This book is not intended to be a text book. Instead it is a companion to a Biology text book i.e it should be used along with a text book- not instead of it.
The intention is to highlight the key points of each topic and explain the principles behind them (as this understanding gains you marks in exams).
I believe that conventional text books have their place but deliver the knowledge and explanations together in big blocks of text that are difficult to follow. What I thought I would do was take the main points and principles behind Biology and make them clear in the form of questions and answers in manageable chunks.
The other intention is that by looking at, answering and explaining exam questions that are similar to exam questions in the past, I can help you gain understanding of how to answer them to gain the maximum marks.
All the exam questions are similar to Advanced level exam questions that have appeared in past papers in recent years
The exam questions are followed by exam tips which I have put in to help you in getting an good idea how to understand what the examiner is asking you to do –after all, if you don’t realise that you won’t be able answer the question properly!
The answers to the exam questions also have the relevant points that will gain you the marks indicated by a bracket e.g (2nd mark) – showing you exactly where the marks in the answer are to be gained.
I hope these are of help to you and enable you to do well in your Biology exam.
If this book helps you to understand Biology and how to do well in Biology exams then I will have succeeded in my aims.
This book is called ‘A Question of Biology’ for a good reason. Its format is based on questions and answers that I hope will help you to better understand the wonderful subject of Biology. Some questions are exam-type questions which I hope will help you gain some valuable exam technique and increase your knowledge as well. Most of the questions not exam-type questions but are made up so as to bring out for you the main points and principles of Biology that I feel and hope will be useful to you in really getting to grips with the subject.
The book starts with a Book Contents section which sets out the chapters and their contents – consisting of the questions that are answered for you in that chapter. So this would be a good place to start in finding your way around the book. The chapters themselves also have the questions listed at the start so you can see what is there and find the answers that you are looking for.
At the start of each chapter, after the contents page, there is a list of key words which I feel it would be helpful to you as a student to know and understand before reading the chapter – of course it is up to you whether you actually want to do that or not! I just thought that glossaries in general are annoying, in that you have to keep flicking to the back of the book to find the word you don’t know – so I have put them all at the start of each chapter to help you get to grips with the main words in the topic before you read on.
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