A-level Biology: Practical and Experimental Design - Top Tips and Question Pack

Top Tips !

  • Never write "amount" you mean mass, volume or concentration. 
  • Refer to "a control experiment" or "a variable that I will control (and then name the value and method of control)" but never to "a control variable"
  • Independent variable is what you change.
  • Dependent variable is what you actually measure in the experiment (not rate).
  • Organisms vary from each other unless they are clones !
  • When you suggest improvements think about improving the method rather than the equipment (e.g. control a variable that wasn't previously)

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Cardiac Cycle of the Heart and Transport in Animals Questions for A-level Biology - with video and PowerPoint to recap the theory

How to approach the Cardiac Cycle and answer A-level Biology Questions on mass transport in animals. Lots of past paper questions. Cardiac Cycle of the Heart and Transport in Animals Questions for A-level Biology - with video and PowerPoint to recap the theory.

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Answering Questions with lots of Maths in Biology - Data Analysis Questions in the new OCR Biology A Specification - updated Feb 2018 with the latest handbook

Which maths skills you need to practise for the new specification A-level Biology - excellent resources from OCR - also applies to AQA and Eduqas, lots of great practice questions

The quantity of maths in the 2017 specification is a challenge to many students - so I put together a summary of all of the OCR A new spec questions with some element of data analysis.

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How to Answer Hardy-Weinberg Questions - A-level Biology - with question pack

How to understand and answer Hardy-Weinberg Questions - A-level Biology. Remember to look out for questions where they give you a dominant phenotype frequency -for instance Huntingdons disease, where the frequency of the sufferers is 1 in 100000 - therefore q squared (recessive allele phenotype) is 99999 in 100000.

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Haemoglobin Oxygen Dissociation Curve / Bohr Effect Exam Questions - How to understand the Sigmoid Curve

Lots of Haemoglobin Oxygen Dissociation Curve/ Bohr Shift Questions and Markschemes, suitable for OCR A, AQA - and a brief guide to Understanding them.

The key to understanding dissociation curves is firstly to understand the concept of partial pressure and what would make it change. And to understand cooperative binding.

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How to approach and answer A-level Biology Questions that need you to Analyse Figures, Tables and Images - lots of example past paper questions

How to approach and answer A-level Biology Questions that need you to Analyse Figures, Tables and Images - lots of example past paper questions with the markschemes

DO NOT LOOK at the question and then look at the data to answer the question.

  • Look closely at the graph or table

  • look very carefully at the axes - have they plotted mean or rate or time, mass/volume or concentration ?

  • can you see range bars ?

  • In a table what range is in the replicates when you compare to the mean ?

  • what trends can you observe ? then think about what principle of biology is being shown by the the trends.

  • How would you explain the highest value, the lowest value, the point at which the line crosses the x axis, how would you explain the largest range, how would you change the experiment to reduce the spread in the data ?

Once  you have a coherent understanding of the trends  - only then look at the question.

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