📚

Overview of Pearson Edexcel Biology GCSE

May 12, 2025

Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in Biology (4BI1)

Overview

  • First Teaching: September 2017
  • First Examination: June 2019
  • Issue 3

About Pearson

  • World's leading learning company.
  • Provides content, assessment, and digital services globally.
  • Focus on enhancing employability and adapting to changes in the workforce.

Specification Overview

  • Linear qualification: Two written examinations at the end of the course.
  • Content is relevant, engaging, and of an equivalent standard to Pearson's regulated GCSE.
  • Untiered assessment, accessible to students of all abilities.
  • Prepares students for AS and Advanced GCE level or equivalent.
  • Written examinations assess core biology theory and practical skills.

Course Components

  • Paper Overview:
    • Biology Paper 1 (61.1%) and Biology Paper 2 (38.9%).
    • Includes multiple-choice, short-answer, calculations, and extended open-response questions.

Biology Content

1. The Nature and Variety of Living Organisms

  • Characteristics shared by living organisms: nutrition, respiration, excretion, response, movement, reproduction, growth, and development.
  • Features of eukaryotic organisms (e.g., plants, animals, fungi, and protoctists).
  • Features of prokaryotic organisms (e.g., bacteria).
  • Understanding pathogens and viruses.

2. Structure and Functions in Living Organisms

  • Levels of organization: organelles, cells, tissues, organs, systems.
  • Cell structure and function.
  • Biological molecules and enzyme activity.
  • Processes such as diffusion, osmosis, and active transport.
  • Photosynthesis and human nutrition.

3. Respiration and Gas Exchange

  • Differences between aerobic and anaerobic respiration.
  • Gas exchange mechanisms in plants and humans.

4. Transport in Organisms

  • Transport systems in plants and humans.
  • Composition and function of blood.
  • Heart structure and function.

5. Excretion

  • Processes in plants and humans.
  • Urinary system structure and function.

6. Coordination and Response

  • Nervous and hormonal control systems in humans.
  • Plant responses to stimuli.

7. Reproduction and Inheritance

  • Sexual and asexual reproduction.
  • Genetic inheritance mechanisms.

8. Ecology and the Environment

  • Population, community, and ecosystem dynamics.
  • Human impacts on the environment.

9. Use of Biological Resources

  • Food production, selective breeding, genetic engineering, and cloning.

Assessment Information

  • Papers consist of a variety of question styles.
  • Total marks: 180 (Paper 1B: 110 marks, Paper 2B: 70 marks).
  • Grades range from 9 to 1, with 9 as the highest.

Appendices

  • Appendix 1: Codes for qualification and papers.
  • Appendix 2: World Class Qualification design principles.
  • Appendix 3: Transferable skills.
  • Appendix 4: Mathematical skills.
  • Appendix 5: Command word taxonomy.
  • Appendix 6: Suggested practical investigations.
  • Appendix 7: Glossary of terms.