Leaving Cert Biology & Geography

Jinx96

Currently in 5th year. Was wondering if anyone had any advice/tips on how to get a high grade in each of these for the Leaving Cert. I would be over the moon with an A2 in both but would settle for a B2 in both also as they are my strongest out of my subjects. Would be grateful for any responses

yoho139

6th year Geography student, aiming for an A2 or A1 (unlikely to get an A1, but hey).

I'd say work on your essays on the various topics over the two years and keep them organised. That'll save you from having to do them amidst the stress of sixth year.

If you're not the kind to learn off essays (I know I'm not), do essay questions anyway, to practice. If you have trouble organising your thoughts or getting them long enough, try setting out headings to work under (eg: Secondary Industry in a Sub-Continental region, have a heading for each facet of the industry, expand under those headings etc.). This will keep your essays neat and organised, make it easier on the correctors and (great side effect!) make them seem longer, given adequate spacing. Make sure you get in enough SRPs, of course.

As for your field study, go all out on your report for your first draft. This'll make life easier for you in subsequent drafts and take significant pressure off. We're on our second draft now and it's just a relaxing class of rewriting sections and drawing some pretty graphs for me while everyone else is desperately trying to get theirs done in time.

Good luck!

Jinx96

Great advice especially on the field study report! Ive only a fraction of the course covered so far in fifth and find the short questions very easy, would you prep much for those or would you solely focus on the long questions? best of luck btw and hope you hit that a1/a2!

yoho139

Personally, I find the short questions incredibly easy and usually get them done in about half the time the teacher recommends, and usually get close to 100% on that section. Revise the sort of stuff that comes up for them, but don't lose sleep over it.

Gryffindor

Ok so these are both my strongest subjects. The pretty much just require (I know some will disagree) learning the info off.

For Biology I genuinely couldn't recommend flash cards enough. The night before a test I pretty much turn the whole chapter into definitions, as spieling off concise but detailed facts is pretty much what the entire exam consists of!
I don't mean these have to be 7 part essays either though when I say detailed. Use the exam marking schemes if you need help deciding how much info is required.

Eg. Ribosomes: -Protein synthesis (combine amino-acids)
-Made of RNA/Protein

(Like as in I put Ribosomes on one side and the info on the other)

Or Connective Tissue: -Joins/Supports body structures
-Consists of cells suspended in a matrix
- eg. blood, bone, adipose

Also don't neglect any of the experiments as they're a really important part of the exam.
Then they're just a really handy way of refreshing now and then. Oh and you can cut your flashcards in 3 if you're a cheapskate like me.

For geography just get really familiar with the past exam questions as they tend to repeat way more than they should!
Also pretty important to have some structure to your answer as it makes it easier to correct if clearly laid out. So maybe start with a "In my answer I will firstly discuss......"
I think if you learn the key sample answers and a general answer layout for all topics you should definitely be hitting the A mark.

Hope this helps

SChique00

Jinx96 wrote: »

Currently in 5th year. Was wondering if anyone had any advice/tips on how to get a high grade in each of these for the Leaving Cert. I would be over the moon with an A2 in both but would settle for a B2 in both also as they are my strongest out of my subjects. Would be grateful for any responses

Never thought I'd be any good at Biology because I hated Junior Cert Science - however I find it among the easiest and least stressful of my subjects this year. What I will say to you is be consistent with your note-making. All through last year, I would highlight sparsely during each class, then go home and make notes on what we'd covered. By the time the summer exams came around I was more than prepared in terms of having material to revise - it was just a matter of redrawing diagrams, going over key definitions, etc. Ended up getting 94% in the exam, and I'm hoping to carry on that streak through to the LC in June

In terms of what to focus most heavily on, my teacher has told us that much of the material on the paper is taken from sections 1 and 2 (ie. the Study of Life and the Cell). Respiration and Photosynthesis make regular appearances, as do Enzymes and Genetics. Know these inside out and have a working knowledge of the human systems and plant structures (particularly the diagrams) and you're looking at a solid mark.

What works best for me is making hardback notes - diagrams which also give the function under each label, definitions of key terms, yadayada. According to my teacher, many of the marks lost by students are down to not covering all bases with their definitions of things, so check and recheck your definitions and have them learned off.
E.G. What is metabolism? The sum of all the chemical reactions inside and outside a living organism.
Leaving out "living" or "chemical" could cost you a mark, and they add up if you make similar errors throughout the paper.
When it comes to revising material, I like to take my notes, chapter by chapter, and try my best to condense the info onto a blank A4 page, diagrams and all. Plenty of colour helps me when I'm trying to learn diagrams, as I can recall the labels easily by their colour in my notes.

One final point - know your experiments!! These feature heavily in the papers and could cost you valuable marks if you can't recall their processes and results on the day. Keep up with reporting on your experiments as you would with normal note-making - makes things so much easier in the run-up to exams.

Hope I could help!

yoho139

Gryffindor wrote: »

Ok so these are both my strongest subjects. The pretty much just require (I know some will disagree) learning the info off.

Note that if you're like me and hate/are hopeless at learning info off, there's still ways to learn Geography (can't speak for Biology, always hated it) through logic (x causes y therefore z) even though you will have to learn a few things off. When I'm writing an essay on the jungle, for example, I just visualise a jungle and work my way down, adapting what I know about them to the question. This tends to net me high Bs or A2s.

thelad95

What works for me in Biology is to go through a chapter, write out all the relevant points of info on one sheet, diagrams on another sheet and experiments on another sheet. Store these in three seperate folders and keep reviewing them regularly. Also, do every year of exam questions on a topic when you revise it. As questions are incredibly repetitive, you will find you are writing the same answers over and over again so you learn this way.
For geography, I find dividing every essay into seven headings with 2-3 SRP's under each heading. I still have so much to do in Geography though I only took it up this year :cool:

I'm not sure about flashcards to be honest. I don't find them particularly helpful and they are just time consuming to make out. Everyone to their own though.

Ultimately, there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to study. It's up to whatever works best for you.

Vito Corleone

Got an A1 in Geography and an A2 in Biology so I hope I can be of some help.

My advice for Biology is to buy the book "Essentials Unfolded". Learn it inside out. It's a tiny book but it covers so much. I think a lot of people get bogged down with the Biology course. The textbooks generally go into a lot of detail and it often isn't required for the actual LC exam. I would also advise you to get acquainted with your exam papers. Take a paper per week and do it out. Copy the answers straight from examinations and read over it again and again, eventually you'll know the answer straight away. The same questions generally come up time and time again. Every month, test yourself on an actual paper and then correct it to see how you're doing.

For Geography I would recommend you buy Sue Honan's revision book. Again, I found the textbook very daunting with too much information. The revision book I found was just a lot easier to handle. I basically read that book inside out and learned off the essays. They are trying to make exams more unpredictable so preparing for questions that haven't been asked before is something I would also advise.

MightyMandarin

6th year geography student aiming for an A1. Geography as an exam is pretty easy to prepare for, focus on not messing up short questions (anyone aiming high should easily get 80/80). part (a)'s of long questions are also really important and getting full marks on them gives some room if you mess up on an essay. Aim for minimum 26/30 on the essays and there should be little problem achieving 90%+. For revision just exam questions and breaking down chapters into notes is what has worked well for me so far.

examstress

Hi everyone ! I'm in 5th year and I love geography however I find writing the essays really difficult . I was just wondering if anyone has essays typed up or saved on their computer that they are willing to share ? I would be so so sooo grateful as I have no one at home to help me as I am the oldest Drop me a private message , I would be so grateful ! Thanks

crolekka

For me personally I find the best thing to do is practice the exam papers. Take a topic each week in your own time, I'll use biology but I'm sure geography is similar, so let's take say photosynthesis; go over your school notes and the chapter in the book. Then try the photosynthesis questions in the exam papers. You'll find in biology that there is an inordinate amount of repetition in how the topics are examined every time they appear on the paper. This will make you aware of what the department are looking for you to know when sitting your own LC. Of course this is also a great way to highlight your weaknesses in a topic and allows you to gauge which areas you need to work on. It may get monotonous but if it's the A you're after I'd say it's well worth the strain.

The second thing I'd advise is internalize the content you're being taught. Write your own notes on topics, I find writing in 'brainstorm' style bullet points helps me to retain a lot more information. You can highlight the book all you want but that doesn't mean it's going into your head. Also, this isn't really related to your question but take it as gospel, don't procrastinate! Set aside a study plan that suits you and stick to it. It'll all be worth it in the end and you'll thank yourself that you achieved the result that you were aiming for.

Jinx96

Thanks for the reply, just finished a first set of 5th year exams and done a ton of exam questions and felt it helped me soo much in it and hopefully my result will be proof of that when I get it! So I will definitely keep that up!

HugsiePie

I got an A1 in Biology so hopefully this will be of some help

IGNORE REVISION BOOKS

Make your own notes from the book-try to include pretty colourful diagrams as much as possible-most people are spatial learners and learn from diagrams easier than text. Dont "copy and paste" get your head round it and understand the material-its a bit late in the year to "catch up" on the chapters youve already done-just start doing it in the new year-work on your notebook everyday-or aleast everyday you have bio. Ignore revision books as some include extra material or different terminology that will just make your life harder-trust me. However-I found essentials unfolded great for experiments-it really condensed it down but you basically have to memorise ever sentence as its a s basic as you can make it-each sentence is a necessary point you NEED to know.

Jinx96

Thanks! Well done on the a1 are you studying any sciences at the moment? What sections/chapters did you find most difficult or found yourself looking over most frequently?

HugsiePie

Jinx96 wrote: »

Thanks! Well done on the a1 are you studying any sciences at the moment? What sections/chapters did you find most difficult or found yourself looking over most frequently?

O h um thanks . I am studying general science atm in NUIG. Most difficult chapters-well photosynthesis and respiration-as most people do-and for me I also found DNA replication to be very difficult-but theyre the ones to learn. You just have to get over it and learn the difficult ones imo. I didnt actually learn all the chapters from section 3-I knew it was more important to learn the chapters from section 1 and 2. And alot of people moaned about the lack of section 3 on the paper but if you look at the past papers youll realise its more important to learn the chapters from section 1 and 2. They are more heavily concentrated/found in the papers then they are in he book. BTW Papers are your friend Now the chapters I did learn in section 3 I learned in a lot of detail. But you really dont have to learn them in as much detail as the other chapters-for eg one of the questions from last year was describe the birthing process-I went through all the different stages including the hormones released at what point and how long each process too-now my friend got an A2 but she said she didnt go into that much detail-I have to admit tho Sexual reproduction was my favourite chapter so in fairness I knew it pretty much inside and out I started off in 5th year-when we got our first exam I scored 94 percent or something like that which was a higher score than my 2 friends who sat beside me-my next exam was my Christmas exam and I got an A2. Basically I was getting lower and lower grades than my 2 friends-my last exam before the LC (now bare in mind this was an Easter exam) I got a D. My friends were certain theyd be getting A1s in their LC. Now I had missed a lot of school and was behind in my notes-and well it just motivated me even more to study more. Well as it turns out I was just really sticking to my own study timetable and not letting the teachers exams get in the way at the end-I wasnt revising stuff at the same time/pace of the class and I was focusing on different chapters. Well I gave myself that little extra push in the end and well I guessed it paid off. My friends who were hd their guaranteed A1s well didnt get A1s-2A2s and a B1 (that being said they got better LCs than me ) I wa devastated after my LC I thought it hadnt gone well-I knew it was my best (nd to be honest probably realistically my only) chance of an A, I was expecting a low B. The same happened in my JC-I got a D in my Christmas exam and an A in my JC.

Thats just my experience though-it might be useless to you tho

Jinx96

some people can get very ahead of themselves with confidence and often times when people do badly in say the mocks they push themselves a lot harder and end up beating those who thought they had it in the bag! I'm planning on studying sports science and health in ITT so fingers crossed I get it! Did you do any other sciences for LC?

HugsiePie

Jinx96 wrote: »

some people can get very ahead of themselves with confidence and often times when people do badly in say the mocks they push themselves a lot harder and end up beating those who thought they had it in the bag! I'm planning on studying sports science and health in ITT so fingers crossed I get it! Did you do any other sciences for LC?

Nope just Bio-Im sure you will get it tho-you seem very motivated tho-already getting down to hard work in 5th year. I did chem for a few months but I dropped it as I was kind og having a mental block with it-its a long story. The thing is tho-I wa working hard and consistently throught out 5th and 6th year-but I hadnt really realised it-I was going at my own pace compared to the teachers-I DONT RECOMMEND THIS-it makes life harder-but yeah-no doubt that little push at the end helped-I learned the really hard chapter that I couldnt get my hear around well cause theres just no getting round it-you have to understand them. Learn the chapters you know are going to come up-its normally a toss up between photosynthesis and respiration every year-sexual reproduction is also very popular-as is ecology.