BIOSCI101
**EDIT — as of 2019, this paper is going to be taken in second semester. Back when I did it, it was in first semester. It has swapped places with your gen-ed, which is now in first semester. This just means that this is one of three non-core papers in second semester, rather than the only non-core paper in first semester. As far as I know, the paper is mostly the same other than that — but I will update this again if not.**
This is the only non-core subject you will do in your first semester. Thus, it is probably the most neglected subject in first semester (for good reason)! I would not stress much about this paper, as long as you keep up-to-date, you’ll be sweet!
I found this paper the most tedious and boring of the four papers, as I was not as interested in its content as I was for the other papers.
Structure
Lectures
The course is divided into 4 blocks, each taught by a different lecturer.
Cellular and Molecular Biology — cells & organelles; chemical components of cells; cell membranes, junctions & membrane transport; proteins; enzymes; nucleic acids; transcription & translation; gene expression.
I found this block did not contain much new content from Level 2 Biology. It certainly is the nicest way to be introduced to taking notes in biology at university as most of the details you will already have locked in your brain from a couple years ago.
Genetics — genetics & DNA technology; reproduction; inheritance of genes; chromosomal basis of inheritance; research applications; genetically engineered food.
I did an internal in Level 3 Biology that focused a lot on DNA technology, and so it was useful to have this background. I found this unit to be tedious and a little slow, but in some ways it is nice to not be panicking over how much you need to remember (as you do in 107).
Evolution — descent with modification; theory & evidence of evolution; population genetics; origin, maintenance and loss of genetic variation; natural selection; origin of species; phylogenetics; genomes & evolution.
Personally, this was the most boring part of the course. I don’t really have much of an interest at all in evolution, and struggled to see the relevance of learning it. However, it has a lot of easy marks and is not hard too study for.
Biochemistry — thermodynamics; glycolysis; the Citric Acid Cycle; the Electron Transport System; ATP synthesis; glucose; blood glucose levels (fed, fasting, exercise, diabetes); photosynthesis.
This was the hardest unit of this paper. It felt like so much to remember and I just never could quite work out how everything fit together. The lecturer is hilarious and is a good time, so that’s a plus…except, you do leave the lecture being a bit like “wait, what??”. When it came down to it, I just drew some massive flow charts and put all the key details in, and it became a whole lot more manageable!
Laboratories
There are five three-hour labs for this paper, one every two weeks. Although there are five labs, the first lab is essentially a practice lab, as your marks in it do not count towards your final grade! This is so great as it takes a lot of stress off your first biology lab experience and helps you understand what you need to improve on for the future labs that are actually graded.
You don’t need to bring your safety glasses to your biology labs, just your lab coat. Make sure your hair is tied back if it is long.
- Enzymology
You’ll learn how to use a micropipette to measure very small volumes (you need this skill in basically every other lab in this paper, so it’s good to learn it when it does not matter). Other than that, all it is is measuring rates of reaction with different temperatures, substrates and cofactors.
Pre-Lab — in my year, the pre-lab was done on paper in your lab manual before your lab. You will hand it in at the start of the lab. - Nucleic Acids and Control of Gene Expression
You’ll learn how to obtain precipitates of nucleic acids; use hydrolysis and thin-layer chromatography to separate RNA components and study the effect of different substrates on enzyme induction. From this, you will identify three strains of bacteria, each with a different mutation.
Pre-Lab — there is a quiz on Canvas to complete, it is open the week before your lab. To complete the quiz, read through the lab instructions in your manual, and refer to the textbook (if you have it) if you cannot find the answers in your lab manual. - Detecting an Inserted Gene
In this lab, you’ll learn how to perform and interpret a gel electrophoresis on products of a PCR.
Pre-Lab — there is a quiz on Canvas to complete, it is open the week before your lab. To complete the quiz, read through the lab instructions in your manual, and refer to the textbook (if you have it) if you cannot find the answers in your lab manual. - Determination of Blood Glucose
You will determine glucose levels in patients’ blood samples who have undergone a glucose tolerance test.
Pre-Lab — there are some questions to answer in your lab manual. Write your answers on a word document, print it out and bring it to your lab. You will get graded on the group discussion you have with a demonstrator surrounding these questions. - Energy Capture and Storage
You will study the reactions of photosynthesis, by measuring the change in intensity of a dye that acts as an electron receptor.
Pre-Lab — this time, you have to write three MCQ questions around photosynthesis. You must outline the topic area for your questions; which learning outcomes they asses; the question; instructions to the students; and you must also provide a model answer and mark allocation. Your lab partner will assess your questions during the lab, so bring them in.
In each lab, there is an assignment sheet which you must fill out and hand in before you leave. At the start of each lab, the tutor will go through the common mistakes and model answers for the previous lab. After this, they will give you a run-down on what is going to happen in the lab you are in and they will go through some additional key points to what is in your manual. Take notes on a blank page in your lab manual during this, as they often happen to drop answers for the assignment sheet in their explanation.
Don’t be afraid to ask the demonstrators/tutor any questions you may have. You will find they are even helpful with the answers to your assignment sheet, if you ask in the right way. Never ask what the answer is though. I would just talk them through my thinking and have a discussion with them surrounding the assignment, and I found they offered very helpful tips here are there!
Bring a vivid marker to all your labs (even in other subjects — they are handy for naming things, and helping you remember what is what).
Assessment
Theory Component (80%)
- MasteringBiology Activities (4%)
- Canvas Biochemistry Quizzes (2%)
- Incourse Test (34%)
- Final Exam (40%)
Practical Component (20%)
- Laboratories (20%)
It is important to note that in any science subject, you must pass the theory and practical components separately in order to actually pass the subject. This means that you must get 10% (out of a possible 20%) in your labs/practical AND 40% (out of the 80%) in the theory to pass.
For details of what each assessment entails, read on!
MasteringBiology Activities
This is a platform with activities to ‘consolidate’ your learning. It is in the form of mainly multichoice and drag-and-drop questions. There is approximately one activity per lecture, so I tried to keep on top of these daily. They have due dates in chunks, so aren’t due daily, but I found it sooooo painful to try do them all at once. I think you get 5 attempt per question, which is more than enough. Your 4% does depend on how many questions you get right, so do try to get them all right, because they are easy marks.
Handy tip: Copy and paste the question into Google, and you can often find yourself the answers. I mean obviously they encourage you not to do this because it doesn’t help your learning, but in all honesty, I found it was much better to take less time on this and to put time into actually studying as it wasn’t super helpful.
Canvas Biochemistry Quizzes
When you get to the biochemistry block of lectures, there are six MCQ quizzes each with three questions to complete. Each quiz test your understanding from one or two of the lectures, and open and close as the lecture series progresses (meaning you cannot do them all at once). Each is worth 0.33% of your final grade and you get 10 minutes for each of your two attempts for each quiz. Feedback is given in the lecture following the closure of the quiz.
These quizzes are nothing to worry about, and if you end up tossing up between two answers, you have two attempt anyway, so don’t stress it too much! Gotta love easy marks!
Incourse Test
There is an 80 question MCQ test halfway through the semester. It will be in the evening and lasts two hours (most likely 6:30–8:30pm). This tests the first two blocks of the course (Cellular and Molecular Biology & Genetics). After this test, you won’t be examined on this content again in this course! The final exam does not examine this material. As this test examines half the course content, it is worth a lot (34%), so definitely study up for it!
Final Exam
The final exam also is an 80 question MCQ that lasts for two hours. This tests the final two blocks of the course (Evolution & Biochemistry).
Laboratories
Your lab mark incorporates both the mark from your pre-lab and your assignment sheet that you completed in your lab. Just a tip for the assignment sheet, you can discuss answers with your partner, but do not write the same answer word-for-word as each other, as you can both lose marks for plagiarism. Although there are five labs, only the last four count towards your final grade, so each of those four labs is worth 5% of your final mark in the paper.
How I (should have) Studied
I say ‘should have’, because I hadn’t really figured out my study strategy whilst I was doing this paper. I had no idea how much time I should have allocated to this paper being a non-core paper. The strategy I used in Biosci106 in second semester would have worked great for this as well.
In terms of time allocation for this being a non-core subject, as long as you are always up-to-date in terms of listening to lectures and your notes, then you will be fine. Too many people let themselves get behind on lectures because it was a non-core, and found themselves cramming lecture recordings in the hours before the test/exam.
(I will explain the study strategy as if I actually did all of these things, but trust me, this strategy worked for me and saved me time in the end.)
Before the lecture, I would download the lecture slides and convert them to PowerPoint (I explained this in another post [see the section titled ‘Soda PDF’]). In the lecture, I would make notes in the ‘Notes’ section below the slides in PowerPoint. This meant all my notes were in one place.
Once I got home, I would condense and write out these notes (the ones on the lecture slide and the ones I typed) into the courseguide. This meant everything was in one place.
(What I actually did instead of this, was wrote out all the notes into another book and then typed up the notes and made flashcards from them. It took SOOOO much time, and was really not worth it for a non-core subject).
When it came time for the test/exam, I quickly typed up the notes in the courseguide in condensed form. This sounds like a waste of time, but I found it was actually the most time-efficient way to remind myself of all the notes I had not reviewed since the day of the lecture. I had to actively read all of my notes to condense them as it required me to actually think. Otherwise, I would completely zone-out reading through my notes because I was so tired and they weren’t exactly thrilling. Once I had typed out the notes, I would go and do past tests which I marked as I went. If I got things wrong, I would refer back to my notes to ensure I brushed up my knowledge.
If there were biochemical flow charts, such as glycolysis or photosynthesis, that required me to know lots of substrates, products and enzymes, I would draw them out in a poster and have them up on my wall so that I could see how everything fit together.
I had a day and a half between my final core subject exam in first semester and this exam. I did absolutely no study for it before this day and a half, and still came out with an A in the subject. Don’t waste your precious core subject study time for this paper! If you have to cram it, it is doable if you have kept up-to-date with your lecture notes throughout semester. This means you are just refreshing your brain rather than learning new stuff (as lots of people try do by watching lectures for the first time in this last day).
When doing your 101 notes are the last thing you want to do after a long day at uni, do them first before your other subjects and get it out of the way, because once it’s done, it’s done and your test/exam self will thank you for getting the hard work done. Trust me, you’ll regret not staying on top of them…think about your future, more stressed-out self!
I hope that helps give you a better idea of the non-core BioSci101! If you have any questions about it, feel free to email me at biomedorbiodead@gmail.com!
Goodluck!
