Questions about preparation for biology

[paulthekiller123]

1. Is it better to have exposure to the whole unit 3/4 content early on or is it better to just be a little bit ahead?
2. Following on, sometimes my tutor gives me questions that are from the VCAA exam papers, should i avoid doing them in case they skew my results when  i do the exam papers at the end of the year? Apparently, doing them again can inflate your scores. And did you guys start doing exam papers early in the year? I'm not sure whether if doing "biozone type" of questions are better than doing "exam type" of questions.
3. What books/or company papers do you guys know of or recommend? I currently have the neap guides but am looking for any resource that people may be selling (dm plz if have)
4. How many hours should i ideally dedicate to biology each day/week?
5. How to get ready for first sac?

[darkz]

1. Is it better to have exposure to the whole unit 3/4 content early on or is it better to just be a little bit ahead?
2. Following on, sometimes my tutor gives me questions that are from the VCAA exam papers, should i avoid doing them in case they skew my results when  i do the exam papers at the end of the year? Apparently, doing them again can inflate your scores. And did you guys start doing exam papers early in the year? I'm not sure whether if doing "biozone type" of questions are better than doing "exam type" of questions.
3. What books/or company papers do you guys know of or recommend? I currently have the neap guides but am looking for any resource that people may be selling (dm plz if have)
4. How many hours should i ideally dedicate to biology each day/week?
5. How to get ready for first sac?

1. In my opinion, don't power ahead and learn everything, as there really is no point and it would probably be better spent on consolidating or exploring your current topic in more depth. Although, with that being said, it does help with the workload if you're simply just one or so topics ahead.

2. Personally, I used Jacaranda's StudyOn feature, which basically collates past VCAA questions e.g. 2000-2013 and I completed them for each topic when I went through them. Because in the end you'll literally have an unlimited source of past papers, I wouldn't really worry about doing older VCAA questions. Maybe just keep the newer study design ones i.e. 2017/18 ones for last when the exam comes around, but otherwise, knock yourself out!

3. I didn't use any guides etc, however towards the exam I bought the Biology ExamPro book, and I found that although a handful of the questions were somewhat unreasonable, most of it was good and it is really good for consolidating knowledge since the solutions are very comprehensive.

4. I don't think that setting allocated times for studying really works, since I preferred studying until I understood a concept, so whether that be 10m or 1h. As long as you understand the content well, it doesn't matter how much or how little you've studied, just make sure that you understand it.

5. Generally speaking, the SACs for Biology are experimental SACs, and therefore you basically complete an experiment and then answer questions about it in the SAC. So for those, I'd recommend identifying key aspects of the experiment beforehand, e.g. the variables, errors, trends and then of course, revise the content/ concepts regarding that topic.

[paulthekiller123]

1. In my opinion, don't power ahead and learn everything, as there really is no point and it would probably be better spent on consolidating or exploring your current topic in more depth. Although, with that being said, it does help with the workload if you're simply just one or so topics ahead.

2. Personally, I used Jacaranda's StudyOn feature, which basically collates past VCAA questions e.g. 2000-2013 and I completed them for each topic when I went through them. Because in the end you'll literally have an unlimited source of past papers, I wouldn't really worry about doing older VCAA questions. Maybe just keep the newer study design ones i.e. 2017/18 ones for last when the exam comes around, but otherwise, knock yourself out!

3. I didn't use any guides etc, however towards the exam I bought the Biology ExamPro book, and I found that although a handful of the questions were somewhat unreasonable, most of it was good and it is really good for consolidating knowledge since the solutions are very comprehensive.

4. I don't think that setting allocated times for studying really works, since I preferred studying until I understood a concept, so whether that be 10m or 1h. As long as you understand the content well, it doesn't matter how much or how little you've studied, just make sure that you understand it.

5. Generally speaking, the SACs for Biology are experimental SACs, and therefore you basically complete an experiment and then answer questions about it in the SAC. So for those, I'd recommend identifying key aspects of the experiment beforehand, e.g. the variables, errors, trends and then of course, revise the content/ concepts regarding that topic.

Thanks! Just one question, did you take notes by writing it down or did you type your notes up for bio?

[darkz]

Thanks! Just one question, did you take notes by writing it down or did you type your notes up for bio?

I typed my notes - this was because I could add detail to them later and simply just reprint them.