Studying Biology

[Silverfalcon]

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I did well on Gen. Bio I and II (A/A-). But, I find myself extremely struggling in biology and not know how to study. I looked around on the internet for help, experimented myself with various ways, and finally, found myself to be interested in biology.

Now, I want to learn how to study for biology the right way. I'm a Chemistry major, so whatever I do to study for Chemistry doesn't work for Biology so if Biology majors can share their secrets, that would be great!

 

[Drrrrrr. Celty]

Chem = you doing practice problems.
Biology = you paraphrasing the meanings to terms and remembering concepts. Emphasis on paraphrasing, if your good at being able to understand a concept and convert it into your words you'll be able to spit it back out on the test. Doing practice problems for this isn't going to work because of biology being so concept driven. Advice would literally be read the chapter, look for big concepts and take notes on yellow stickypads. Review before the test and you'll be very well prepared.

 

[psharma02]

Yeah ^^^ Half of biology textbooks are garbage. They'll get off topic for like 2-3 paragraphs at a time. Here's what I do

1 Read through chapter
2 Attend lecture
3 Right after class, highlight all big ideas that they talked about
4 Next day or so, go back and read the entire chapter and focus on the big topics (study them)
5 Highlight the little topics in a different color
6 Come review time, you know what you should study FIRST and what you need to study SECOND.. all the while tying in big concepts to big concepts and big concepts to little concepts. Little to little comes naturally when you do this.

This way you dont end up reading a bunch of fluff

AND... ACRONYMS ACRONYMS ACRONYMS - Saved my damn life on bio exams

For example in my Animal Biology course we had to remember all systems of different phyla.. i.e. Platyhelminthes

PENDRA
P = platyhelminthes E= excretory N = nervous D= digestive R= reproduction A = acoelomate (sp?)

 

[Morsetlis]

It helps to know what the words mean. For example, coelum = cave.

 

[J ROD]

it's basically memorization....find the what works best for you to remember.

 

[Doubtnichts]

Reading the chapters is the best way, but sometimes they can be a little too long. I mostly review lectures and then read more in depth only what the lecture covers. You have to have a good background though.

 

[cliffhuxtableDO]

learn the vocab, read the chapter, take notes, rewrite the notes.

if you learn the vocab first and then read the chapter you can make connections quicker and rewriting the notes will help with memorization.

 

[rxlea]

The guy up there is doing too much work...not sure what biology you are in, though since you say you already took the general bios. Is it A&P? What topics are they covering? It really is memorization like everyone else said. If it IS A&P and you are learning bones and muscles, get the A&P coloring book. If it is body systems, write out a description in your own words of what it does. Then go back into your notes and fill in what you don't have in your description. Do this a couple of times over the semester.