hey guys and welcome back to biolog hope you are having a great day and a great week in this video we are going to be looking at everything you need to know to ace the igcse paper 6 biology exam coming up in may june 2022 i know it's been a while since i've uploaded but this is everything i've learned in my two years of igcse that helped me get a 95 in the paper 6 igcse biology extended paper so i hope this video helped you guys too and if you do like this video make sure to like share and subscribe to dialogue and without further ado let's begin now since you guys are in the last few stages of your preparation since you guys have exams very very soon i thought the first tip should be a last minute tip now this is something that you should do maybe two to two to three days before the exam when you have done all of your preparation at least most of it so you've done things like you know doing your past papers revising the content before you go in for the exam and things like that so what you should do at this stage is to make a mistake book or a mistake sheet so this mistake sheet would contain things that you need to remember for example keywords you need to remember in your exam writing pattern so things that you need to write in your answer to get the mark to hit that mark because remember in igcse biology the mark scheme is extremely specific and to get that mark like for example to get an a star itself you need to be extremely specific with your answers and hit the markers guide so for uh things like your mistake booklet for example you could include what you need to write in your answer when they've given you specific keywords in the question command terms in the question like suggest suggest would mean things like you need to list whatever your answer is you cannot explain the biological concept behind it and you simply need to list what you're gonna write in your answer so having things like number one keywords in your mistake booklet is really good finding patterns of what stuff you should write in your answer is also really good for example in uh typically in enzyme-based questions you need to include terms like having a complementary shape of the enzyme and that active site of the enzyme things like that so those are kind of you know uh i kind of assumed knowledge that you should know at this stage by now like things that you should include whenever you see a common pattern of questions coming up in your exam i would also say consolidate all your resources into one specific place like for example you can consolidate all of your mistakes from your past papers worksheets notebook etc everything into this one booklet or one book as such that will have all your mistakes right so you can have a question for example like suggest an improvement to the design of this experiment and typically these questions what they will require you to have is like for example repeat the experiment multiple times repeat the experiment at least three times average the results things like that so that's at least that answer is something that commonly comes up and remember in the mark scheme if you usually do pass papers regularly you would have noticed here in mark schemes even for four to five marks there are seven to eight points given and most of the times in atp questions which is your paper six questions the answer for improvements will always contain a repeat the experiment point at the end so that's something you can always write and so that's something that's really really good to include in your mistake booklet now i don't know about you guys but for me when i was doing igcs drawing tables was something that was always very difficult so the trick i came up with to draw tables more easily and make sure i don't waste a lot of time on it in the exam was number one i would do the dependent variable in the actual boxes in the table itself and the independent variable would be on the left side of the table mostly so i'll have this type of pattern that would help me kind of structure my table and like make sure i'm not getting stuff wrong because typically they like the mark scheme will want you to know like the number of columns so like the number of rows and that has to be really specific i mean they might accept if you switch around the number of rows and the number of columns but it's always better to stick to exactly what they have said or what they are expecting you to do so the best thing would be to have your independent variable on the left side dependent label in the boxes and another thing to remember is that the boxes should not contain the units that's really important the boxes in your table itself like the individual boxes they should not contain your unit only your top column which is like kind of like a header sort of of your table the top header and the side header those are the only two places where you should include units if you include units in the boxes in the individual boxes they can 100 penalize you because this is something that i've learned from my marks and my teacher had specifically told me to not include the units within the table itself but just on the sides to make sure it looked neat and it looked presentable enough also remember that tables should only be drawn in pen i know it's contradictory to common assumption but tables should only be drawn in pen pencils should only be used for things like graphs or things like drawing where you actually have to freehand draw it so make sure that your tables are always in pen because again this i think is definitely something that they can penalize you for and in my marks i was also specifically told by my teacher to not drop tables in a pencil but to draw them in pen instead the next thing you guys could do is for design the experiment questions which is a common question type in paper 6 which you guys probably would have known by now um for this type of question you can have a pattern as to how you're gonna structure your answer for example for me i would always include these points and these points are really important so do note them down if you guys want first off i would include the independent variable the dependent variable the controlled variables at least three controlled variables so independent variable dependent variable controlled variables so at least three control variables the fourth one is the procedure or the method or the step the actual steps you're going to take out to carry out your experiment to test your hypothesis okay the fourth one is going to be things like uh controlled experiment or controlled group or control itself you could say so the control you have to number one explain what exactly your control is going to be where you're gonna abs you're gonna keep the absence of the independent variable so you're not gonna expose your group or your participants to the independent variable so you have to mention that there is a lack of the independent variable be specific with this do not just say oh there's a lack of independent variable you need to say what is the independent variable in the question in the procedure that they've given you so for example if the independent variable is temperature changes in the environmental temperature or changes in light intensity you need to mention that in the control group there's not going to be any light intensity so for example it's going to be kept in dark right so that's one you have to also explain the purpose of the control group the purpose of the control group is to establish a baseline or a point of comparison to compare the results of the experimental group to and ensure that the independent variable again be specific what is the independent variable in the question write that in bracket so you have to say okay the independent variable uh is the only variable that affects the results or the dependent variable again be specific write what the dependent variable is in brackets that's been given to you in the question the fourth thing you could include and this itself in most mark schemes is one mark repeating the experiment multiple times so repeating the experiment at least three times and averaging the results that it says with usually one mark the next thing you could include is safety precautions and safety precautions now obviously they will vary from the type of experiment that you're doing but most likely for safety precautions one thing you can definitely write is wear gloves wear glasses you're handling uh toxic chemicals or things like acids because they can stain your hands they can because they are corrosive in nature they might even stain or burn your skin so that's one wear gloves the second thing is to wear safety goggles safety goggles are used for poisonous gas fumes so typically if you are handling a poisonous gas you need to wear eye goggles or safety goggles and the third one in relation to this is a fume cover now that will depend on the question itself so make sure you read the procedure given very carefully now for fume cover it will usually be things like you know poisonous gases again like if you're dealing with chlorine fumes coming out you will need to use a film cupboard so that is also something you should include in your answer especially if it's like a six to seven mark question it's always to just include it you know to be safe or to just get the mark just in case another thing that you could do to easily remember this format of the design the experiment type questions is to make an acronym now this is interesting because apparently the weirder the acronym the more likely it is that you're going to remember that uh concept right so the more likely it is they're gonna remember the order of steps that you know uh the design the experiment wants you to do so you could do something like for example ivan didn't come to play uh because karina's rage resulted in safety measures for example like i related safety measures to safety precautions so make an acronym make like a weird long sentence that will help you remember make a story storytelling is also good uh to help you remember certain concepts so just find out what would work for you personally for me i like to use acronyms a lot so this was something that i kind of did to help me remember the format of a design the experiment question next thing that's important is to know your different types of graphs now there are so many different types of graphs that they could ask you about the main types of ones i believe are number one line graphs line graphs are used to display numerical data so it is things like quantitative data so you need to know how to draw line graphs graphs should always be drawn in pencil remember they should be neat and crisp lines sharp lines should be used typically if you keep feathering your lines in graphs they will cut your mark because they want to see a very neat and crisp line or a neat and crisp curve so that's something that you should remember for line graphs uh in line graphs or scatter plots as well most of the times like there couldn't be a general trend as such if you're not able to find a general trend it's most likely that it's going to be a line of best fit and remember line of best fit is not the same as best fit curve line of best fit means that it's literally a line so you need to draw a line that has equal distribution of points on both sides of the best fit line a best fit curve is usually for questions based on enzymes for example enzyme and temperature enzyme and ph effect etc so these types of grafts will have an actual curve because typically when you think best fit you think of a line right but it's not necessary that it has to be a line it could be a curve as well so if they specifically say best fit curve as a key word in the question that keyword is really important because it means that you have to draw a curve and not a line because if you draw a line they are going to cut your mark for sure so keep that in mind the general rule for graphs is to also make sure number one you have your axes you have your axis labeled using units then you also have a neat and crisp line like i mentioned before in um certain graphs it's also important that now this is probably something that actually is really important because it helped me a lot when i did my ad gcse and still does help me a lot and it is the term dry mix dry mix helps you identify where your independent and dependent variables go on a graph dry mix meaning dry so the dependent variable goes on the y-axis which is this so the dependent variable goes on the y-axis and the independent variable goes on the x-axis of the graph this is how you remember where to put the independent and dependent variables now for typically for like these types of questions make sure you identify the independent and dependent variable at the start of the question itself so when you read the procedure highlight or at least underline and mark which is the independent variable which is the dependent variable because this is something that people often get confused with they switch up the independent independent variable and so they switch it up on the graph as well and so ultimately like they lose two entire marks out of their five or six mark question another thing that's useful to include is to make sure that you're extending the line so for example if they ask you for a data point on the independent variable x axis that's further away from what you've already drawn in the number of points given to you in the question then extend the line follow the same trend follow the same pattern extend the line and then draw the lines drop down the lines for independent and dependent variable to find the point that they're asking you for so always try to extend the line if they're specifically asking you for a data point that's further away from the points that have been given to you in the question itself know your other types of graphs like your bar charts your histograms etc so for your bar charts for example you would need to say that it has um no gaps in between the bars or it has gaps sorry the bar charts will have gaps between the uh bars itself because they are discontinuous data representations so you use bar graphs to represent discontinuous numerical data discontinuous quantitative data and so you will have gaps between your bars but for a histogram for example you will not have gaps between your bars because that is used to represent continuous numerical data continuous quantitative data the last point i have for you guys is to number one know your biomolecules test so tests like dcpip test uh the ethanol emulsion test um you know your test for proteins benedict's test um start an iodine test for example etc so know your tests because that can be asked in like a lot of different types a lot of different variations can come for that type of question so make sure you know that and secondly also make sure you know your sources of error really well because sources of error is a concept that keeps coming up again and again in the atp paper which is paper six and even when i was doing igcses it was a question that came in 2016 2017 2018 and so on and so forth so it kept coming again and again and again so that can come in this year also although even if it has come in previous years like if it has come in the most recent paper it doesn't really matter because this is paper six remember it's not paper four it is paper six which means that it's kind of a general uh concept they're not testing you on anything very specific so they can ask repeated question types again in you know coming years as well so that's it for today's video guys i hope you liked it these are all of the tips that helped me get a really high score in uh paper six and overall they just helped me i guess figure out the pattern of what exactly examiners wanted me to write in my answers and this is what i was able to figure out in like the last few stages of doing my igcse so when i was analyzing past papers for example and making that mistake booklet i told you guys about so that's probably the most important tip i have for you guys keep a mistake booklet keep reviewing it before your exam and yeah that's it so stay calm and i hope you guys like this video if you did make sure like to like share and subscribe to biolog and good luck for your igcse exams i hope you guys do really well and i'll see you guys in my next video have a great day [Music] [Applause] [Music] you