75 replies to this topic

[Lucy]

can anyone suggest a good investigation for advanced biology? i need to have a detailed plan of mine before christmas and i dont even have a clue for a title for one. i really want to do one on animal behavior, but dont know how to go about it


any help would be appreciated
thanx

[Jas0n]

Hey Lucy. I've got the same problem as well. But my teachers told me to do something like generatign electricity from a bacterial culture becuase I'm doing physcis as well and its good for both courses. My other option was to do the effecte of stress on human body.However I will get back to you on this during or sfter christmas.

[Kim]

Well Im still not sure what im doing myself, but I have been shown a few examples of past investigations to give me ideas. Ones that are supposed to work well are investigating the effects of different factors (like heat and radiation) on vitamin C. Also an investigation about chlorophyll in plants, I think this one involved keeping plants in boxes with different coloured plastic 'filters' that would only let certain wavelengths of light in.

I read a comment by a tutor on the scholar site that said she had a pupil last year that investigated the link between memory and age, that seems quite interesting so I'm thinking about finding out more about that, although I would need a lot of volunteers of different ages.

The only animal behaviour one I remember seeing was one about locusts...something to do with what foods they prefer. I didnt really look at it much because I didnt like the idea of having to look after the locusts and cleaning out their cage for the length of the investigation (bugs are icky!)

Hope this is of some help!

[RGerrard]

Not sure if this will help or not but i came across this website which may give you some ideas:

http://www-saps.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/prac_starters.htm

I am going to be doing my investigation soon and away to start planing it!

Hope the website helps.

[Kim]

I had a nab a month or so ago and it was scarily easy, id only done like an hours revision and managed to get the 2nd highest mark....but now im having serious doubts about my teacher now from the sort of things being said on here. She bases her entire lessons from the scholar books and website. What other books do you guys use?

[Jas0n]

Hey, we got monographs give out by our teacher. Apparantly there is no one textbook for the course. But the monographs are pretty useless in most cases. I think the scholar stuff is pretty good. But my teacher said some of the stuff in there is university level. So I use a combination of the monograph and scholar. How far are you with your investigation btw?

The nab was pretty easy yeah..much much easier than I thought it would have been. I couldnt understand chromosome walking, in fact most of the human genome project was a big confusion.Fortunately none of the stuff I had trouble with came up.

[Kim]

phew...thanks thats put my mind to rest. Good to hear your nab went well (we had questions like: What is the carbon dioxide fixing process carried out by autotrophs?! I had to check to see it wasnt a trick question!)

Yeah I prefer the scholar stuff...plus our teacher gives us notes on everything which we just copy down, haha basically we're getting spoon-fed the information.

I'm not any further with my investigation, still deciding what I want to do! Im not to start it until after Christmas so I have a while yet. Im thinking about doing the memory-age link thing because if I have to do anything involving experiments or lab equipment at all I always screw it up, I'm a hazard around chemicals and bunsen burners. How about you, hows yours (or anybody elses) going?

[Jas0n]

I've not actually started or put much thought into the investigation..neither has my classmate (only two of us do adv. higher). I havent had my 2nd unit NAB yet. I'm guessing you've had that as well. Thanx for the hint in that case .

[coolncleo]

Does anyway get this??? am confused

[coolncleo]

hey notice no one has really left a comment for a while so il just break tradition. I am just in the middle of writing up my investigation just got my discussion to do, mines didnt turn out to great i did the lengths and concentrations in animal and plant proteins with the technique of electrophoresis, apparently not many people use electrophoresis!! i am really enjoying biology, we use the monographs as well as doing tons of past paper questions and we use the scholar website and books. We were told that Scholar goes into too much detail, but i suppose its better to know more than too little!

[*Etoile*]

hiya,
I've decided to do adv higher biology next year but I'm a bit worried about it. I only got a B in my prelim although I'm apparantly capable of an A. Haven't done any chemistry since 2nd year either, do you think I'll struggle? There are 24 people doing adv higher biology at my school! Was shocked to hear it, they're putting 2 classes on, with 3 teachers each. How's the work load? I'm doing 2 other adv highers (french and german) and higher sociology. Oh well should be good anyway.
Max

[Ally]

There's a lot to remember. But it really isn't that hard. If you revise enough then you're on the road to getting a good mark.

They've made the exam easier this year aswell, which is good.

There's some chemistry involved in unit one but it only involves bonds etc. And you always have the chemistry notes here on HSN for some background reading.

[coolncleo]

yeh its not too bad, alot o it is just expanded from higher, although doing 2 other advanced highers and another higher plus biology, mayb too much, but depends how capable the teachers think you are, and if you are willing to get your head down and work hard!!!

[Ally]

Yeh. You have to do an investigation aswell for it, and they take up so much time!

[coolncleo]

if your organised for your investigation and dont leave it til the last minute its ok!! but yeh lets be rational here, not one of my class managed to get a rough copy handed in in jan. like we were told to. alot of rushing around in the last week!

[Ally]

LOL. That's what I done. Left it till the last minute.

Not the best thing to do.

[coolncleo]

LOL. That's what I done. Left it till the last minute.

Not the best thing to do.

dont everyone! lets just blame it on the fact we have loadso of other stuff going on throughout the year it just gets put to the back of your mind,
How are you feeling about wed?

[Ally]

Just a couple of hours left now!

Feeling a little bit nervous lol.

Good luck!

[coolncleo]

SO........

i scared myself, before i went in i was looking through my learning outcomes and found this word.... poikilothermic...... and no one in our class had heard of it, and what comes up in the exam yup exactly.... poikilothermic.... Got ma paper back home so am just gonna av a wee look at what i have done wrong... HA maybe not a good idea like,.

[werlop]

Yeah I contacted Glasow through  carrers scotland, and the head I think it was said that Chemistry was pretty important for medicine...therefore my chances are pretty low  . Ah well, I'm taking a year out and applying next year.By then I'm hoping to get enough work experience etc. sorted.

It's a bit late now, but it's not true that you can't do medicine if you havn't done chemistry yet.

Someone I know is doing medicine at Kings College London if he gets a B in higher chemistry this year, and he is crashing chemistry this year.