a note book (other than your actual Biol exercise book) beside you when you are actually learning something new. Once you have read a paragraph say about Immunity, write down on that notebook everything you just read. For example, the definition of immunity, The Non-Specific Immunity (First + Second Line of Defense) and Specific (3rd line of defense). It is a bit illogical to reason that Biol is only about application of knowledge when you don't have a basis of knowledge to begin with. I also find that enthusiasm helps. I have downloaded 17 apps on my iPhone that have lessons + info regarding topics in Bio like plasma membrane, biochemical processes, genetics, protein synthesis + even evolution! As cliche as it sounds, making concept maps and sort of creating sub-topics helps; e.g. rather than looking at aerobic respiration as one cycle with the presence of oxygen that breaks down complex organic compounds like glucose into a usable form of energy, look at it in terms of the three main cycles: Glycolysis, Kreb's Cycle + the Electron Transport chain! :) Hope this helps!
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In my opinion, the best revision starts in the classroom. That is, if you don't understand something: ask questions! You don't want to be just listening to a teacher drone on, or even just following along in your textbook. You want to be actively participating. Take notes as you go, if you miss something or don't quite understand, ask your teacher to repeat it. Then see if you can create an analogy that helps you, personally, to understand a concept. It doesn't matter if they're stupid, if it helps you remember, go for it. For example, I created a couple of Biology pick up lines, which were horrendously cringeworthy and not recommended for public use, but were factual and stupid and made me giggle so I remembered them.
Secondly, find out if your teacher has any kind of policy for after school hours help. Do they check emails, are they willing to meet up with you at lunchtime, etc. My teacher gave the class his phone number, and was bombarded with calls around exam time, but was happy to help.
With revision, you can do summaries, but I find the best help is doing questions. And when you inevitably reach a question you don't understand, or know how to answer but don't know why its correct, write that down in a separate notebook. That way, if you do arrange a meeting with your teacher, you know exactly what concepts you need to cover.
When it comes down to it though, the exams are all about analysing the question and figuring out what on earth the assessors are looking for. Get a highlighter. One that is disturbingly bright. Highlight key terms, and do lots and lots and LOTS of practise exams, because that's probably the best preparation. You'll soon find common themes, and don't rush through reading the questions! They're tricksy, and confusingly worded. But all you really need is common sense. They're never going to ask you about something you haven't learnt. You just need to relate things back to what you know :)
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Bio is a subject that requires a combination of menory and application of knowledge, unlie other subjects which often require one or the other. Rather than memorising definitions, learn how to formulate them whilst learning topics. For example, once you learn about enzymes, you learn the definitions by putting everything you know regarding the topic of enzymes because your ability to remember that particular definition will be improved by an understanding of the essence of the definition. :)
Also, completing as many questions as possible that enable you to explout your Biological understanding + terminology will get you into the habit for SACs and exams. I mean it is simple to explain cellular respiration verbally; however, your written answer must be just as well or better!!