✩ Conquering VCE Biology - getting a 50 in year 11 ✩Here's my guide to conquering VCE Biology! I got a 50 in year 11 (2019) and I want to help other future biology students achieve their best! Includes study techniques as well as tips on how to approach this content heavy yet beautiful subject (that I promise will be worth it in the end).Click HERE for more answers to your questions
Hi everyone,
I loved reading all these guides over the holidays before I began 3/4 biology and I genuinely thought that they helped me find the way I study best as well as inspire me to put my all into biology. So I thought that it’s about time I contribute to the large pile of guides with another one! I also know that a lot of people accelerate biology and are unsure how to approach their first year 12 subject, so I’d love to offer some advice and also answer any questions you have. Getting a 50 in biology this year (my accelerated subject in year 11) was always a goal for me, but with dedication it (surprisingly) became a reality. I endeavour to excite some of you fellow VCE bio students and help you achieve your goals too. So sit back and enjoy my guide, I hope you find at least one useful thing to keep you biology smart (and biology passionate!) next year and beyond.
✩ SUMMER HOLIDAYS ✩Getting ahead in the summer holidays is definitely not something you have to do, but I strongly recommend gaining a good understanding of the content you have already begun in class. Personally, I covered the first four chunks of dot points in the study design (Plasma membranes, Nucleic Acids and Proteins, Gene structure and Regulation & Structure and Regulation of Biochemical pathways). But don't freak out if you don't get that far. In my experience, there is no use trying to squeeze the entire 3/4 content into the summer holidays, it’s just not worth it. Instead, focus on fully grasping and understanding the first few concepts, work thoroughly (but not rushingly) through each topic on the study design. Furthermore, it is not only biological knowledge you should gain in the holidays but also some excitement and passion for the subject. I believe that this, along with some goals helped me to study consistently throughout the year, which is ultimately what leads to success!
✩ HOW TO STUDY CONSISTENTLY THROUGHOUT THE YEAR ✩Key resourcesAt the start of year 11 I was freaking out a little about which resources to purchase as it's difficult to know what will work and what won't. Obviously a lot of this depends on personal preference and what resources your school requires you to have. Here’s a list of some of the resources I utilised and how each one aided me in gaining a deeper understanding of biology.
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THE STUDY DESIGN: This is literally your number one resource for the year. Yes, this is a little obvious, but I was surprised by how many students at my school neglected to utilise the study design until the week before the exam. My tip is to use the study design throughout the entire year. This ensures you are gaining a specific understanding of the key concepts which VCAA wants you to understand. Furthermore, during the exam, knowing the study design can help shape your answer, ultimately leading to more fluent expression.
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Edrolo and Douchy’s podcasts (find them on any podcast site): Absolutely fantastic. Our school required us to have Edrolo, but the podcasts are free and hence an incredibly useful resource for all biology students. I listened to all of Edrolo once through and the podcasts twice through. Not only because Douchy is hilarious but also because I could use them on the bus, when walking to work, etc (literally the best way to surround yourself with biology).
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Textbooks: Our school used the Nelson textbook, which was okay but over-detailed in some areas and under-detailed in others. I also purchased the Nature of Biology book (which was beautiful to read but also goes into extreme detail in some areas). So the big question, how much do you use the textbook? In my opinion, they can be fantastic for the beginning of the year, particularly in the school holidays, for some light reading of select topics. However, there is no way I would waste precious time during the year completing chapter questions or reading the entire book. Instead, use it lightly (and I stress LIGHTLY) to review topics that you are having difficulty with.
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Atarnotes + other notes: I found the Atarnotes biology summary helpful. It is certainly not perfect, and I would definitely not substitute it for all the other resources I have suggested, but it is certainly a great complementary resource. These notes are particularly good at summarising topics or helping you work ahead of your class (although I wouldn't say they are essential). I also downloaded some free notes from past students, not only for the content, but to help me see the way others set out their notes or how they understood or memorised concepts. This was also good as it provided a perspective on topics that differed from my teacher.
Taking notesI took handwritten notes which I think was my main version of consistent study throughout the year, using power points (given by our teachers), Edrolo, Douchy's podcasts, the Atarnotes summary book and more. I think creating combined notes from a variety of resources really forced me to understand the content fully, as well as give me a broad scope of the course. Essentially, I went through each dot point in the study design and ticked the point off once I’d covered it in my notes. If I didn’t understand any part of it, I researched and read all different resources until I was satisfied with my understanding. This way of writing notes really minimised the time I spent memorising content later on, giving me more time to do practice exams and questions.
Working a little aheadI always worked a little bit ahead of my class, depending on how much free time I had during the week. Usually I just read ahead, did Edrolo and watched some podcasts. However, I didn’t begin writing my notes until after covering the content in class. While it isn’t essential to work ahead, it certainly helps you understand the concepts better, as it means that you can use class time to consolidate knowledge and consult your teacher with any questions you may have.
Ask questions and question everythingAn obvious one but I thought I would reiterate it all the same. There is no disadvantage to asking questions, so question everything! Anything I didn’t understand, even if it was the tiniest thought, I wrote down in a little notebook (essentially a book full of questions). It’s great to consult your teachers, friends and of course the Atarnotes forum about these questions. However, I definitely encourage you, before reaching out to anyone, to research your own question and see if you can find some information surrounding it. This helps you to gain a better understanding of the content, just make sure you don’t stray too far away from the course! After doing this, then you can consult someone to see how close you were to answering your own question.
Do practice questions when you canWe were lucky that our teachers provided us with a condensed version of VCAA questions for each topic. I found these useful, at first I was scared to ‘use’ all the VCAA questions up, but it is honestly such great exposure to VCAA style questions, especially since the end of year exam arises relatively fast. If your teachers don’t provide practice questions, you could use the Atarnotes topic tests or Checkpoints (although I didn’t use these so I am unable to review them).
✩ HOW TO APPROACH YOUR SACS ✩When to start studyingI tended to start around 2-3 weeks before each SAC. I have a fairly decent memory, so writing notes was mostly enough for me in terms of memorisation. Thus, I tended to study for SACs by making sure I was including key words in my responses, etc (and also memorising a few key phrases for questions that you might expect - such as the three steps in PCR (actually came up on the 2019 exam!)). This saves time during the SAC (especially since in some of our SACs you had to write incredibly fast - a lot faster than the exam - although obviously this will depend on the school).
The steps to being preparedI subconsciously followed these steps when studying for SACs…
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Test yourself, and be honest: Find out what you do and don’t know, using the study techniques that work best for you. Basically, just test yourself, using the study design (of course), your notes and any other techniques. If you truly know you are unsure about something, don’t move on until you are happy with your understanding. Don’t ever think “that probably won’t be on the SAC” as you will be kicking yourself if it is. Instead, be honest with yourself about what you don’t know, as then you can take steps to ensure that you know it for the test.
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Practice: Do practice questions and practice SACs. If you have trouble working under pressure, it’s best to do a few of these practices under test conditions. During the practice, if you are having trouble answering a question, mark it with a highlighter but still
try your best to put down a decent answer within the allocated time frame. When you are marking your practice SAC, you can come back to the highlighted questions and clarify your answers with the solutions or your teacher. That way you can figure out why you found it challenging (did you simply not know the topic, was it the way the question was phrased, etc).
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Summary document: Mark your practice SACs and make a document containing your mistakes or any key notes. I usually created digital
summary notes for each SAC, which contained only the key KEY points that I would be likely to forget, as well as answers to questions that were likely to appear on the SAC.
✩ HOW TO STUDY THE MOST EFFECTIVELY FOR THE EXAM ✩Annotating the study designThis was one of the my favourite ways to study in the last couple of weeks leading up to the exam. I actually ended up annotating the whole study design twice. Basically I just sat on my floor with my notes and tonnes of resources and went through, with a fine tooth comb, every single dot point on the design. Any key information that I thought I might forget, I annotated (for example, you might forget that prokaryotes do not undergo post-transcriptional modification, so annotate the design with this point).
Practice ExamsI began doing practice exams during the holidays before exams started. I got through 20 practice exams, around 6-7 which were done under exam conditions. Remember, it is not the amount of practice exams you do but the time and effort you put into each one of them. Every time I did a practice exam, I made sure my answers were to a quality I would be happy with on the end of year exam. There is no use half-heartedly doing 50 practice exams, it won’t get you anywhere. Also, make sure you give yourself 15 minutes reading time at the beginning of each practice exam.
Which Practice Exams to useI did the 2013-2018 VCAA ones as well as company exams (NEAP, Aced, Insight, etc) that our school provided. I also did the multiple choice questions from the earlier exams. I dated all my exams, the first one being the 20th of September and the last being one three days before the actual exam. If you don’t have time to do as many as I did,
don’t stress I promise you can still ace the exam! Just make sure you prioritise the most recent VCAA exams as they will be closest in structure and style to the questions on your exam. If you know that you do have time to do a lot of exams, then do these ones last.
Marking Practice Exams I tended to mark any practice exam a day or two after I completed it. Marking practice exams is equally as important as doing the practice exam for you cannot learn from your mistakes without knowing them! Even if I got full marks, I would highlight the key words or phrases that got me those marks.
Marking them yourself is also a formidable way to gain insight on the method which a VCAA examiner utilises to decide whether to give you marks or not (especially when you are using the past examination reports). I also created a mistakes document, where I put mistakes that I would make (in my practice exams) even though I understood the question (eg. missing key words, etc). This document can then be used as another revision tool to prepare for the exam.
Examiners' reports Make sure you read through the recent examiners' reports. They can give you insight on how VCAA examiners like you to answer questions and can help you avoid common mistakes that students have made in the past.
✩ HOW TO STAY CALM AND DO YOUR BEST IN THE EXAM ✩Enter the exam with a planIf you know exactly how you are going to approach the exam, it’s going to be less stressful and less likely you won’t finish on time. I aimed to smash out the multiple choice in 30 minutes and then chronologically work through the second half of the exam. Obviously everyone will have a different plan that suits them best. It’s good to aim to have 10 or 15 minutes to read through your exam and check your answers at the end, but don't stress if you run out of time for this.
Use reading timeYour exam plan should include how you want to utilise reading time. This is a golden 15 minutes, which you can use to alleviate stress within the exam as well as decrease the amount of time it takes for you to respond to questions.
Don’t waste it! I personally spent the first 12 minutes reading through the short answer section, particularly focusing on questions I knew I would find challenging. Then I spent the last 3 minutes doing as many of the multiple choice questions as I could.
Multiple Choice SectionBe quick but precise with your multiple choice questions. If I was a little unsure of a question, I would answer it but note it down and then come back to it at the end. A lot of the time people are correct in the first answer and then change it to the incorrect answer. So if you have limited time left at the end, don’t change the answer unless you are 100% sure that it is incorrect. If you look at a question and have no idea, use the process of elimination to the select the best choice and move on. There is no use wasting precious exam time on worrying whether it is correct or not. Your best chance now is to move forward and smash the rest of the exam.
Short Answer SectionI used dot points for most of my questions. This helps you remain concise and also makes sure you are directly answering the question. It goes without saying that you need to check how much each question is worth to decide the amount of points and detail your answer will contain. If you freak out about a question or are unsure how to answer, write something down, move on and come back to it at the end. Don’t leave it blank as there is a possibility you will run out of time to return to the question.
Here are some things you should keep in mind when completing your short answer section
(make sure you practice all these in your practice exams so that you are in the habit of doing them for the real thing!)1.
Use the data given: If VCAA provides data in a question (as a graph or worded), make sure you use it in your response rather than just providing a generic answer to the question. For instance, imagine the question asked you to describe allopatric speciation and gave you a specific example, which told you that there was a flood, causing a river to separate a population. In your answer, make sure you state that “the river acted as a geographic barrier” rather than simply stating that “there was a geographic barrier”. This ability to refer and utilise data is what truly separates the top-end students from the others.
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Don’t forget comparative statements: In a question that requires you to compare two different entities, make sure you use a comparative statement to essentially
prove to the examiners you are comparing the two things.
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Use key words: Before you hurriedly write down an answer, ask yourself what key terms you should be including (for example, if the question concerns an enzyme denaturing, it is likely that you will have to discuss a change in its
tertiary structure which thereby changes the shape of the active site).
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Plan your response in your head: Doing a quick plan of your response can really help you achieve the best expression. There is no use writing 3 lines of useless information that doesn’t answer the question. It wastes your previous exam time and proves to the examiner that you didn't understand the question. In the 2019 exam, there was only one 4 mark question, and I made sure I did a quick plan (four 1 word dot points) of how I was going to answer this larger question before writing it, enabling me to gain full marks. I suggest you do the same with questions you find difficult (but watch the clock, you don’t want to run out of time).
Familiarise yourself with the structure and types of questionsFor the current study design, there tends to be 40 multiple choice questions and 11 short answer questions. Question 10 will probably provide you with about half a page of writing, which you are required to read through and interpret to answer the questions. On the other hand, question 11 is the experimental design question. Knowing that these types of questions will most likely appear on future exams can aid you in answering the best you can, while relieving some pressure as you know what to expect!
✩ SOME MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT MY BIOLOGY APPROACH ✩ (Remember, everyone has a different approach, there is not just one formula to success!)When did you finish learning the entire course? By the beginning of September.
Did you have a tutor?No I didn’t. It definitely isn’t necessary to have a tutor to do well, although I suppose it depends on personal preference and how you learn best.
Did you attend any lectures?I attended Andrew Douch’s lecture which I found very insightful both in how to approach the exam as well as providing key points to remember. You definitely don’t have to attend lectures and I wouldn’t go if you have a lot of other subjects to focus on. But if it is your accelerated subject and/or you have some free time in the holidays, it is worth going to one or two.
What did you do the day before the exam? I did some light reading over my notes, mistakes document and read over some of the more important practice exams (the most recent VCAA ones). The evening before the exam I went to training for 3.5 hours which was a fantastic way to clear my mind. I suggest you also do something to help you get into a meditative mindset (but it’s okay to be nervous, I was too!).
What did you do after the exam? It was really hot after my bio exam. I remember I went to get Mexican with my friends and practically borrowed out the whole library for the long weekend. Then I walked home and tried hard not to think about the exam.
Did you talk about the answers following the exam? My friends and I decided we didn’t want to stress ourselves out by discussing the exam afterwards. Although I did look at the suggested multiple choice solutions on Atarnotes to check I’d gotten them all right.
✩ TO CONCLUDE, FIVE QUICK AND IMPORTANT SUMMARY TIPS ✩1.
Don’t forget your best friends (well, best resources): Use the study design and your teacher (they are your best friends).
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Mistakes aren’t the end, I promise: Don’t stress about mistakes, everyone makes them, even those getting that 99.95. If you make a mistake, in class, a SAC or even the exam, take note, learn from it and move on.
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Know the course inside out and a little bit more: Gain a specific understanding of the course (understand every dot point thoroughly) and don’t stray too far from the study deign. However, there is no disadvantage to delving a little deeper into some concepts and broadening your knowledge a little outside the course (on topics that are still relevant). It's super interesting and can be useful, even for the end of year exam!
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Remember the study design (again): Annotate the study design to prepare for the big exam.
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Love and appreciate biology: Try your best while loving and enjoying biology. It is a beautiful subject, so even if you don’t get the score you want, appreciate that you put in the hard work and because of this, had your eyes opened to just a few secrets of the biological world.
So there’s my guide, I hope it proves useful to some aspiring bio students out there, can’t wait to hear about your journeys. Remember, these tips are given in good faith, but every VCE journey is different, and thereby, everyone studies, learns and achieves differently.
Please feel free to ask tonnes of questions below (or point out any mistakes), I’d love to help some of you 2020 bio students out just as the forums helped me!✩ ChocolateMilkshake ✩