A-level Results Day - August 2017 - Terrific Results and Feedback

A-level Results Day – August 2017

Results Day - always a bit nerve racking for the students (and for the teachers), more so this year with the first results for the new specification linear Biology exams, which have a very different style of assessment and far more analysis and mathematical application.  Good preparation and hard work by my students paid off.

It means a great deal to get positive feedback and hear news of success - here are some of the messages I received yesterday.

• I got an A in biology, Thanks for all your work , I got into Notts for medicine – Mo (August 2017)

• A*AA overall, the A* coming in Biology so very very well. This is also considering I was more uncertain with regards to how my biology went in comparison to my maths and economics. Thank you for all your help and hope to see you soon :)  - James (August 2017)

• Just an email to say thank you so much for helping me in Biology, I got an A, so I'm over the moon!! I think from a C to an A is a great improvement. I also got As in my other subjects which means I'll be off to Durham! – Charlie (August 2017)

• Hi tom, just checked results and I got ABB with the A being in Biology! Thanks for all your help and hope you enjoy the rest of summer. – Oliver (August 2017)

• I got an A in Biology!! Who would've guessed considering I got an E for mocks! – Donya (August 2017)

• Hi Tom, thank you ever so much for all your tutoring and hard work. I couldn't have got a C without you which I was really pleased with as I felt I got an E. Thank you once again – Katherine (August 2017)

• Lydia got a grade A for biology. Thank you! – Karen (August 2017)

Feedback left on my Facebook page

• Tom has been an excellent tutor. Really helpful to have and easy to talk to. He helped boost my grade from a B to an A*. Thank You for all your help- Charles (August 2017)

• Tom has been an exceptional tutor who has supported my daughter in her application to study Medicine. He has been excellent in explaining content whilst maintaining a clear focus on the requirements of the exam board. As a teacher myself, I really appreciate Tom's level of professionalism. He has always been friendly and reliable." - Karen

• Tom is an excellent tutor, who knows just how to target his teaching so I could get the most out of our sessions. Working at a B grade level, Tom was so helpful in explaining topics to an A grade standard. His style of teaching even the most difficult concepts made them easy to grasp, and his interactive sessions made revising biology that much easier. Thank you Tom!

• Absolutely brilliant. Very comprehensive teaching which links all areas of the subject to each other making them much easier to understand and remember – Alasdair (August 2017)

• Absolutely brilliant, always flexible about the topics you want to cover and never ignores the harder parts of the course. I for one went through the Bohr Shift etc about 4 times with Tom until finally it made sense to me. Couldn't have done the exams without him and I'm grateful to have had him as a tutor. – Archie (August 2017)

• Tom was a really good tutor and took me through the new A Level. Very patient and very reliable and puts in lots of extra effort with the added resources – Grace (August 2017)

• Tom has been a great help over my final A-level year, tutoring me OCR Biology A. I started the year with low confidence as my AS grades were lower than expected, and I did not always find my teaching at school very clear. Tom explained concepts to me in a much clearer way which really helped me understand difficult topics and finally grasp the fundamentals of Biology and the OCR syllabus. He was always friendly and approachable, making asking questions easy! I would recommend him to anybody. His tutoring allowed me to achieve the grades I needed to study Human Sciences at Exeter Uni this September! – Freya (August 2017)

• Tom was an exceptional tutor, who went above and beyond to find resources that improved my knowledge and understanding of Biology. I found going through past papers was particularly useful, as Tom was able to explain how the question should be answered. Tom absolutely improved my level of understanding, and resulting grade in Biology. I would recommend Tom to anyone study A-Level Biology and looking for some help. Liam – (August 2017)

Autosomal linkage - Try with 3 Alleles ...- Genetics and A-level Biology

Students find autosomal linkage a challenge ... I suspect this is because they mentally disconnect Meiosis from gamete formation.

Remember that the gametes in dihybrid inheritance result from the  independent assortment of the chromosomes in metaphase I. Consequently, if alleles are on the SAME chromosome then they cannot assort independently and must be passed to the gamete together (linked)... unless they form chiasma in Prophase one and exchange parts of the maternal and paternal chromosome (crossing over).

Here is a pdf of the question and a markscheme

Leaf discs in a Syringe - Another Synoptic Question #alevelbiology

Photosynthesis, Enzymes, Pigments, Leaf Buoyancy and more experimental design.

Think about how starch is made and what it is made from .......

Here is the question as a pdf

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and here is the markscheme

Splat and Flash..... ATP and Fireflies - #OCR Synoptic Biology A-level

Another from the past.

Terrific question about DNA, diffusion, ATP production and fireflies going out in a blaze of glory....

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Here is a pdf copy of the question - and of the markscheme.

Additionally, below are images with the markscheme answers edited in

Unexpected return from Project Bean ..."Plants engage students"- Shock. #alevelbiology

When I teach plant reproduction in the spring I give every student a broad bean. We discuss seed shape and function and  the conditions that might be needed for germination.

On returning home they germinate the seed and observe and record the changes. Many get very enthused indeed and compare the growth of their "Project Bean".  Often we keep a photo diary on the pinboard.

Yesterday a student came up to me holding a small bag of beans - she said "these are from Martyn" (who was now at University).

They were beans from the plant he had grown from the one I had given him in class ... He wanted me to have the seeds from his plant so the current cohort could germinate them.

Bravo Martyn !

A-level Biological Molecules - 11 basic points to help you learn

1. 99% of life is Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen (and a bit of Phosphate)

2. Mono is one, Di (and Bi) is two, Tri is three, oligo is a few, poly is many.

3. Anything ending in -ose is a sugar, -ol is a lipid. - ase is an enzyme and all enzymes are proteins

4. Beta glucose is only in Cellulose - everything else is Alpha glucose

5. A condensation reaction makes water and joins two monomers together - glycosidic bond is a condensation reaction

6. A hydrolysis reaction breaks a bond (lysis means split) - with the addition of water (hydro)

7. A Glycosidic bond joins 2 monosaccarides together 

8. A peptide bond joins 2 amino acids together (many-poly, by peptide bonds...=polypeptide)

9. A lipid is made from a glycerol joined by an ester bond to 3 (tri) fatty acids - hence triglyceride

10. Carbohydrates and lipids are just C,H,O. Amino acids are C,H,O,N (ok, and a bit of Sulphur with 2 of the R groups), Nucleic acids (DNA, RNA, ATP) have C,H,O,N,P. Phospholipids are C,H,O,P.

11. Large or non-polar molecules are insoluble in water hence Starch, Glycogen and Fats are osmotically inactive which means they are good energy storage molecules

Learning those A-level Biology definitions with Memrise - a terrific free tool

Frequently students fail to learn the vocabulary of Biology. To get a top grade it is essential to know what the words mean in a Biological context (niche, chromosome, chromatid...), and have the confidence to use those words in an exam answer. 

I recommend using www.memrise.com, it also has iOS and android apps, there are lots of glossaries to work your way through or you can write your own. It is cleverer than it looks.

Here are a couple Eduqas component 1, Eduqas component 2