Studying for HSC Biology can be hard.I think we’ve all been in the position of planning to study from 6pm to 11pm but then not doing anything until…10.40pm.
Let’s make studying for HSC Biology less stressful and make every single minute sitting at your deskworth it!
But how do youactually reach allthese goals while studying for HSC Biology?
We’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve and we’re going to share them with you in 5 easy steps!
Goals for HSC Biology Study
Step 1: Write your HSC Biology study notes
Step 2: Complete HSC Biology practice questions
Step 3: Memorise the content
Step 4: Mimic test conditions
Step 5: Increase accuracy in recall
Goals for HSC Biology Study
On your journey towards studying for HSC Biology, you have 3 goals to reach:
Goal #1: Understanding the content:Aim to learn special terminology associated with thattopic, andlearn what main concepts the topic is trying to teach
Goal #2: Memorising the content:You now know what the topics are about,recallinginformation withspecific exampleswithoutreferring backto your notes
Goal #3: Practice answering questions:This step is crucial as markers only ever see yourfinalanswer so it’s important to get your response as polished and specific as possible by familiarising yourself with as many questions as possible
And that’s the secret to studying for HSC Biology:having an objective during yourstudy, andaiming to achieve it during the time that you are studying.
So, let’s jump into how to achieve these goals, step by step!
Step 1: Write your HSC Biology study notes
You’ve probably heard this a million times already. It seems like such a simple step but it’s easy to ignore its importance.
To fully solidify your understanding of a topic, it’s best towrite it down.Ideas in your head are not synonymous to writing it down—your brain is okay with disjointed concepts but it’s not okay to do that when writing a response.
Note:Writing your own noteshelps you remember the content, reveal parts that you might not understand, and kick-start your brain(and body) to getting into thehabit of collating and recording information.
But these still aren’t solid, tangible steps to write notes. So, as part ofStep1, I recommend the following:
Part 1: Write Notes for NOW
To start your note writing journey,write notes for the topic you are currently learning in class.Many classes don’t start from the beginning, so start from where you are now.
After you come home from school, try and spend15-30 minutes each night writing up notes from what you learnt in classthat day. It seems like a shorttime butconsider all the other classes you need to study for!
These 15-30 minutes should involve you:
- Going back to thesyllabusand visiting theparticulartopicthat you were learning thatday
- Refer tohandouts and notesyou received that day
- Look atrelevant chaptersor pagesfrom yourclass textbook
- Any otherresourceswhich would be helpful to your understanding.
Your next step is tosummarise the dot point in5 bullet points or lessin your own words.
Think back to your time in class and about these questions when making your notes:
- What were 3 points that your teacher wasstressing?
- What can yousummarise and condenseintoa single point?
- What arekey words and definitionsthat are critical to this dot point?
Beneath these 3 main points,it may also be a good idea to add:
- Diagrams, figures and images
- A more in-depth explanation of the topic
- Links to videos/websites that helped you learn this concept
When you come back to your notes,these points should act as triggers for recalling informationbecause you’ll have the most essential concepts down — everything else is just filling in the blanks.
Note:Spending 20 minutes understanding 5 critical points is better than spending 10 minutes rote learning a paragraph from the textbook (or other sources of information).
Part 2: Write notes for THEN
Now that you have notes for the current dot point you are working on,start on your notesfrom previous topics at the beginning of the syllabus that you don’t have notes for.This should also take you another15-30 minutes.
The syllabus is designed so that the topics have alogical flow and each dot point prepares you for the next dot point.下面这是一个伟大的方式来填补空白s for the lessons you will havein the near future.
Imagine your class starts with Module5: Heredity, Topic 1: Reproduction – the beginning of the beginning. You should start writing notes for Module 6: Genetic Change, Topic 1: Mutation.
Before you know it,you’ll already have notes for future modules.Remember to take it one syllabus dot point at a time.
Note:Our goal is tocreate succinct notes that will reduce your time studying in the future.5 minutesspentnow is50 minutes saved in stressful and busy times.
If you get stuck at any point with any difficult words which you aren’t sure of, head overhereto our Biology glossary!
Step 2: Complete HSC Biology practice questions
Completing practice questions straight after writing notes is effectivebecause it helps toput your knowledge to use.
This, in turn, will help to reinforce your understanding of the content even further, making studying for HSC Biology less painful!
You can check out some of our practice questions for each module in HSC Biologyhere!
It is perfectly okay to use your notes in this partbecause the focus should be on how you arestructuringyour answers so that you areprepared for the HSC-style questions.
You can also use this chance to add to your notes more things you learn from doing past papers.
Don’t worry if the questions freak you out! They’re really just the same words as those in the HSC Syllabus but re-arranged into a slightly different order! It’s all content thatyou have seen before.
Step 3: Memorise the content
Now it’s time tomemorise the content withoutreferring backto your notes.
To start off with, try to memorise content for a few specific questions. After building your confidence that you can answer these questions, try memorising more content.
If you need a quick recap of some HSC Biology content, make sure you check outHSC Togetherwhich has FREE videos on every single HSC Biology dot point so that you can effectively master concepts and content!
Each person has their own unique approach to memorisation.Finding out what your study style is can save youweeksof studying because the time you spend studying is just that efficient.
Checkoutthisto find out what your study style is. It takes trial and error so don’t be afraid totest them all out.
Also,我向你保证,这将是更容易一点to memorise the content because you have alreadyengaged with itin the process of doing your practice questions!
How can I memorise efficiently?
Researchshows thatstudying forshort increments of time over a long period of time is the best way to remember something.This means that looking over 10 mins over a few concepts every day for 6 days is better than an hour of pure cramming.
So, how can you make 10 mins easier?
Flashcard appsare an easy way to flick through concepts. It’s easy to fill out and easy to read on your phone. A few minutes on the buseverydayis going to reduce your future studying timebyhours.
But how does interval study work?
When you first learn a concept, new connections in your brain are being created. These connections aren’t stable andthis is whyyou forget something about a day after you learn it.
To commit something into long term memory, you need to repetitively revise it, and strengthen this connectionso that you won’t forget it.
To summarise, the most effective way of studying for HSC Biology is spacing your study time out and repeating it.
Step 4: Mimic test conditions
You’ve written your notes, tackled some questions andmemorised the content.It’s now time to do a question withoutreferring backto your notes.
Butdon’t worry if you do need torefer backto your notes – the fact that you areattemptingthe question without notes is already a really huge step in the right direction!
Time yourself
Another step that you can take is totry to limit the time that you spend on each question.
When you time yourself, give yourself two minutes for each mark that the question is worth: if it is a 5-mark question, give yourself 10 minutes. This will lay the pressure on but it will also cut down the time you spend studying for HSC Biology!
After you’re comfortable with this, try to work your way closer to the same number of minutes as the number of marks: 5 minutes for your 5-mark question.
Note:Your final goal is that you should be able to complete your question in -10% the number of marks, so 4.5 minutes for that 5-mark question!
Being able to do this will make your exams much, much,easier because you’ll suddenly find that you have slightly more time for each question in the real exam!
Check out our questions for both Year 11 and Year 12 HSC Biology here!
Mark yourself
It’s not fun to look back on your response — critiquing your own response is hard because you often want to believe you have the perfect response, but getting into the nitty-gritty is important!
So, grab a different coloured pen and go through your response:
- Are all key concepts defined and explained?
- Is there a clear structure? (Introexplanationaddressing the question)
- Did you miss any parts?
- Are there sample answers to the questions that you can use?
In this step, you are learning from your mistakes so that when the questions come up in your future questions, youare able tocreate morecoherent and succinctresponse.
After marking, consider rewriting your response.It’s one thing to know what you did wrong, but it’s another to take steps to fix the response. If the question is a 3 or 5 marker, you might not have to do this, but if it’s an 8 or 10 marker, consider fixing the response up as it may come up in the future.
Step 5: Increase accuracy in recall
Your goal nowis to get to 100% accuracy in your recall!If you’re not making too much progress with the tactic that you have been using, try a different one!
100% accuracy doesn’t mean that youhave toknow every detail and every number. What it means is that with every question, you are not hesitating to write something down or collect your response because you have it down.
Let’s take a look at Question 22(b) from the 2014 HSC Biology exam:
Drinking water contaminated with dissolved lead (a heavy metal) can cause a serious disease. Classify this disease as either infectious or non-infectious. Justify your answer.
Let’s take a look at what you would need to know for this question:
- Infectious disease is caused by a pathogen and can get transmitted
- Heavy metal isn’t a pathogenbecauseitsnot alive and itcantget passed on.Itsactually acarcinogen
- Non-infectious disease isillness caused by factorssuch as genetics, lifestyle and environment
- Heavy metalcarcinogen inducing mutationsmutation in important gene controlling cell cyclecancer/illness
- It’s a non-infectious disease
You should be able to recall these dot points clearly.Though, writing it concisely is a whole other matter.
In conclusion…
Doing a few practice questions for 15-20 minutes here and there is better than not studying for HSC Biology. Keep consistent and keep trying until you are 100% confident!Keeping on going and you will find yourself improving in no time.
Remember what our 5 steps in studying for HSC Biology have been:
- Writing notes for your class now and in the future.This step you familiarise yourself with content and terminology
- Doing practice questions.Apply the knowledge you learnt in step 1 into a coherent response. You are also learning how to piece together topics
- Memorising.You are committing content to long-term memory. This step may be the most time consuming due to short repetitions of content over a long period of time
- Time and mark your response.Write at your max speed and see what you can improve on next time
- 100% accuracy.You have corrected your incorrect responses and can write faster than lightning.
Follow these steps and studying for HSC Biology should become faster and easier to do!
Looking for some extra help with HSC Biology?
We have an incredible team of HSC Biology History tutors and mentors who are new HSC syllabus experts!
We can help you master the HSC Biology syllabus and ace your upcoming HSC Biology assessments with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at our state of the art campus in Hornsby or the Hills!
We’ve supported over5,000 students over the last 10 years,and on average our students score mark improvements of over19%!
To find out more and get started with an inspirational HSC Biology tutor and mentor,get in touch todayor give us a ring on 1300 267 888!
Gia-Yen Luong一直是一个聪明的教练的艺beplay体育官方术3年来,coachi吗ng a range of subjects including HSC English, Legal Studies, Biology, Chemistry and General Maths. She is in her final year of a mega double degree in Law/Science (Neuroscience). She graduated high school with an ATAR of 99.9 and spends most of her time trying to convince people that it’s wholly possible to get such a mark while still having a normal life during YR 12. She enjoys reading, podcasts, and making fun resources for her articles.
