Key Concept: Averages, Range, and Standard Deviation, with A level Biology Past-Paper Questions

You need to know some maths for A level Biology. This includes knowing how to interpret averages (mean, median and mode), ranges, and standard deviations to work out whether an experiment can be said to have shown an effect or not. Master this early on and it will not help you with exam questions, but also make it easier for you to learn the bits of the course that are explained using these statistical methods.

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Key Concept: Surface Area to Volume ratio (SA:V)

Some concepts turn up again and again in A-level biology. Taking a little time to ensure you really understand these key concepts from the start can save a lot of effort overall.

Surface area to volume ratio (SA:V) is vital for understanding a wide range of topics including transport across cell membranes, gas exchange, digestion, heat exchange, and mass transport. SA:V explains why the inner membrane of a mitochondrion is folded, why elephants have big ears, and why jellyfish don’t need blood vessels.

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Answering Questions with lots of Maths in Biology - Data Analysis Questions in the new OCR Biology A Specification - updated Feb 2018 with the latest handbook

Which maths skills you need to practise for the new specification A-level Biology - excellent resources from OCR - also applies to AQA and Eduqas, lots of great practice questions

The quantity of maths in the 2017 specification is a challenge to many students - so I put together a summary of all of the OCR A new spec questions with some element of data analysis.

if you use then please like and share

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How to approach and answer A-level Biology Questions that need you to Analyse Figures, Tables and Images - lots of example past paper questions

How to approach and answer A-level Biology Questions that need you to Analyse Figures, Tables and Images - lots of example past paper questions with the markschemes

DO NOT LOOK at the question and then look at the data to answer the question.

  • Look closely at the graph or table

  • look very carefully at the axes - have they plotted mean or rate or time, mass/volume or concentration ?

  • can you see range bars ?

  • In a table what range is in the replicates when you compare to the mean ?

  • what trends can you observe ? then think about what principle of biology is being shown by the the trends.

  • How would you explain the highest value, the lowest value, the point at which the line crosses the x axis, how would you explain the largest range, how would you change the experiment to reduce the spread in the data ?

Once  you have a coherent understanding of the trends  - only then look at the question.

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