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Exam Preparation

National 5 Biology – Advice to parents and carers from staff

  • Mr Mitchell N5 Biology videos provide narrated PowerPoints to explain course content and key skills. These can be useful during self-study and consolidation of learning at home, for revision or to help students to catch up if they have been absent.
  • Each key area of the course has a learning outcome checklist (paper copy and in OneNote) giving details of the depth of knowledge and understanding required. Problem solving help pages can also be found in the OneNote and should be used to help master the key problem-solving skills, including calculations and questions on experiments.
  • Each key area of the course has a glossary (paper copy and in OneNote) with flashcardmachine.com links in OneNote. These are good for repeated rehearsal of key terms. 
  • BBC Bitesize provides a useful tool for revision and videos to build understanding of topics.
  • Achieve has hyperlinked questions and solutions related to each key area, as well as core notes, tasks and links to useful resources. It can also be used to self-evaluate confidence across the course and track progress. Whole SQA past paper questions and marking instructions, going back many years, can also be found on the following website: https://jabchem.org.uk/biology/national5  

Higher Biology – Advice to parents and carers from staff

  • Key assessment feedback sheets in OneNote and Showbie provide analysis of the questions that were answered incorrectly in the assessment along with the learner’s self-reflections and suggested next steps.  
  • Learners should regularly practice extended response questions (1-2 per week). Achieve has hyperlinked questions and solutions related to each key area, as well as core notes, tasks and links to useful resources. It can also be used to self-evaluate confidence across the course and track progress. Whole papers can be found in the past papers available at https://jabchem.org.uk/ , with marking instructions. 
  • Learners should ensure they know how to carry out relevant problem-solving skills (e.g. averages, ratios, times greater, percentage change and graph drawing) and practise these skills. Help with these can be found in the Problem Solving section of OneNote. 
  • The summary notes provide a concise version of the course content and can be used to catch up on areas of the course where students have been absent.   
  • Each key area of the course has a glossary available on OneNote. This is good for repeated rehearsal of key terms and meanings.  

Advanced Higher Biology – Advice to parents and carers from staff

  • PowerPoints on each area of the course are available in their Class Team in Files. These can be used if class is missed and when revising to catch up or recapping content.  
  • Learning Outcomes and Homework with answers are available on OneNote. These are past paper questions covering each area of the course and can be redone for revision of each area before completing whole past papers nearer to the exam. 
  • Scholar is a great learning and revision tool. It also has self-marking quizzes and tests embedded throughout. This is accessible through the learners Glow account.  
  • Information on the Project, which is worth 25% of their overall mark is on OneNote. Examples of projects are available in the Class Team in Files and also on the Understanding Standards website. https://www.understandingstandards.org.uk/Subjects/Biology/advanced/Project  
  • Achieve has hyperlinked questions and solutions related to each key area, as well as core notes, tasks and links to useful resources. It can also be used to self-evaluate confidence across the course and track progress.  SQA past paper questions sorted by key area can be found in the Class Team in Files. https://jabchem.org.uk/biology/advancedhigheris also a great resource that has entire SQA past papers and the marking instructions going back for many years (be wary when using questions from 2021 or earlier as there were changes to the course then).