5 Easy Biology Study Skills

Biology - The Study of Life

Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis)

Biology, the study of life. It teaches us about ourselves, animals, plants and the environment around us. In my view as a Biology tuition teacher in my home country Malaysia, a good starting point when studying biology is to appreciate the perfection of nature and the principles of life. With this fundamental mindset, you can understand Biology with stress less.

However, if anyone wish to have a strong foundation in Biology, you need to practises in these 5 ways regularly to level up your understanding.

1) Terminology is Very Important!

If you want to understand what you are studying, then you need to familiarise yourself with all the scientific terms first.  These is the hardest part of students in Malaysia where everyone is loaded by a lot of works from different subjects, causing the students choose to "memorise" the terms rather than understand them. Thus, a better way to understand while memorising the terms is to break down the complex words into small portion and identify their root or origin.

2) Start from General to Specific

You should master the general concepts before being able to tackle specific ones. In this sense, I recommend you to study the processes thoroughly before going to the next level. Mind Maps are an effective tools to speed up your memorisation in the visual way.

3) Do Something in the Laboratory, Don't Sleep!

Try to apply your Biology theory into practise in the laboratory. The experiments you done in laboratory can be a guideline to you on how the natural world works. Remember, the act of doing will stay with you longer than the act of reading.

4) Draw for Your Own Notes

Similar with Mind Maps, you can draw a picture or diagram for your own to summarise the information obtained throughout the specific topic such as circulatory system, human brains, and etc. Drawings can help you to understand a concept and remember information that would be difficult to define in words.  

5) Do Past Year Exam Questions

Doing past year papers is better than simply grabs an exercise to do. Past exam papers can be used to predict the style of questions asked or the frequent of the same topics tested. Besides, it is important to evaluate yourself by doing past year papers so that you know your strength and weaknesses in certain topics. Practise makes PERFECT!