GCSE Science podcasts - exam techniques

Hello. I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology

This series is a little bit different. We’re not talking about facts and figures. This is all about exam techniques, tips, tricks and advice to help you get through your exams. I’m pretty much going to show you how to game them.

When I did my GCSEs, I was great in class, but I lost ten to fifteen percent of marks in my exams, because of stress. I knew the things, but I wasn’t confident, and a lot of times ended up writing really sloppily and examiners couldn’t read it. But that’s not going to happen to you, because I’ve made the mistake for both of us.

Today, we’re going to chat about things that you can do the night before and the morning of your exam, as well as some really good tips to remember, to make sure you don't throw easy marks away.

Really, I’m giving you great advice for any kind of exam you’re going to sit ever, and its generally good life advice.

I’ve also got some great insights from real students, who’ve already done their biology exams, so listen out for their helpful hints.

As someone who had a job at university marking exams, I want you to remember the following:

The examiner wants you to succeed. The examiner knows that you have been working extremely hard all year and learnt a ridiculous amount. The examiner wants to reward you for all that hard work with marks.

So, what can you do to make sure that you get as many marks as possible?

1. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep the night before the exam, so you’re feeling good and refreshed in the morning. Because if you’re sleep deprived, you’re going to have a bad time. This is good advice generally, but it’s specifically important for exams.

The night before the exam, don’t cram, don’t stress, relax, take your time, check over your notes carefully. Then before the exam you won’t be really stressed because you’ll have had a good night’s sleep and you won’t have been stressed the night before.

2. Equipment. Remember, you’re doing a biology exam, so there's very important equipment to remember to bring; a calculator, a ruler, a pencil, a pen, even a rubber for any mistakes.

You might want to pack your bag the night before, otherwise the morning of your exam you might be freaking out trying to find the right calculator.

Have a full pencil case, so pen, pencil, calculator, ruler, they’re all really essential, and they’ll give you a great advantage, especially a calculator. If you don’t have one of them for the maths questions, you’ll most likely lose marks.

Student: I packed all my equipment the night before, and I made sure I had doubles, because if a pencil rolls off your desk, you have to wait for it to be picked up again, and you're just sat there losing time. So I’s always get everything ready the night before and made sure I had everything I definitely need before I went to sleep.

3. Make sure you’re fueled up. Now, if you’ve listened to any of the other episodes, you’ll know how important food is to me. But also, how important food is to make sure that organisms survive.

Trust me, if you're normally a person that eats breakfast in the morning, don’t switch it up the morning before an exam. Try to make sure that you give yourself time to have a bite to eat.

And stay hydrated, because you don’t want to end up in the middle of an exam, with your tummy rumbling, while you’re struggling to remember how the digestive system works.

Student: My biggest regret was not eating or drinking enough in the morning, because in the exams I would begin to have really bad headaches or my stomach would start to rumble, and you don’t want that distracting you from answering the paper.

4. Don’t be late. Get to school in good time before your exam starts. It will only make the whole thing more stressful if you don’t. Set an alarm, set two, set three.

If you sleep through alarms, tell the people around you to bang on your door. There is no point sprinting into the exams super stressed, because you’re just going to panic and miss marks that you would have otherwise easily received.

Student: If I had an exam early in the morning, I’d definitely get out of bed and get ready and go to school early, so you have time to prepare yourself mentally, so you’re not going into the exam stressed, so you can get straight onto the questions.

5. Time management. Remember, it's important that you spend the right amount of time on each question. You don’t need to spend five minutes on a one-mark question. People generally say that a good rule of thumb is one minute per mark.

You need to pay attention to the number of marks for each question, they really do indicate how much work you should do for an answer.

Leave a question if you’re really struggling with it. You can’t stare it out and magically get the answer.

Take a deep breath, and move onto the next question, you can come back to it at a later time.

And the brilliant thing about biology is that chances are, something said in another question, might trigger your memory and help you answer a question that you skipped.

6. Don’t rush. Always read questions through carefully, read the whole question, look at the words in bold and read the question again and again.

Don't leap in to writing the answer, slow it down. If there’s a big chunk of text, make sure you’ve read it all, make sure you have properly comprehended the information.

I know it’s really tempting to speed through it all, but you don’t want to lose marks.

Student: I remember a silly mark I lost was that I mixed up mean, median and range, and they’re simple ones to get, and I mixed it up and lost the mark. I probably could have got the mark if I’d slowed down, and thought it through, and taken a breath and looked at it again.

7. Don't leave any answers blank. Because if you do that, you’ll definitely get zero marks. Like I said, examiners want to pass you and reward your hard work. It makes them happy. Throw in anything that you can remember, scientific phrases that you think might relate, it could get you a mark.

Student: I’d always try to answer a question, even if it was just writing one key word, which I knew could get me a mark, or anything from the whole topic, anything I knew that related to any kind of word in there.

8. And finally, handwriting. Make sure your examiner can read your answers. You can have all the answers correct, but if someone can’t read them, they can’t give you the marks. Try to stick to the lines provided in your exam paper and try to write neatly.

And one more key bit of advice: check out the Bitesize website and more episodes of the Bitesize Biology podcast. There’s actually really good advice there.

I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds.

Hello. I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology.

This series is all about exam techniques. Tips, tricks and advice to make sure that you can pass your exam.

Today, it's all about making the most out of your revision, how to stay calm and how to stay focused.

Let me start by saying that there are no perfect ways to revise. Your parents, teachers, mates might have things that they swear worked for them, but when you try it, you might feel a little bit sad, because it doesn’t work for you. Even what I tell you today, it might not be perfect for you, but stuff we’re going to chat about today will give you some good insights into how you can best learn.

And don’t just take it from me, we've got some helpful hints from real students who very recently passed their GCSE Biology exams, so do listen to what they’ve got to say.

Here are a few things to think about:

First, phones.

Phones are useful for lots of things. You might be listening to me, right now on your phone. But you know what it’s like; you pick it up to check just one thing and then three hours later you are just churning through videos that the social media algorithms feed you, to grab hold of your attention.

Student: I was getting distracted by my phone quite a lot, but I didn’t really do anything about it and I probably should have. My mum would always say she was going to take it off me, but I’d never really give it her. If you can try and keep your phone away from you, whilst you’re revising, because as soon as you go on it once and a notification pops up, you won’t get off it, and then the revision is just worthless because you’ve lost focus and none of it is actually going into your head.

If your phone is pulling focus, this is good advice.

You can put your phone onto do not disturb mode, or aeroplane mode, give it to someone else, put it in another room, maybe even turn it off.

And if you want to keep listening to the rest of the bitesize biology podcast? Why not stick it in your pocket, put your headphones on and go for a walk.

So, let’s move onto flash cards.

Now it’s all well and good to listen to the Bitesize Biology podcast, make some notes and read them a couple of times, but if you don’t test yourself, you won’t know what’s gone into your brain.

Flash cards are a really good way of testing your knowledge, they break it down into manageable chunks, and there’s something kind of satisfying when you see that pile of flash cards that you’ve made grow.

You could have two-sided flash cards with a key term on one side, and then the definition on the other. You could highlight or underline key words, use doodles or pictures, or whatever works for you.

Student: I think flash cards are a really good at GCSE because, especially with biology, its mostly memory based, and then going through topic lists, everything you’ve done in a year, making sure you can answer every question that you might get.

You might find that making a flash card is really useful, because you’re deciding what you feel are the key points are for each topic. You could try listening to each episode of the Bitesize Biology podcast and then make a flash card afterwards from what you can remember.

It’s important to have some way of testing your knowledge. Revision has to be active; it can’t just be passive.

Active revision is where you take an action to test yourself, things like using flashcards or getting someone at school to test you.

Whereas passive revision are things happening to you. So, flicking through a revision guide or listening to this podcast, which is a great way of getting your head around the key facts, but it’s important that you do make your own notes, doodles, diagrams, whatever you need to make sure that the facts are inside your brain.

Something else really good is to check out past papers. You can find them online and they really help. Why?

Let’s say you see the question: “where is the hormone testosterone produced?”

You know that the answer is the testes. You can answer that one easily in class or when you’re revising at home.

But, as soon as it’s an exam paper, in that scary exam font, telling you how many marks its worth, you might just freeze up.

So, if you do enough past papers, you'll be able to desensitise yourself to that fear just a little bit and focus on the content of the question.

Student: For me, past papers were the main thing. Past papers helped me a lot. Because in the exams they use the same terminology and sometimes even the same questions. So, for me I would just repeat past papers, mark them, and do them again the next day and keep on doing that.

Student: I agree with the past papers, they’re definitely helpful for the content and the technique of answering questions. But then also, flash cards I used mostly. I’d go through the revision guide, and I’d split each page up into 3 or 4 flash cards, and I’d use the specification as well to make sure I’m answering everything on the specification, so I’ve covered everything I possibly can.

See?

Some people like to answer six mark questions first, some people like to leave them to the end and some people like to get the maths done out of the way first. If you do practice papers first. You’ll know what works for you.

Knowing where to revise is important. Where is your best learning environment?

For effective revision you need to be somewhere calm and quiet with no distractions, so at home in front of the television, maybe isn’t your best bet.

Student: Teachers are always welcoming students to come and ask them questions if they don’t understand anything, so I think staying an extra hour after school is a pretty good idea, and it's also a good environment, because you’re already used to studying there.

Student: I think libraries are a really good place to revise, especially when you don’t have a quiet place at home. Because over there everyone’s focused, but you need to make sure that you don’t do this as a social thing and you have an aim when you go to a library.

Student: I personally think that schools are the best place. If you have a biology teacher, going into his room for an hour, at lunch or after school is the best, because whilst you’re doing your revision there, you also have the person that’s teaching you to give you help and advice in case you don’t know anything.

And if home is not a calm environment, remember that the school is there to help.

Dealing with stress is really important. Obviously, exams are stressful. I’m not going to pretend that they’re not.

It’s really important that you recognise signs of stress early and have strategies to deal with them.

Student: To deal with stress, just try to separate yourself from anything to do with work, I would go to the gym as much as I could, you’ve got different people there, different surroundings, and I wouldn’t associate it with doing any work or exams.

Student: When I got too stressed, I’d try and leave the environment, I’d go and sit with my mum, I’d go for a shower to do something that would relax me.

Student: Even if I was in the middle of a block of revision, if you’re that stressed, you know you’re not going to take anything in, so I’d just stop, take a breather, play a game or something and come back to it later.

Student: I think stress is a really big thing around exams and it can have a really big toll on your mental health. Reaching out and asking for help from parents and teachers can really help ease your mind and reassure you that you don’t have to do this alone, and you can get help whenever you want.

Student: I’d go out hang out with friends to take my mind off it, I’d go do my sport, I’d go running, play a game. Either with family, with friends, or anything to take your mind off the work, and the amount of work you have to do. And then when you come back to it, you can do it efficiently and to the best of your ability.

That's all really good advice personally, I didn’t have a good technique for handling stress, and nobody gave me the tools to do so. I didn’t realise that this was one of the reasons why I struggled to revise so much.

And finally, BBC Bitesize is there.

I would say this wouldn’t I - Bitesize is really useful. It helped me pass my exams many years ago, it's really good for breaking down topics in ways that make it accessible, and look where I am now: in your ear, telling you how to pass your exams.

Student: Bitesize is a really great source, if you’ve got any holes or you don’t quite understand something, it’s explained in a different way, there’s loads of videos on there, just loads of really great stuff.

Student: Bitesize is really good because it has revision notes, and then on a different page it has questions for the notes you just learnt. So, if you use the notes, and revise from them, and then straight after use the questions, then you can be sure you know everything that you’ve just learnt.

There is no one miracle way to revise, everyone is different, but revision isn't just about learning facts and exam techniques. It’s also about learning about how you learn, and that knowledge will make the rest of your life a breeze.

I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology. To listen to the rest of the series, search Bitesize Biology on the BBC Sounds app.

Hello. I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology.

This series is all about exam techniques. Tips, tricks and advice to make sure you do as well as you can in that exam. This episode is all about command words.

Command words are your friends, because they are the words in the exam question that tell you how to answer them.

I’m trying to show you how to make sure you don’t waste your time and mental energy where you don’t need to.

Today we’re going to look at six common command words:

State, Describe, Explain, Suggest, Calculate and Evaluate.

I’ve also got some great insights from real students who have already done their biology exams so listen out for their helpful hints.

As a general rule, it might help during your exam to find the command word in each question, and highlight it, so you know what the question is asking you to do.

Examiners can’t give you marks if you answer too much or a one or two mark question, but not enough on a longer one.

Let’s start with questions that include the word “state.”

This is short and sweet. They just want you to write down simple information, so likely a single word, definition or sentence.

There is no need to give lots of information or explanation, don’t waste your time.

Student: If a question asks you to state something it’s asking you to give the name of something, it’s a really short answer.

Student: When I see the word state, it means don’t go into too much depth, give the definition, keep it brief.

So, an example question might be: state where the hormones oestrogen and testosterone are produced?

So, the answer to that would be: the ovaries and the testes, that’s it.

If you start talking about the menstrual cycle you’re not going to get any extra marks. Just give them what they want and move on.

Next, “describe” questions. Basically questions that say “describe” are asking you to say what you see. You might need to describe a fact or a biological process in the correct and logical order.

“Describe” questions might be worth one, two, three, four or even six marks. As a general rule, one mark for one thing described. A four-mark question should have four points in your answer, don’t do anything extra if you don’t have to.

Student: When I see describe in a question, you’re basically saying what you see, going into no further depth, explaining why. Nothing more, nothing less.

Heads up, some “describe” questions will ask you to describe a trend or a pattern seen on a graph or in a set of results. Don’t worry, there’s an episode on data analysis in this series, so make sure you check that out.

So an example question might be:

Describe the similarities and differences between the processes of diffusion and osmosis.

How would you answer that?

For this question there are four marks, so we’re going to write four different things at least.

All gases and liquids move by diffusion.

Only water moves by osmosis, across a partially permeable membrane.

Molecules move from high to low concentration in both processes.

This means molecules move down a concentration gradient.

Don’t go overboard and write ten different things on the chance you might get a few correct, don’t waste your time, but always, always try to write something.

Now let’s look at those “explain” questions

These are questions that want you to give the reason how or why something happens.

This is where you want to bring out words like “because”, “due to”, “therefore”, “this leads to.”

But watch out! Some questions might ask you to both describe and explain, so make sure you do both of these.

Student: If I saw the word explain in a question, I’d try to add a bit more detail than a state question and describe what causes it and why.

Student: If you see explain in a question, give reasoning for your answer and use because.

So a question might be something like:

Cancer is a non-communicable disease. Explain how smoking can affect the development of cancer. Define risk factors in your answer.

Ok, so we’ve got four marks again so try to write at least four different points.

Do it in a logical order, to make it easy for the examiner to follow, and give you all the marks that you deserve.

So, you could say:

Risk factors are things that increase a person’s chance of developing a disease.

They can be part of a person’s lifestyle.

They can be substances in a person’s body or their environment.

Smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer because tar in cigarettes is a carcinogen.

Now let’s jump in to “suggest” questions.

They're a bit trickier, but they’re pretty easy for you to do, once you’ve got your head around it.

These are questions that want you to apply your knowledge to a new situation.

And why they’re tricky is because they’ll sometimes have these situations that you’ve not seen before in your lessons or revision.

It’s not a trap, they’re just prompting you to use your knowledge in a new way.

Take a deep breath, highlight the science words in the question that you do know, and doing this will help you identify the topic that you have inside your brain, and you can base your answer around that

Student: When I see a suggest question, I take it as a sign to show off your own knowledge, when you look at the question you need to think about what can relate to it, don't look at the names that you don’t know, focus on the stuff that you do know, and you know what’s happening, and then you can link it to your own knowledge.

So, a question might be like:

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is vaccinated in girls and boys aged 12 – 13 years as part of the NHS vaccination programme. Suggest how this vaccine works.

This question is worth 4 marks.

First thing you might think is “help I don’t remember learning anything about HPV, did I miss a lesson?”

But don’t worry, scan through the question, you’ll see the word vaccination, we covered that in our episode on vaccination, antibiotics and painkillers.

So, this question is asking for your knowledge on how vaccination works, it's just been dressed up in a new way. Don’t let it bamboozle you.

Again, it’s four marks, so four points, don’t panic.

Think back to what I told you in that episode:

A dead or inactive form of pathogen is injected.

This triggers your lymphocytes to produce antibodies.

Antibodies are specific to antigens on the pathogen’s surface.

If the same live pathogen infects the body again, white blood cells are able to rapidly produce lots of antibodies, so you don’t get ill, so you’re immune.

Now let’s take a look at calculate questions.

Questions that include the word calculate are asking you to use some maths skills to work out an answer. You’re going to need to have some maths skills at your fingertips in order to get the marks, so make sure you listen to our episode all about maths.

Always show your working out for maths questions, because even if it's an easy calculation you can do in your head, you could get a mark for doing the right working out method, even if you get the wrong answer. It’s a no brainer, just show your working out.

You might be asked to calculate a percentage, or a mean (an average) from some information shown in a table or graph.

Student: For a calculate question it’ll be maths, so you need to show your working, and come to a final conclusion, look at units, always use a calculator, and it might be multiplying, dividing, changing units.

Finally, evaluate questions.

These are asking you to write down evidence for and against something in your answer.

You might get a question containing a short paragraph of text, which you’ll need to read through, and then use your biology knowledge and write down both advantages and disadvantages

An evaluate question might be something like:

Genetically Modified crops made by genetic engineering are used widely across the world.

Evaluate the use of genetically modified crops. (4 mark question)

So, you could say two positive things and two negative things.

Positive things are that GM crops can produce larger yields of crops, and can contain specific, useful nutrients.

and two negative points could be: we don’t know the long-term effects of using them, so there could be a risk to humans and genetically modified genes could transfer to nature.

Try to write in full sentences, and remember, don’t get stressed out, have the confidence.

So, there you go: state, describe, explain, suggest, calculate and evaluate.

Now these aren’t the only command words that you might come across, we don’t have time to get into them all today, but the same principle applies, they are the words that tell you how to answer the question.

There are more examples on the Bitesize website, so make sure you check those out.

I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology. To listen to the rest of this series and more from our Bitesize podcasts, search for Bitesize on the BBC Sounds app.

Hello. I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology.

This series is all about exam techniques. Tips, tricks and advice for passing your tests.

Now, today we’re going to be chatting about writing brilliant answers for those six-mark questions.

Six-mark questions can seem a bit scary, they’re worth a lot of marks, six in fact.

Six-mark questions are just multiple one-, two- and three-mark questions smushed together. So, the first step to writing a brilliant answer for them is to break them down and work out the questions inside the six-mark question.

We’ll be going through an example of a six-mark answer later on in the podcast.

And we’ll also be hearing from students who’ve recently done their biology exams, who have advice on how they tackled them.

In case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you of the format. I’ve got some examples of six-mark questions:

It could be something like: Describe how non-specific human defence systems stop you from falling ill or describe the processes in the water cycle.

In your exam, the first thing you need to do is stay calm and read the question slowly.

The question will tell you what kind of answer it wants.

These questions are going to include command words, things like explain, suggest, describe, or evaluate.

Remember, we looked at command Words in our previous episode, make sure you’ve listened to that episode because it'll give you a lot of help for answering six-mark questions.

And once you’ve read the question slowly. I want you to read it again. And then read it again.

Read the question through at least twice to make sure you fully understand what they’re asking.

It is very important that you think about your answer and not just rush into it.

You could write something amazing, and then the exam could end, and you realise you’ve not answered the question that they’ve actually asked. So don’t waste all that effort, put in the key words at the beginning.

Once you’ve read the question, I want you to circle the key words in the question, and then annotate them each of them with little notes, some definitions and facts you can remember.

Don't spend too long making a plan for how to answer, actually answer the question, this is where notes come in.

Top tip: As you write out your points in your answer, you can cross out each note, so you know you’ve covered everything.

It is essential that you give as many different points in your answer as possible, ideally six points, six marks. Try to write in full sentences and link these points together coherently.

Use specialist scientific vocabulary wherever you can, so in your answer you want to say things like protein synthesis, rather than making proteins.

Examiners are looking to see what key terms you’ve learned and can remember.

It sounds obvious, but if you only write one sentence with two points in it, don’t be surprised that you don’t get six marks.

It’s not just me saying it. Here are some tips from some real students about how they approached the six-mark questions:

Student: Six markers are a lot easier than you think. It’s a lot of marks but if you hit the right points then you can achieve all the marks. Maybe using past paper questions and noticing what gets you the marks and what doesn’t, and also making sure you use all the key words.

Student: I always did six markers, the first question did, so I could do it in a formulaic structure and try to get the most marks I can, because I’d use my actual content as a foundation and then I’d link them together, and then add explanation on top of that.

Student: I think you should always try and add at least something in there, even if it might get you no marks, at least having something in a six marks might give you one or two, which can push you into the next grade, which is better than just leaving it blank.

Student: For six markers, I would make notes around the edges and highlight words and write what I plan to do. Sometimes in bullet points so I know I’m hitting six marking points, looking at key words that the teacher has told you to highlight and learn, and trying to get six good, clear separate points.

Student: I always try to read the question two or three times and underline words. Being dyslexic as well, I know I mix up words like meiosis and mitosis, so underline them, writing a definition, then I’d go back to check through my paper.

Student: I always first understand the concept of the question and then write everything I know linking it back to the biology knowledge I have before, and then linking it back to the question. After that, normally to help with time management, I’d complete the rest of the paper. I would go back at the end, and just write as much as I could, just filling up the pages, so I could be sure I got those six marks.

Let’s have a go at a six-mark question.

I’m going to find an example question, It might be a good idea to grab a pen, write this down and have a go yourself at answering it.

A six-mark question might be something like:

Explain how temperature affects how enzymes work.

So, this might sound scary, it’s ok. You're going to stay calm and then you're going to read the question again, just to be completely sure that you know what they’re asking.

Explain how temperature affects how enzymes work.

So, let’s highlight the command word in the sentence, in this case it’s “explain.”

Explain questions are looking for how or why something happens.

And the key words there are: temperature and enzymes.

Remember when I said that six-mark questions are just a few one-, two- and three-mark questions all smushed together?

So, let’s break this down into two or three simple, sub-questions:

Explain how temperature affects how enzymes work. So that would be:

What is an enzyme?

Why is the shape of an enzyme important?

And what happens to an enzymes as temperatures change?

This is where our notes on enzymes come in handy, just regurgitate all of them on the sides of the paper. Just on the side.

So what do we know?

Enzymes are proteins, they catalyse reactions. So, the term rate of reaction will be important.

They bind to molecules known as substrates, an active site, the active site is complementary in shape to the substrate.

That’s what makes them unique, and it’s the Lock and Key Mechanism.

And when it's really cold, the rate of reaction is slow, because there aren’t a lot of molecular collisions.

But as the temperature increases, the rate of reaction increases, because there’s more collisions.

But, if the temperature gets too high, the shape of the enzyme breaks down, the active site changes, so that means the substate and the enzyme can’t bind, so that means that the rate of the reaction halts.

I have given you loads of notes there. You wouldn’t write all of this down when you’re planning, because you’d run out of time.

Just make a few notes to jog your memory, and you’ll get your answer.

With all those notes, and an idea of what the question is asking, let’s answer the question.

So for a six-mark question, you're just going to answer those sub-questions:

What is an enzyme?

Why is the shape of an enzyme important?

How do enzymes respond to changes in temperatures?

Answer those questions, but throw some linked, full sentences in there, including words like because, therefore and due to.

Enzymes are proteins that catalyse reactions (so that’s a mark.)

They bind to specific molecules known as substrates, which are complementary in shape to their active site. This is known as the lock and key mechanism (that’s a mark.)

As the temperature decreases, so does the rate of reaction, because there aren’t as many molecular collisions between the substrate and the enzyme’s active site (that’s one mark).

As it increases in temperature, the rate of reaction increases, because there are more collisions (yep, another mark).

But, above a certain temperature, the active site changes shape, because the protein denatures (that’s another mark).

And that means that its ability to bind to the substrate decreases, this decreases and eventually halts the rate of reaction.

And look now you've got six marks.

So, there’s an example of how to easily tackle a six-mark answer from your notes.

I know six-mark questions can seem like a lot. Remember, you won’t get a mark for a blank sheet of paper, so if you’re struggling, try to write down some biological facts that you can remember.

Things that you can think of that relate to the question, you might get a mark there.

Most importantly, just practice them, that’ll make you feel a lot less scared. There are loads more examples on the Bitesize website so make sure you check that out.

I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds.

Hello. I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology.

This series is a little bit different, it's all about exam techniques; tips, tricks and advice to help you pass your exam.

Today, we’re talking mathematics: what sort of maths questions might appear in your exams, how to answer them, and, crucially, how to not panic.

At least 10% of the questions in your exam, that’s one in ten, are going to test maths skills, which might seem weird because this is biology, not maths.

But, when scientists run an experiment, we need to look at the data and find out what it might be telling us, and to do that, we need maths.

First things first, make sure that you bring the right equipment into the exam, don’t be like me, be prepared. Make sure you’ve got your calculator, your ruler and a pencil.

Take it slowly. Read the question once, then read it again. Then read it a third time.

Always show your working out when it comes to maths. Because even if it's an easy calculation you can do in your head, you could get a mark for doing the right working out method, even if you somehow come up with the wrong answer, so it’s a no brainer. Just show your working out.

And just like you should read the question twice, double check your answer once you’ve written it down, do you get the same answer when you calculate it again? And if so, does your answer match the question. Are you using the correct units?

Units are important. Scientists use units to demonstrate how things are measured. We use the metric system, things like metres, grams and seconds.

Let’s talk about converting units, for example:

We’ve got length, which is measured in metres

Mass is measured in kilograms

Time is measured in seconds

Temperature is measured in degrees Celcius

And energy is measured in joules

To convert between different units, it's really simple.

You just need to multiply or divide by the right factor of ten (so 10, 100 or 1000 etc).

So, if we look at mass measurements to begin with, to convert grams into kilograms, you divide by 1000, and to convert grams into milligrams you multiply by 1000.

For measurements of distance, to convert metres into kilometres you divide by 1000, to convert metres in centimetres you multiply by 100.

And to convert centimetres into millimetres you multiply by 10.

There are 10 millimetres in a centimetre, 100 centrimetres in a metre, and 1000 metres in a kilometre.

If you are given a question with two different units in it, make sure that you do a conversion so that both measurements have the same unit before doing your calculation.

So, if you’ve got something in grams, and something in kilograms, make sure they’re both in grams, or both in kilograms.

It’s also very possible you might come across questions asking you to convert microscope units.

The units used in microscope work are really tiny and they are known as micrometres and nanometres.

There are 1000 micrometres in a millimetre, so to convert micrometres into millimetres you divide them by 1000.

So, 2000 micrometres , divided by 1000, equals 2 millimeters.

Micrometres have that funny looking unit symbol that looks like a letter “u” with a little tail on the side.

Nanometres are even smaller. There are 1000 nanometres in a micrometre. So to convert nanometres to micrometres, you divide nanometres by 1000.

Speaking of microscopes, you’re going to need to know how to calculate magnification.

Magnification is how much bigger the image under the microscope is than the real object that you are looking at.

There is a formula you’ll need to remember for your exam:

Magnification = image size divided by the real size

You might be asked to instead find the image size or the real size, so you’ll need to rearrange the equation in order to get your answer.

Here’s a really good tip: always look at the units given in the answer area on your exam paper. This is telling you what units you need your answer to be in, or what you need to convert everything to.

There are some other equations for biology, that you’re going to need to remember and be able to manipulate.

Let’s start with BMI, Body Mass Index.

This is: mass in kilograms, divided by the height in metres, but you square the height.

Let’s say we want the BMI of someone who is 80kg and is 1.8 metres tall.

You would say 80kg divided by 1.8 metres squared, which is 3.24m. So, 80 divided by 3.24m, gets you a BMI of 24.7.

Just remember to square the height.

Cardiac output is the amount of blood pumped from the heart every minute.

It is calculated by multiplying the heart rate by the stroke volume.

Stroke volume is the volume of blood pumped out by each heartbeat. You’re literally measuring the impact of each heartbeat.

Cardiac output = heart rate x stroke volume.

And remember things like area and volume because they’re important

Area = height x width

Volume = height x width x depth

The volume of a cylinder is a little bit tricky. It’s the radius squared multiplied by “pi”, multiplied by the height of the cylinder.

Take a look on the BBC Bitesize website because you’ll get to see some formula triangles, and they’re good because they help you remember how to rearrange equations in your exam.

Percentages are just one way of expressing numbers that are part of a whole. These numbers can also be written as fractions or decimals.

50% can also be written as a fraction, 50/100 or 1/2, or a decimal, 0.5. They are all the same amount.

We might get asked to calculate the percentage amount of something as a percentage total of something else. That sounds complicated, but it's really simple.

We do this by dividing the first value by the second value and multiplying that answer by 100.

For example, a question might be:

23 students out of 30 passed their exam. What percentage of the class is this?

23 divided by 30, multiplied by 100 = 77%

You might be asked to calculate a percentage change.

An example of this might be where a plant has grown during a study and the scientists want to find out by what percentage the plant has grown from its original amount.

The way to do this is by first taking away the original (or starting) amount from the final amount.

And then dividing that figure by the original value and multiplying by 100.

Let’s say a plant started being 6cm tall and then by the end of the study, it grew to 9cm.

To work out the percentage change you just do: 9cm (the final value) minus 6cm (the starting value) and that’s 3cm

3cm (the change) divided by (the starting value) 6cm is 0.5cm

0.5 multiplied by 100 = 50, so we can say that it's grown by 50%.

Let’s calculate some averages: mean, mode, median and range.

To calculate the mean number of a dataset, you add up all the values, and then divide that total by the number of values that you have.

12 + 10 + 8 = 30, I’ve got three values there, so 30 / 3 = 10

To find the mode, here’s where you're looking for the most common value, so find the number that appears most often in the dataset.

The median is the middle value in an ordered dataset. In order to find the median, put the values in a dataset in numerical order, and the one that is in the middle of your list is the median.

The range is how spread out the data is. To calculate the range, you need to find your dataset’s largest number and smallest number and subtract the smallest number from the largest. That is your range.

I know maths can be a little bit intimidating, especially if you encounter it out of the blue, in an exam where you’ve been talking about plants and animals and cells. But it is fundamental to doing great science.

The best thing you can do is pack your calculator, make sure that it works, remember your ruler and your pencil. Maybe three pencils.

Read the question twice and double check your answers. Listen to this episode a few times and check out the Bitesize pages for more info.

Maths is a lot easier when you see it written down.

I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology. All episodes available now on BBC Sounds

Hello. I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology.

This series is all about exam techniques; tips, tricks and advice that you need to help you ace your exams.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about data analysis questions, basically what you need to do when you’re confronted with tables and graphs.

We’ll also going to take a look at application questions, where you get to apply your biology knowledge in new situations.

I know data analysis can be a little bit tricky. When you think biology, you think plants and animals, not equations and graphs. But trust me, this stuff is fundamental to biology and it's not as difficult as you might think.

We're going to make sure that by the end, you know what you need to know about data and knowledge. Let’s remind ourselves about the different types of variables that crop up in experiments. Variables are used in experiments to test a hypothesis. You normally change one variable and measure how it affects another.

An Independent variable is the variable you change in your investigation: temperature, height or time.

A Dependent variable is the variable you measure in response to changing the independent one, eg: rate of reaction, mass, volume of oxygen released.

Control variables are kept constant throughout an experiment, such as the volume of reactants used, or the concentration of a reactant.

So, if you want to see how long it takes for water to boil on your stove, the setting on your stove (the temperature) is the independent variable, how fast the water the boils is the dependent variable and the control, the thing that you keep the same, is the size of the pot.

After variables are measured in an investigation, the data is normally put into a table to record the results. You might be asked to create a table using a dataset in your exam.

Here are some top tips for creating a table:

Remember, when you’re organising your data into a table you use a ruler and a pencil, don’t be like me and try to freehand it with a pen.

Generally, the independent variable gets written down in the left-hand side column.

The table needs to have headings, with the correct units eg: reaction time in seconds.

The table should include a column for a mean calculation (that’s the average).

Any numbers written in the table need to have the same number of decimal places that matches the equipment used.

But sometimes a table is not enough. Line graphs return time and time again in biology exam papers. Here's what you need to remember about line graphs:

Line graphs can show correlations (or relationships) between two variables.

A positive correlation means as one variable increases, the other also increases.

A negative correlation means as one variable increases, the other decreases.

No correlation means there’s no relationship between the two variables.

Remember that line graphs can show correlations, relationships, but they cannot demonstrate causation or coincidence.

Causation means that one factor causes a particular outcome. This is different to a correlation. Just because a correlation is shown on one graph, it doesn’t mean that the variable definitely causes a specific outcome.

A line graph that has a directly proportional relationship, shows one variable increasing in proportion to the other.

A straight line of best fit would indicate a constant rate of reaction, while a curve indicates a change in the rate (or speed) of a reaction over time.

If a straight line or curve flattens into a horizontal line, that indicates no further change in the rate of the reaction from a certain level.

You might get asked to draw a line graph from a set of results in your exam.

Remember, the X axis is the horizontal line, the Y axis is the vertical line.

The independent variable (what’s being changed) is shown on the X axis, and the dependent variable (what’s being measured) is shown on the Y axis.

Each of the axes must be accurately labelled with the right units and your graph needs a title explaining what it is showing.

The graph should be drawn so that its scale fits the whole space on your exam paper, don't try to cram it into a small corner, use the entire space, and this will make it easier for you to complete.

Use the correct, appropriate numbers on the scale, for instance 0 – 16, so that the numbers are nicely spread out.

The intervals on the axes should go up in multiples of 1, 2, 5, or 10, as they are easier to plot and read, rather than going up in something like 3 or 9 or 7 or 13.

Plot the data points using a sharp pencil using a little cross. If your pencil is not sharp, those Xs will be too thick.

Then when everything else is done, use a ruler to draw a line of best fit, or draw a curve if that is more appropriate.

Ignore any anomalous results and remember, never, ever draw dot-to-dot lines where you join the dots, you're not in primary school.

You might be asked to measure the rate shown on a line graph, so how much something is changing over a period of time, eg: the rate of a reaction over minutes or hours.

You do this by finding the gradient of a line graph, basically how steep the line is.

To do this you will need to make a large triangle on the graph linked up to the line of best fit.

You then measure the vertical and horizontal parts of the triangle using your scales.

To calculate the gradient, you divide the change in the vertical amount by the change in the horizontal amount.

You might get shown a line graph and be asked some questions on it, and once again, we’re talking about those describe and explain questions.

It might be something like: describe the pattern shown in this graph.

Just say what you see, describe what you can see on the graph.

If there are numbers on the scales of the graph, quote these numbers to back up your answer.

Make sure you describe everything happening in the graph, not just the part where something increases or decreases.

If the line levels out and goes flat, so it stops increasing, be sure to mention this as well. Don’t ignore flat lines.

You might get a question that says: explain what is happening in the graph.

Explain why the pattern or trend shown on the graph is happening.

Here you’re going to need to use your scientific knowledge to explain what is happening.

Like other “explain” questions, you need to use words like “because” or “therefore” to demonstrate why the results shown in the graph occurred.

That was a lot about graphs, because they are really important to help biologists work out what’s going on. I know it’s much easier to get your head around graphs when you can actually see them.

Check out the Bitesize website, have a look at the graphs on there and listen to this again, and it will all start to make sense.

There will be questions in your exam where you will need to apply your own knowledge, these are called application questions.

Application questions are asking you to take the biology knowledge you already have and answer questions about things you’re not familiar with.

You might get a question that says something like:

The Polyp Stage of a Jellyfish’s life cycle reproduces asexually to make clones. Suggest how this happens.

And you might think: what is this on about? We have never, ever talked about jellyfish. If there’s something you don’t think has come up in your lessons, this might be an application question.

The key is to not panic. It's ok if there are things you don’t recognise, because there will be a few that you do. The examiner wants to see if you can take what you’ve learned and apply it to a new situation.

What you can do is look for the words that are familiar, highlight or underline the key biology words you do know. This will help you to think about where the question fits in the topics that you’ve learnt. Then you can base your answer around the key words that you’ve identified.

In this case, where the question is, “The Polyp stage of a jellyfish’s life cycle reproduces asexually to make clones,” they want you to talk about asexual reproduction and meiosis.

I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology. check out the rest of the Bitesize podcasts by searching Bitesize on BBC Sounds

Hello. I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology.

This series is all about exam techniques. Basically, tips and tricks that are going to help you pass your exams.

Today, we’re going to talk about questions related to practicals. Yes, it's experiments time.

You will do several Required Practical Activities throughout your biology lessons.

These are specific experiments that count towards your GCSE grade. On top of these, you will also be asked questions about practicals in your exams.

So, it’s probably a really good idea to go over some of the key things to remember about practicals, investigations, and the techniques involved.

Today, we're going to talk about planning experiments, safety precautions, results, conclusions and evaluations.

Let’s start with planning.

Which can be boiled down to: What are you measuring? What are you going to use? And how will you use it?

Generally, scientific experiments are based around testing a hypothesis, which is an idea that’s based on known facts, but hasn’t yet been proved with evidence. So, how do you get that evidence?

Variables are used in experiments to test the hypothesis. You normally change one variable and measure how it affects another.

An independent variable is the variable you change in your investigation, eg: the temperature.

A Dependent variable is the variable you measure in response to changing the independent one, eg: the rate of reaction.

The Control variables are variables that are kept constant throughout an experiment, such as the concentration of the reactants.

Control variables are important as they make sure an investigation is valid. Everything that could potentially affect the results of an investigation needs to be kept controlled.

Remember to use the word “valid” rather than “fair test”, because it’s more scientifically accurate and you’re not in Year Nine anymore.

When planning a method, you also need to think about the appropriate equipment that you’ll use. For example, how to measure a volume of liquid depends on the amount being used.

Would it be better to use a beaker, a measuring cylinder or a burette, which can measure very small amounts? Remember, you’ve got to think about how you can take accurate measurements.

Use a piece of equipment with the smallest possible units and read it to the smallest possible reading. And also, be sure to have a good sample size, the larger your sample size is, the more accurate your data will be.

Remember: Never, ever, ever just write the word “amount” because that’s too vague. When you’re talking about measurements in an experiment, you have to state the units involved. Are you measuring the mass, volume, temperature, concentration? What is it? Just writing the word “amount” will not get you a mark.

You’ll also need to consider any risks and safety precautions when planning an experiment. Some examples of risks include using chemicals like acids and bases, fire hazards from equipment like Bunsen burners, and electrical equipment needs to be used safely.

Remember there are ways you can reduce risks (you will have done these yourself during practicals.) Things like wearing gloves, a lab coat and safety goggles for chemicals, putting a Bunsen burner on a heat proof mat.

Remember to think: is this hot? Is it going to burn me? is it sharp? Could it cut me? If something in the investigation has a danger, you need to counter it with a safety measure.

There are some words beginning with R that you need to remember when it comes to an investigation. Good experiments need to give results that are repeatable and reproducible.

Repeatable means that similar results will be found if the same person does the same experiment again and again. Reproducible means that similar results be found if a different person does the same experiment again.

If an investigation is both repeatable and reproducible, we can say that the data is reliable. To make an investigation more reliable, scientists do experiments again and again and again.

Now let’s think about what might happen when you collect your data. There are things known as random errors. Random errors are generally human errors, usually made by the person carrying out the measuring. Things like being inaccurate when it comes to reading equipment or timing.

Random errors might also come about due to things that humans have no control over, such as soil pH or microorganisms. Repeating your investigations and finding a mean (a type of average) will reduce the effect of random errors.

Systematic errors are due to problems with the equipment in the investigation eg: balances that aren’t working properly so your measurements are inaccurate, or when using a water bath, the temperature that you require isn’t always properly maintained.

A specific type of systematic error you need to know about are zero errors. This is where faulty equipment doesn’t reset to zero properly, like the needle on a weighing scale failing to go back to zero. So, it’s important before measuring anything, to check that the equipment reads zero when it should.

If it’s a systematic error, repeating the experiment in the same way won’t reduce the systematic error, the equipment will still be faulty no matter how many times you do it.

An anomalous result is something that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the dataset at all and so it will stand out from your other data points. If time permits, it is good practice to repeat the measurements so that you can be confident that the anomalous reading can be discarded.

If not, the anomalous result can be crossed out in a results table and not included in the mean calculation.

So, you have done your experiment, and you have got your results. Now you’ll need to know about displaying and analysing the results. You might be asked to display data using the most appropriate techniques, this could be graphs or tables.

You might have to draw a bar chart, histogram or line graph, or find the mean, median, mode or range, which are all averages.

Now we don’t have time to get into all that in detail here, but we do talk about them in our episodes on maths and data analysis, and it's really important that you understand it, so listen to those once you are done here.

We’re nearly there. We've done the experiment, so time to come up with a conclusion. This will involve taking the data and looking for patterns, seeing if you can suggest or confirm a relationship between the independent and dependent variable.

Is there no correlation, is there a directly proportional relationship, or a positive or negative correlation? Make sure that your conclusion is true of the data in front of you and you’re not just making things up that aren’t true.

You’ll need to include actual figures from the results to back up your points in your conclusion. And in your conclusion, you’ll need to bring it all back to the original hypothesis and conclude whether the data from the experiment supports or disproves the hypothesis.

Something you’ll have to think about is correlation and causation. They sound similar but they’re actually quite different. A correlation is a link between two things, a factor and an outcome.

So, if an outcome happens when a factor is present, and doesn’t happen when the factor is absent, then there’s a correlation, a relationship. But there might be other reasons for that, other factors involved.

Here’s an example. There’s a correlation between the pollen count in the air and incidences of hay fever. The pollen count increases from spring onwards, reaching a peak in mid-summer. It’s therefore possible that pollen causes hay fever.

But there’s also a correlation between the amount of ice cream sold during the summer and the number of hay fever cases, but you wouldn’t go around suggesting that ice cream causes hay fever.

So, if there’s no scientific explanation, then there’s only a correlation. It can’t be shown that the factor causes the outcome. You can only conclude that a correlation shown in an experiment is demonstrating causation if you’ve controlled all the variables, so you can be as sure as possible that one factor is causing the outcome.

We’ve reached the final stage of an investigation: the evaluation, also known as judging the strength of the evidence. This is one of the most vital parts of good science.

You’re looking at the experiment as a whole and considering what went well and what could be improved next time.

You can evaluate different aspects of the method: were there any random or systematic errors? Were the measurements precise? Were the control variables kept constant to make the results valid?

Could you suggest improvements to the method: more repeats? larger sample size? more accurate measuring equipment?

You’ll also need to think about the strength of the data: were the results repeatable and reproducible?

Remember, repeatable means doing it yourself and getting similar results, reproducible means someone else doing it and getting similar results.

Did you have large variation in your results, or any anomalous readings? Were enough repeat readings done and a mean calculated?

Doing an evaluation isn't a way of poking holes in your experiments and saying that what you did was wrong. No, it’s the opposite. It’s saying that you have a good understanding of what you did and an eye to the future of how you could do it better.

And remember, science is collaborative. So by comparing data with different groups who did the same method, you can see if the same conclusion was reached by others.

So, there are many stages to experiments. Remember:

What are the variables?

What is the method?

What are the safety risks?

How are you displaying the results?

What patterns can you conclude from them?

And how can you evaluate this investigation?

I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology. All episodes available now on BBC Sounds.

Hello. I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology.

This series is all about exam techniques. Advice, tips and tricks that you’ll need to help pass your exam. Today, we’re going to recap some key terms for you and we’re going to go through the spelling.

Throughout Bitesize Biology I’ve thrown loads of new words at you.

In biology there are lots of words that you need to know that most people don’t use in everyday life.

What that means is that these words can be hard to remember and even harder to spell.

Don’t worry, not knowing how to spell things is nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s just a part of learning new things and broadening your horizons.

Your examiner is looking for you to use as many of these key terms as possible in your exam, correctly.

So, it’s really important that you really have them at your fingertips.

Grab a pen and write these words down with me.

Maybe you can maybe use this list to make some flash cards later on to test yourself with?

Let’s start with pairs of words that are really easy to get muddled up. Pay special attention to these, because if you don’t spell these correctly the examiner might think you mean something else, and you won't get a mark.

Antibiotic. These are substances that kill bacterial pathogens, or stop them reproducing

Antigen. A protein found on the surface of a substance (often a pathogen), and triggers white blood cells to produce antibodies.

Chloroplasts. These are the site of photosynthesis and they contain the green pigment chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll. This is the green pigment inside chloroplasts, that absorb light during photosynthesis

Remember: chloroplasts are filled with chlorophyll

Genotype. This refers to the genes and alleles that you have.

Phenotype. Those are the physical characteristics that you have.

Remember: genotype with a g = genes, phenotype with a ph = physical.

Glycogen. That’s a molecule that glucose is converted into and stored in the liver and muscles.

Glucagon. That’s a hormone released by pancreas when blood glucose is too low.

The next pair are easy to get confused:

Heterozygous. Where you have two alleles for the same version of a gene that are different.

Homozygous. Where you have two alleles for the same version of gene that are the same.

Remember: hetero means different and homo means the same.

Another two that are really easy to confuse: meiosis and mitosis.

Meiosis. That’s a type of cell division that occurs in reproductive organs to produce gametes.

Mitosis. Which is cellular division for growth and repair and produces daughter cells identical to the parent.

Meiosis and mitosis: very similar spelling for different processes, watch out for this one!

Now onto cells, there are two types:

Eukaryotic Cell. A single-celled organism or a cell of a multicellular organism that has a nucleus.

Prokaryotic Cell. A single-celled organism that does not have a nucleus.

Remember you are a eukaryotic organism, and you should be very pro prokaryotic cells, because they’re useful things like bacteria.

And here are some words that lots of people find tricky to spell.

Scientists love their long and complicated words, because it makes us feel better than you.

Have a go at spelling these and remembering what their definition is:

Cytoplasm. That’s the living substance inside a cell (not including the nucleus)

Remember it's that really useful jelly inside cells? (This is not the definition and don’t use this in an exam!)

Anomalous result. A result that is very different from the rest of the results.

Lymphocytes. That’s a type of white blood cell that attacks invading pathogens by producing antibodies.

Mitochondria. Those are structures inside the cytoplasm of all cells where aerobic respiration takes place.

Osmosis. That’s the movement of water molecules across a selectively permeable membrane from a region of higher water concentration to a region of lower water concentration.

Photosynthesis. That’s the process used by plants, using light energy, converting carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen

Respiration. That’s a process that occurs in the cells of all living organisms, releasing energy from glucose.

Remember, aerobic respiration uses oxygen; anaerobic respiration happens without oxygen.

Don’t get overconfident now, these aren’t the only words you need to know, but it’s a very good start.

Use this to make your own list and add to it when you come across other words that you need to remember.

And just quickly, remember to keep an eye on your handwriting in the exam. If your examiner can’t read your writing, they won’t know if you’ve said the correct word or even if you've spelled it right.

Maybe try and get some time to practice your handwriting? You could show it to people around you, friends, or maybe a teacher, and see if they can read it.

I’m Dr Alex Lathbridge and this is Bitesize Biology. To listen to the rest of this series and the other Bitesize podcasts, search Bitesize on the BBC Sounds app.