VCE Biology Exams Tips and GuidesHow to overcome the most common student pitfalls:
Knowing what they are is a good starting point!
One place to start is the assessor’s reports which you can find on the VCAA website. They identify common problems that students had with specific problems. Reading through these may help you to learn from others mistakes.
Many schools buy papers written by companies such as TSSM. Students may also complete prior VCAA papers. Completing these is a good way of becoming accustomed to the vocabulary and question style that you can expect to see in the examinations.
Students often lose marks by changing a correct multiple choice response to an incorrect response. Completing any paper under test conditions is an excellent way of working out whether you do this or not. Check to see how many times you changed an answer. Did you consistently gain marks by doing so or lose them? If the latter then it probably isn’t a good idea for you to change your answer unless you are 100% sure that doing so will get you the mark. Remember, even if you aren’t sure about a multiple choice answer often your gut reaction is more likely to be right than just guessing.
If you aren’t sure of an answer to a multiple choice question try using the elimination method. If done properly this will increase your chances at getting the mark from the question.
Marks are also often lost because the student did not read or understand the question correctly. If two examples are requested have you only provided one? If a question asks you to compare two processes, have you mentioned both in your answer?
Proofread your work. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in planning what we are going to write we forget to pay attention to what we are writing now and even a single word can make the difference between getting a mark and not getting a mark.
The last common pitfall is unique to Year 11 students studying Units 3 and 4 and that is that they have the tendency of neglecting their Year 11 studies in favour of their Year 12 studies. It is great to want to maximise your score by undertaking extension studies in Year 11, but you also need to remember that your other subjects are providing essential grounding for the five subjects you will be completing in Year 12.
How to study more efficiently for Biology
Studying is often compared to training for sports. If you don’t train properly you won’t reach your goal, and the same is true of studying. Unfortunately it is quite common for people to put a lot more effort into their part time jobs, social lives and sports than they do into their studies. Then they wonder why they don’t get results.
Everyone has their own style. By the time you start unit three Biology you will have had at least ten years of education. You’re now a highly experienced learner! Work out what your strengths are and play to those. Do you learn by listening? Writing summary notes? Making up acronyms or mnemonics? Doing things such as practical activities or answering problems? If studying effectively for you means sticking post it notes all over your bedroom wall or making up lots of song lyrics then why not go for it? Concept or mind maps are a good way of condensing a lot of information.
Biology is a subject with a lot of terminology to learn. One of the best ways to learn the terminology is to make your own glossary on index cards or even using a spreadsheet programme such as Excel. After all you can’t answer a question if you don’t know what it is asking. However, if you do make a glossary don’t make the mistake of just looking up a word in your text and then writing the definition word for word. How much do you really think it will help you to improve your understanding? You can also get other people to test your on your memory and index cards are small enough to be read through in the car or bus on the way to and from school.
Treat every question you attempt as if it is important as those on a Sac or an exam. You’re in training right now and reinforcing good habits will mean that you have a much better chance of doing it right automatically when it really counts.
Whenever you get any work back from your teacher, read over their comments. If you lost marks for something then try to find out why and see if you can improve in that area next time . If there are no comments made then ask for feedback anyway.
Pay attention to what you are being taught! If you’re not paying attention then the information won’t get as far as your short term memory, let alone your long term memory. Or if you do remember something it is likely to be garbled and incomplete. Remember if you don’t use new information within a couple of hours of learning it, then you start forgetting it.
The real key is revision and repetition. People often see revision as boring and find it hard to get motivated, particularly when you don’t see the benefits straight away. Be patient, if you apply yourself properly you will see the results when it matters! Be in charge and plan ahead; make yourself a study timetable so that you will have an ongoing revision pattern. However, be realistic with your goals. No-one expects you to revise a whole topic in one go, or to be studying all of your subjects every night.
Try to keep your revision to a couple of subjects at a time in order to give yourself the best chance of retaining the information. The approach of revising small chunks of information on a frequent basis is likely to cause less stress than revising vast quantities of information irregularly.
Sir Francis Bacon was possibly the first person to say “Knowledge is power” and this still holds true today. The entire curriculum guide and an assessment handbook are both available on the VCAA website.
The study design guide tells you should be being covered in the course and you can use it as a checklist. If there is something in the list that you don’t think you have covered then go and find out about it. The assessment handbook contains more specific information about the content and quality of Sac’s. Have you visited these areas yet? Why not be forearmed? If in doubt ask! This is incredibly important and too many people just don’t do it, maybe because they are embarrassed, or think they might look stupid. Your teachers only have a limited amount of time to help you, and if you don’t take advantage of the opportunities that you have then it is likely that someone else will get their share of the teachers time and some of yours as well. Your teachers are not mind readers and if there is something that you need and aren’t getting then the best way of dealing with this is to talk to them.
How parents can help students attain a better study score for Biology
This is always going to come down to the individual student and their relationship with their parents. Some students appreciate advice and assistance, some resent it and for others if they feel like they are being pushed it only adds to their stress. Just give them the best environment and support that is possible. It is most important to offer support without increasing pressure.
Parents can also access the VCAA website and obtain information about all of the subjects their children are studying. It never hurts to have this information.
If it is necessary keep in regular contact with the teacher and attend the parent teacher interviews. If there is anything that you feel the teacher should know that will let them help your child more effectively then tell them as soon as possible. Sometimes students are embarrassed at saying things for example a child may have a hearing problem and need to sit at the front of the class, but they might not have told their teacher this.
It helps if parents have a strong positive attitude to education and schooling. It is important that there is an understanding that both teachers and parents are on the same side and both want the best for the students. It can cause a student stress if they feel this not to be the case. It is harder for a student to respect and trust their teacher if they see that their parents do not.
Encourage students to read and watch documentaries. Often this will put abstract information into context for them; it transforms words on a page into something that actually seems real.
How to maximize results and minimize stress in the Biology examinations
Many students learn information in class that they only look at again if it happens to be on a Sac, if not then they usually don’t revise it until two to three weeks before the exam. At that point they have a semesters worth of work to revise for five subjects in a couple of weeks. This causes major stress. Sound familiar?
Good preparation and study habits are the best way of minimizing stress prior to and during an examination. For most people confidence comes with knowing your subject area. Right? So if you have built a good foundation then you can walk into an exam with the confidence of knowing that you have put in your best effort.
One of the obvious things is to leave no blanks spaces, particularly in the multiple choice section. If you write something you might get a mark, if you write nothing then you definitely won’t. Why not do what you can to maximise the number of marks you can get?
Watch out for the type of question that comes in two parts. In some cases you can have no idea what the answer is but still have the possibility of getting a mark if you tackle it correctly. An example of this type of question is: state which of the two ventricles is the thickest and explain why this is necessary. In this case there are only 2 possibilities left or right so if you write one of these as your answer you have a 50% chance of getting a mark, even if you write nothing else!
Some students find it helps to go in with a plan as it makes them feel more in control. It may be that they have worked out how much time they can spend on each section and they write it on their paper so they don’t run out of time. Others memorise the answers to the first few multiple choice questions so they can write them in as soon as writing time starts. Still others decide to look for a question they can answer easily as this sets up a positive frame of mind for completing the rest of the paper.
By reading all of this you have made a start, hopefully you will have found something here that you can use. Good luck with your future studies.
Written by Ms. Helen Ball
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