Bio Difficulty (1 Viewer)

[lolcti]

Hey guys, I was wondering how difficult biology is in terms of memorisation. I want to achieve a band 6 hopefully, and am wondering is that possible without tutoring, can I just learn everything by myself? Also is it fine if I don’t have prior knowledge, like I remember some stuff from yr9 about genetics, I just forgot it all and have no clue about anything (I’m going to go through syllabus dot points this holidays) Also what are the best textbooks & resources? How much time have you guys dedicated to biology every day leading to the hsc? Also this is irrelevant but would it be stupid if I also did business studies & sacs if I want to go into med? I really don’t want to do physics so I’m sticking to chem and bio. Btw what mark would I need to not get scaled down and get the equivalent of a 99+ atar (idk if this makes sense)

 

[Masaken]

Hey guys, I was wondering how difficult biology is in terms of memorisation. I want to achieve a band 6 hopefully, and am wondering is that possible without tutoring, can I just learn everything by myself? Also is it fine if I don’t have prior knowledge, like I remember some stuff from yr9 about genetics, I just forgot it all and have no clue about anything (I’m going to go through syllabus dot points this holidays) Also what are the best textbooks & resources? How much time have you guys dedicated to biology every day leading to the hsc? Also this is irrelevant but would it be stupid if I also did business studies & sacs if I want to go into med? I really don’t want to do physics so I’m sticking to chem and bio. Btw what mark would I need to not get scaled down and get the equivalent of a 99+ atar (idk if this makes sense)

it's not difficult at all, but there is a lot of content. this is coming from someone who did get a b6 without tutoring, though i did put like half the effort required cos of becoming demotivated by my teachers' strict and godawful marking and cos it was 2 units out of my 14 that i was sure weren't gonna count to my atar (and it didn't), so i did get a low b6 - i know you'll def put in 100x more effort than i did into the subject though so if i could get a b6 with my low effort, you can def get a higher b6.

my teacher in term 4 before switching this year wasn't the best so i ended up having to self learn mod 5 by myself, and my teachers basically made us self study almost all of mod 6 disguised as an assessment so they didn't have to teach us, and i ended up just retaining the habit of just self-studying bio outside of school. there is a ton of content but if you're consistent with your notes and your past paper qs you should be fine. i would go into a term done or almost done with module notes and i would just add bits to it from the teachers' theory slides or them talking, then i'd print it out and read it regularly at home for it to slowly stick into my mind. the memorisation ultimately wasn't hard, but some of the content can get boring af (eg. i was interested in how viruses infected humans but not transgenic fish or plant mechanisms), you'll just have to pull through it and pray it's not asked in your assessments. not knowing y9 genetics stuff should be fine (i also did not remember any y9 genetics stuff when i did bio in y12).

don't use pearson bio, it's kinda trash; bio in focus is alright if you have time to read ahead and make notes of off it but personally my lifesaver for notes and revision were the A+ hsc bio series (not sponsored) - the study notes are actually so good and the practice exams book they have are also really good (so much so my teachers literally copy pasted questions from that book into our internal assessments and trials with no shame)

also rip i just realised you're in y11 next year so disregard my A+ hsc bio series thing but probs save it for later ig
also the y11 content is kinda a scam cos pretty much none of it is relevant for y12. my teachers even stopped teaching mod 4 at the end of the year cos they knew it wasn't relevant and also super boring

 

[goodcat911]

Btw what mark would I need to not get scaled down and get the equivalent of a 99+ atar (idk if this makes sense)

for 99 atar equiv, preferably like 94+ main thing is dont get demotivated (go into it with 100% certainty that itll count). also its more about knowing how to apply ur understanding of theory to different types of questions (with and without stimuli) rather than just memorising content to get a solid mid-high band 6.

 

[synthesisFR]

Hey guys, I was wondering how difficult biology is in terms of memorisation. I want to achieve a band 6 hopefully, and am wondering is that possible without tutoring, can I just learn everything by myself? Also is it fine if I don’t have prior knowledge, like I remember some stuff from yr9 about genetics, I just forgot it all and have no clue about anything (I’m going to go through syllabus dot points this holidays) Also what are the best textbooks & resources? How much time have you guys dedicated to biology every day leading to the hsc? Also this is irrelevant but would it be stupid if I also did business studies & sacs if I want to go into med? I really don’t want to do physics so I’m sticking to chem and bio. Btw what mark would I need to not get scaled down and get the equivalent of a 99+ atar (idk if this makes sense)

I accelerated it and did pretty decent I found it super easy imo since I barely studied it and barely studied for trials and even hsc since I was playing Roblox jailbreak the day before don’t judge yeah I was a drop kick in y11 and in the Roblox phase cus my school started playing for some reason. Like I was memorising hormones five mins before we went into exam hall then there wand g even a q on hormones but I got screwed over by the last q lol since I failed at answering it properly since I forgot some definitions and couldn’t link the concept

 

[its_ace21]

cant relate i had to sacrifice time from my other subjects to study for bio wtv i only did 2 past papers like idgaf

 

[goodcat911]

cant relate i had to sacrifice time from my other subjects to study for bio wtv i only did 2 past papers like idgaf

fr at least its over

 

[its_ace21]

fr at least its over

ikr that gave me mental trauma but its ok guys

 

[lolcti]

it's not difficult at all, but there is a lot of content. this is coming from someone who did get a b6 without tutoring, though i did put like half the effort required cos of becoming demotivated by my teachers' strict and godawful marking and cos it was 2 units out of my 14 that i was sure weren't gonna count to my atar (and it didn't), so i did get a low b6 - i know you'll def put in 100x more effort than i did into the subject though so if i could get a b6 with my low effort, you can def get a higher b6.

my teacher in term 4 before switching this year wasn't the best so i ended up having to self learn mod 5 by myself, and my teachers basically made us self study almost all of mod 6 disguised as an assessment so they didn't have to teach us, and i ended up just retaining the habit of just self-studying bio outside of school. there is a ton of content but if you're consistent with your notes and your past paper qs you should be fine. i would go into a term done or almost done with module notes and i would just add bits to it from the teachers' theory slides or them talking, then i'd print it out and read it regularly at home for it to slowly stick into my mind. the memorisation ultimately wasn't hard, but some of the content can get boring af (eg. i was interested in how viruses infected humans but not transgenic fish or plant mechanisms), you'll just have to pull through it and pray it's not asked in your assessments. not knowing y9 genetics stuff should be fine (i also did not remember any y9 genetics stuff when i did bio in y12).

don't use pearson bio, it's kinda trash; bio in focus is alright if you have time to read ahead and make notes of off it but personally my lifesaver for notes and revision were the A+ hsc bio series (not sponsored) - the study notes are actually so good and the practice exams book they have are also really good (so much so my teachers literally copy pasted questions from that book into our internal assessments and trials with no shame)

masaken, you’re actually my life saver, inspiration, role model and everything. THANK YOU

 

[its_ace21]

masaken, you’re actually my life saver, inspiration, role model and everything. THANK YOU

what about me

 

[lolcti]

what about me

shhh yk you’re always first