What are some study tips for biology?

Hi Cayla,

Biology and medicine have a huge amount of detail that can make effective studying difficult. One thing I have asked my students in previous semesters is whether they find reading (textbooks) or visual aids (videos/animations) more effective for understanding biological processes. The overall majority preferred watching videos and animations that brings scientific concepts because it shows them the overall process without too much detail, unlike textbooks which explains each step in detail as it happens, and students tend to get lost. With that in mind, these are suggestions that I always make to my students to help them study better and more effectively:

1) Youtube is great for finding animations and even online lectures about general biology concepts, like DNA replication, photosynthesis, cellular metabolism, etc. When watching these videos the first time, try not to worry about too much detail but see how the process works for that concept from start to finish. For example, with mitosis - 1 cell gets ready for division into 2 cells by first making an extra copy of DNA, packing the DNA into small compartments like luggage, lining up the DNA in a line, and pulling half of the DNA to one side while the other half goes to the other side, like teams for sports. Once both DNA halves go to the opposite sides, there's a pinching that goes on in the middle of the cell that eventually goes completely through and make 2 cells with the same amount of DNA as the one cell. Once you understand what SHOULD happen, you can then go to each step and learn more details about that step.

2) A lot of scientific words are made up of Latin and/or Greek words to describe a process or part of something. Studying is a lot easier if you can figure out what the parts of the scientific word means. One example is 'hypodermic', which is used in medicine for needle . 'Hypo' means "low" (and 'hyper' means "high") and 'dermic' means "skin". So hypodermic needle is a needle that goes "under the skin", which makes sense when they are shots given to patients or taking blood from patients. There are other terms in biology and medicine that makes use of hypo and hyper:

A) hypoglycemia - 'glycemia' means sugar level, so someone who is hypoglycemic has low blood sugar.

B) hyperglycemia - In this case, a person's sugar levels are too high, which is normally seen in diabetic

patients.

C) hypothermia - People who do not have adequate protection against the cold can get hypothermia.

'Thermia' refers to 'thermal', which is heat. Therefore, a person suffering with hypothermia has too little

heat in their body and their body temperature is too low to sustain living long-term. On the other end, a

person with hyperthermia is overheating and must find a way to cool down or they could die from too

much heat in their body.

3) Make associations with words to help you recall them easier. For example, I explain what thermal means in the previous paragraph. Everytime I see 'therm', I think of the Thermos beverage containers that keeps cold things cold and hot things hot. By making these associations when possible, I can recall them with much less effort.

4) When you need to remember the order of things, a mnemonic device can be really helpful. for example, in biology taxonomy, the order of groups from largest to smallest is : Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. I typed that out without looking on the Internet because I used the mnemonic device which is a silly sentence that I can remember - "Dear King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup." Notice the capitalization of each first letter between the taxonomic group and the mnemonic device are the same. You don't have to use this exact sentence to remember the taxonomic order, you can make your own if it helps you to remember better. This technique can cut down on the anxiety of trying to remember the ordering of concepts, words, etc.

5) You can find online quizzes to take to test your knowledge of whatever it is that you are studying. Popular sites include quizlets, proprofs, etc. They will help you pinpoint what you're having difficulties with, so that you can spend more time on those parts and less time on the parts that you already know well.

6) Last but not least, repetition is a very important part of studying for biology and medicine. Students tend to wait until 2 days before an exam to study - many of them can't recall what they crammed, and for those that do, a lot of times, they feel less confident about their answers, and change them, and what happens is that their first answer was actually right. To stop this from happening I would recommend going over the topics 3 or 4 times. You could read the same chapter 4 times, but that would be a lot of time involved, and you're definitely dealing with multiple subjects and life events. This is a general strategy that you can tweak to fit your study style:

A) Watch videos and animations about the topics you're studying.

B) Read the chapter and TAKE NOTES - the act of writing things down has been shown to help people

remember things.

C) Take online quizzes and keep track of what you answered correctly and incorrectly.

D) Flash cards are still the best for quick repetition of study terms. Buy index cards and write terms one one

side and what they mean on the other. This is excellent for breaking words down like 'hypo' and 'dermic'

like we discussed above.

E) Tutoring - There might be free tutoring services at your school or college, and is a great way of talking

with someone else to figure out how to get through any difficulties with concepts and terms.

I hope this helps you out. Best of luck with your studies!