| Product: |
Biology 2 - Mary Jones, Jennifer Gregory |
| Date: |
01/05/02 (407 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Full colour pictures, graphs, diagrams, questions with ansswers, contains the core facts needed for the syllabus
Disadvantages: Summary notes aren't always required, the book doesn't specifically contain questions for the synoptic module
Yes, I’m back again! You’re all going to be getting sick of me reviewing academic books at this rate! Oh well, tough!
This book is designed for A2 level Biology students studying with the OCR exam board. I’d imagine that the book would be suitable for all A2 level biology students though, irrespective of what exam board you are studying with.
The A2 course is divided into two parts.
If you’ve read my opinion about the AS book then you may recall that there were three modules in the AS level. Odd I know but I’ll explain in a minute.
In the A2 you’ll study towards three exams. You’d expect there to be three units in the book then wouldn’t you? Well you’d be wrong! There is actually only one unit in this book.
The unit goes under the name of ‘Central Concepts’.
You may now be wondering where you learn about the other two units then. Well it turns out you have to buy yet another book. As part of the OCR Biology syllabus you are required to study an option unit. You (or rather your teacher) can choose from:
Growth, development and reproduction,
Application of Genetics
Environmental Biology
Microbiology and Biotechnology
or Mammalian Physiology and Behaviour.
That still leaves another unit (exam) though. Well the last exam you’ll have to sit is a synoptic exam that covers all the AS and A2 material. In this book there is questions that support this synoptic unit, Unifying Concepts in Biology.
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So what’s in the books?
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Contents:
Like I did with the AS book, I’ll briefly mention more about the first two topics in each unit rather than what is in each unit.
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~ Unit 4: Central Concepts ~
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1)~ Energy and respiratio
n ~
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Introduction to the unit:
For the first time since GCSE you have to think about where respiration comes into our lives. At GCSE it was all pretty straightforward. You generally only needed the equation to get by in your exams (oh those were the days!).
You not need to know what ATP is like, what it actually is, how and where glycolysis occurs. There are a few steps to respiration too, you need to understand these thoroughly, including Krebs cycle, decarboxylation and dehydrogenation, know the role of NAD, explain oxidative phosphorylation and be able to understand how and why anaerobic respiration occurs within out bodies.
Units studied:
~ The need for energy in living organisms – doesn’t really need introducing this topic. Its pretty self explanatory!
~ ATP – unlike at GCSE you now have to know what the actual structure of the molecule, adenosine triphosphate is. You have to know how to explain the synthesis of ATP is associated with the electron transport chain in the membranes of the mitochondrion, for example.
The remaining units are:
~ Work
~ Respiration
~ Mitochondrial structure and function
~ Anaerobic respiration
~ Respiratory substrates
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2)~ Photosynthesis ~
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Introduction:
This unit is fairly similar to the last unit. You have to know all the same sort of processes except this time you need to modify everything to fit in with plants. You generally notice many points carried forward from the respiration unit before. Its surprising just how us and plants are alike!
At GCSE you only really needed to know basic facts about photosynthesis including the equation for the process. You now realise that, just like respiration, the process is split up into distinct reactions. Including the light-dependant (Z-scheme) and light-independent (Calvin cycle).
At firs
t both the respiration and photosynthesis units appear like double dutch (or they did to me and most of my class!) However don’t fret. It DOES honestly start to sink in when it comes to revising it later in class (i.e. about this time of year!).
Units studied:
~ An energy transfer process – this just outlines what was learned at GCSE more than anything else and mentions individual processes in passing.
~ Trapping light energy – this section introduces the idea about how light is actually captured by a chloroplast (you learned that at GCSE but not much else). It introduces the idea of pigments and how different wavelengths are captured by different pigments.
The remaining units cover everything mentioned so far in much more detail:
~ The light-dependent reactions of photosynthesis
~ The light-independent reactions of photosynthesis
~ Leaf structure and function
~ Chloroplast structure and function
~ Factors necessary for photosynthesis
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3)~ Populations and interactions ~
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Introduction:
In the AS book you’d have studied the transfer of energy between the organisms in an ecosystem. In this unit you study a number of different factors that influence the distribution and sizes of populations, including some aspects of human intervention (e.g. farming and forestry).
Units studied:
~ Population size – you look at growth curves (e.g. sigmoidal growth curves) and look into what affects the size of populations (e.g. limiting factors and carrying capacity). (If your teacher decides to study the Microbiology and Biotechnology option module like mine then this part comes in handy again then when studying how the population sizes of bacteria is affected by such things as limiting factors, carrying capacity, etc).
~ Predator-prey relationships – to be honest I find this section
really simple really. There isn’t anything in this individual bit that I didn’t study at GCSE level. You have to be familiar with the predator-prey graphs, just like at GCSE.
Other units studied:
~ Competition
~ Species distribution
~ Sampling techniques (no, sorry, you can’t put your DJ skills to good use here!)
~ Sustainable production and conservation
~ Human effects on the nitrogen cycle
~ Sustainable timber production
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4)~ Meiosis and gene control ~
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Introduction:
As part of your AS level you’ll have just studied mitosis. Now comes the meiosis bit (remember that bit that you probably hated at GCSE? – well everyone in my GCSE class hated this section, personally I didn’t mind it).
You are reminded of the simple things learned at GCSE, e.g. what a zygote is (easy to forget I suppose!) and how many chromosomes we have (remember we have diploid cells but meiosis involves haploid cells).
Units studied:
~ Meiosis – this is just a reminder including some annotated diagrams. It must be said though that the annotations are more complex than GCSE level sadly!
~ Genetics – reminds you about what alleles and genotype is. Remember all those confusing ways of doing Punnet squares? That odd method of having a capital letter to represent a dominant allele even though the letter may totally not correspond to the feature in question, e.g. blue and green eyes where G = allele from green eyes (logical) and g = allele for blue eyes (totally illogical!). Well you’ll have to use them all over again now!
Other units studied:
~ Genotype affects phenotype
~ Inherited genes
~ Multiple alleles
~ Sex inheritance
~ Sex linkage
~ Dihybrid crosses
~ The X^2 (chi squared) test
~ Mutations
~ Environment and phenotype
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5)~ Classification, selection and evolution~
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Introduction:
In the previous unit you’ll have studied how sexual reproduction produces genetic variation amongst individuals in a population. In this unit you study how it all occurs, including when things go wrong (mutations).
Units studied:
~ Variation – study how and why variation occurs.
~ Overproduction – look at environmental factors affecting the size of a population and what can go wrong when overproduction occurs (e.g. when rabbits live in a dense population they are more likely to get myxomatosis).
Other units include:
~ Natural selection
~ Evolution
~ Artificial selection
~ The Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution by natural selection
~ Species and speciation
~ Classification
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6)~ Control, coordination and homeostasis ~
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Introduction:
This is by far the longest and most daunting looking unit in the book. On average each of the above units has approximately 15 pages each to it. This unit however has 40 pages to it! Scary huh!
What makes it look even more daunting though is the list on the first page of this unit of ‘What you should know after completing this unit’ (see later in review). Unlike the other units, there are 19 points to this unit (goes right down the page) when the average of the other units is 11 points and only goes half way down the page!
You learn about how both animals and plants use hormones and how we keep our systems running efficiently.
Units studied:
~ Homeostasis – you are reminded about what homeostasis actually is and then go on to learn about negative and positive feedback systems without our bodies.
~ Excretion – what a lovely topic! Usually thoug
h the book does word it all nicely, such as ‘the process by which urea is made from excess amino acids…’ lol. Nice! You go on to learn about all sorts of different wastes.
Other units include:
~ The study of the kidney
~ Control of water content
~ Hormonal communication
~ Nervous communication
~ Plant growth regulators
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~ Good points about the book ~
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(Many of these will be the same as with the AS book)
· There are plenty of photographs, diagrams and graphs (all in colour).
Diagrams are extremely useful when revising topics like meiosis.
Graphs are useful when it comes to predator-prey relationships and population growth curves (sigmoidal graphs).
· There is a ‘Summary’ at the end of each unit. It lists in bullet point form the main points you should be familiar with after completing each unit. These can make revising easier or so they say.
· There are questions found throughout the text in each unit. One good point with these is the fact that the answers are found at the back of the book.
· Throughout the text you’ll notice plenty of words in bold. These are the words you are meant to know like the back of your hand. There is a glossary listing each of these at the end of the book though which certainly comes in handy.
· At the beginning of each unit there is a section named ‘By the end of this chapter you should be able to:’. It lists each point you should know. When you actually look at the syllabus these are exactly the same as what is printed in it. Although it is still handy to have a copy of the actual syllabus so you can scribble all over it. As I mentioned with the last unit though. When you first look at this section for that unit it makes you want to leap off the nearest tall building. Maybe this should be in the disadvantage
s part!?
· One of the main editors (and she is the series editor) is Mary Jones. If you have ever seen the AS Guru programmes on BBC1 and 2 over night (like the GCSE Bitesize programmes) you’ll notice she presents many of the biology programmes. Hence, all the AS Guru and many other revision books are written by her. So, if you buy any Guru books to revise from you are likely to be used to the writing style of question style.
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~ Bad points about the book ~
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· The Summary I mentioned above sadly does not list in bullet form everything that is in the syllabus. Strangely, some of the things listed in the summary aren’t directly needed according to the syllabus. Personally I think it would make more sense bullet pointing the things in the syllabus instead. Unlike with the AS book, some of the summary points are in fact totally not needed whatsoever. At least the ones in the AS book vaguely resembled what was in the syllabus! However I guess if you can remember all the summary points too its only going to help in the exams.
· There are questions found at the end of each unit. Only problem is they don’t have answers to them.
· Like I mentioned with the AS book, the questions found throughout the text in each unit are numbered strangely. Unlike what you’d expect (e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc) they are numbered like SAQ 8.1, SAQ 8.2, etc). So when you are searching for the answer in the back of the book it makes trying to find the answer a bit trickier. I noticed they haven’t improved this in the A2 book, it’s just the same!
· Some definitions are in little purple boxes (I know I don’t like purple, but no, that’s not the reason I’ve included it in my disadvantages section!) The problem is that not all definitions are. There is no clear distinction as to why some are and some aren’t. Maybe theyR
17;re the ones that are of extra importance? Maybe it’s a clue – maybe those will definitely feature in the exams?! I don’t know. They should put all the definitions into little boxes instead of just a few chosen ones.
So if you are going to be doing A2 Biology with the OCR board you can order your book from Amazon right now for £12.95. The ISBN number is 0 521 79714 4.
Summary:
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