Studying Biology

[Stick]

So I've just completed my headstart week, which has included five lessons of Biology. I already know that I'm very glad I made the decision to swap from Physics to Biology, but I have a few questions in regards to the content and structure of the course:

1. I'm getting the impression from my teacher that I cannot solely rely on one source for this subject (I've been encouraged to use Nature of Biology, Biozone and Biol Notes simultaneously, to give you an example). Is this really necessary?

2. Is it just me, or does the Nature of Biology textbook have a lot of irrelevant information? Also, I've found that the three sources mentioned above seem to cover different things within each sub-topic. How much detail do I really need to delve into?

Thanks.

[HighLatency]

Would try to do the entirety of biozone, it's gold.
Biol notes is really just there if you are struggling with the basic concepts, it does not go in depth.
And yes Nature of Biology has a lot of redunancy.

TBH if I ever got stuck on or didn't know the definition of something I just googled it instead of trying to find it in the textbook hehe.

[Biceps]

So I've just completed my headstart week, which has included five lessons of Biology. I already know that I'm very glad I made the decision to swap from Physics to Biology, but I have a few questions in regards to the content and structure of the course:

1. I'm getting the impression from my teacher that I cannot solely rely on one source for this subject (I've been encouraged to use Nature of Biology, Biozone and Biol Notes simultaneously, to give you an example). Is this really necessary?

2. Is it just me, or does the Nature of Biology textbook have a lot of irrelevant information? Also, I've found that the three sources mentioned above seem to cover different things within each sub-topic. How much detail do I really need to delve into?

Thanks.

1. Nature of biology has pretty much everything you need to know. I'd still recommend listening to douchy's biology podcast and use biol notes. Biol notes i HIGHLY RECOMMEND it has simple notes that pretty much allow you to understand anything in the course.
2. Nature of biology does have a lot of stories and extra information but they put it there to make it more "interesting." Personally i just skipped over them and got the info i needed. use biol notes along with study design to know what information to focus on.
BTW for immunity i highly recommend Khanacademy.

[pi]

Campbell's Biology 9th.

[peterpan101]

Would try to do the entirety of biozone, it's gold.
Biol notes is really just there if you are struggling with the basic concepts, it does not go in depth.
And yes Nature of Biology has a lot of redunancy.

TBH if I ever got stuck on or didn't know the definition of something I just googled it instead of trying to find it in the textbook hehe.

is everthing in biozone relevant ?

[pi]

Biozone is great imo. Some of the pages may seem irrelevant (make sure you check the contents page to see which pages are for VCE), but that's usually because they are case studies of sorts Good questions.

[peterpan101]

is heinemann a good text book because that is the one we have to buy for school, is it worth having a look at another text book?

[pi]

Nature of biology is the best.

[Stick]

I find it a bit difficult at this stage to gauge how much detail I need to go into. For example, would I need to know the exact differences in the structures of a-glucose and b-glucose, or is it enough to just know that multiple isomers exist?

[pi]

I find it a bit difficult at this stage to gauge how much detail I need to go into. For example, would I need to know the exact differences in the structures of a-glucose and b-glucose, or is it enough to just know that multiple isomers exist?

You won't be expected to know the structures off by heart or anything.

[Russ]

You won't even be expected to know that isomers exist

[Stick]

OK, I've been reading too much into the biochemistry of it all (ie I needlessly learnt that two a-glucose monomers forms maltose, but two b-glucose monomers forms cellobiose). Whoops!

[pi]

Maltose - ok. But cellobiose? LOL WHY?

(I can honestly not remember ever hearing cellobiose except this one time I did a random biochem-based wkipidia session...)

[Stick]

So it would not be enough to say that just two glucose molecules form together as maltose?

Also, I covered glycosidic bonds. I'm assuming that I went too far again?

[Russ]

What textbook are you reading? Do biology, not chemistry.