How to Revise A-Level Biology

A-Level biology, as with all of the sciences, is a subject that is continually taken by high numbers of students. In 2021, Biology A-Level came in as the third most popular subject, increasing its overall entries by 4% compared to last year’s figures. For the almost 64,000 biology students that will soon be sitting their exams, many will be wondering exactly how to go about the arduous revision process.

One benefit of studying a popular subject is that you’ll have access to resources prepared by previous generations of exam takers, with detailed explanations of any question you could think of being available on the internet. By searching for revision banks, study guides, and topic tests, you’ll be able to refine your skills in your own time, starting off your revision process with a bang.

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That said, there is more to revision than just reading about your subject on the internet! That’s why we’ve written this guide to help you revise for A-Level Biology. We’ll be going through the four best tips, helping you to streamline your revision process and shoot for top marks.

After this guide, we’re sure you’ll smash through your target grade in no time. Let’s get right into it.

Make a Study Plan for your A-Level Biology Revision

The general consensus within A-Level biology, especially when compared to another science at A2 like Chemistry, is that although biology has easier concepts to understand, there is a lot more content to cover. Even just glancing over the AQA A-Level Biology specification, which is one of the most popular exam boards for this subject, you can see that there are around eight main topics, each with upwards of 5-10 specific subsections.

The most effective way to ensure that you can manage to cover all this content during your revision is to construct an accurate and detailed study plan. A study plan where you define what topics you’ll cover, how long it should take you, and when, will ensure that you have enough time to revise everything, while also giving you a sense of structure.

For students that aren’t used to independent work, the notion of having to face all their revision alone can be very daunting. That’s why we suggest you break down the revision that you need to do for each subject, making sure to outline every single topic in A-Level Biology and on which date you’ll be attacking that topic.

Structure allows every other revision method to speed up, taking some of the pressure away and helping you to sit down to work each morning and know exactly what you’ll be doing.

Make Flashcards

As revising for A-Level Biology is a battle against the amount of content you can learn, one of the most effective ways of revising is to turn to flash cards. Flashcards, whether created with paper or through an application, are ways of rapidly covering lots of content in a small amount of time.

When you balance flashcards with a spaced repetition system, you’ll be able to cut down on the number of revisions that you have to cover while also increasing your long-term recall of information. Spaced repetition is an interval system, which naturally follows how humans create memory. Once you create a card, you’ll repeat it:

• First Time: At 1 day
• Second Time: At 4 days
• Third Time: At 7 days
• Fourth Time: At 1 month
• And so on!

This system works by constantly reminding you of information just before it slips out of the range of the human forgetting curve, helping you to remember lots of information in ta short amount of time.

For many people, the active process of actually making the flashcards can also serve as a great form of revision, with students having to summarise topics into their central bullet points. To do that, you need great knowledge of the subject, what’s important, and where marks lie.

Do past papers for A-Level Biology

No matter what subject you want to revise for, past papers are going to be one of your primary revision methods at A-Level. Not only do past papers allow you to get up to speed with how quickly you answer questions, but their mark schemes also help you learn exactly what an examiner is looking for when answering.

By going through past papers, you’re able to put your knowledge to the test, quickly realising where you’re strong in Biology and where you could use a little extra work. This is one of the fastest ways of refining your skills, with the additional help of pulling information from the mark schemes helping to refine your answer technique.

Just be sure that you’re doing past papers from the correct exam board. If you don’t know which exam board you’re currently enlisted in, then be sure to ask your A-Level Biology teacher.

Hire a tutor

Finally, another effective way to go about biology revision is to get additional support from a good A-Level Biology tutor . No matter where you are on the grade spectrum, a tutor can help shape your learning, test your abilities, and help you work towards your goals. With a comprehensive understanding of the subject and often top grades themselves, a tutor will help you learn anything you’re unfamiliar with, while refining your exam technique and style for subjects you’re confident with.

If you work with a tutor around your other revision methods, then you’re able to use that person as a springboard, launching you into further understanding or affirming anything you’re not sure of. After a week of individual revision, you can then ask your tutor to clarify any concepts that you came across that you couldn’t quite get your head around.

This supported way of learning will significantly boost your grades and help you aim for the very top of the grade spectrum.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a tutor to help you revise for A-Level Biology, then be sure to reach out to one of our top A-Level tutors today. With years of experience, our tutors can offer the very best quality online tutoring education.

TutorChase wishes you best of luck in your A-Level Biology exams!