Sunday, 20 November 2016

Revision Strategy : Class 11 Biology

Greetings Readers
Continuing with the series of posts on Revision Strategy, next up in the series is - Biology. This is a subject which is although loved by all Medical aspirants, gives them trembles and fear due to it's bulky and descriptive nature, with the difficulty of memorizing all the fine details. Biology may take up a lot of time of yours to fit it in your mind properly but everyone knows it's worth it. Still, I aim to help you make an efficient revision strategy where each second,each minute,each hour invested in churns out a good output.
Basically learning Biology can be divided into two parts - 

  • Understanding dynamic concepts like life processes, biological cycles , reason of various fundamental activities occurring in nature, connecting various statements to teach other. The main thing is that this part is easy to understand than all that memorizing part but to understand it you have to pay proper attention and concentration and AVOID mugging up such basic concepts. Understanding may take time and you may still be confused, but it's way better than mugging up for long term.
  • Second is the memorization part which consists of Animal,Plant and Biological Diversity Chapters;Morphology of Plants and Animals;Some parts of Plant Anatomy. These parts although aren't highly conceptual but still many small concepts may help you link all the facts and information involved in these chapters. So for these chapters,you need to have all the necessary information in a condensed form so as to help in revising it periodically, if you feel you have forgotten it.
Biology being a mix of above two divisions is quite variable in nature but easy to master once you pick the right way of studying it.
For understanding concepts,which should be your first priority as memorization can be done later on, attention in class is important. Whenever your teacher slows down explains something with patience repeats it, you should know that it's important. Try to get his/her words and then note it down with some coloured pen like red/green in you notes, to highlight it from other information. This will help you in making a concept map of the chapter. You know this chapter involves all these concepts and if you understand them, the reason giving and statement type questions of NEET/AIIMS are done.
You can practice such questions from Dr. Ali Objective Biology which has very carefully carved out all the conceptual statements from NCERT into such type of questions. In this way all your NCERT concepts will be covered up too. Additional conceptual questions may be given in your coaching modules, so cover them up too. If still problems persist, you can read out Biology by Campbell and Reece(PDF from the internet) as it has explained out very difficult seeming concepts in the easiest language possible along with colourful diagrams and flow charts.
Next up is memorization part. This is a bit tough part as not each one of us(including me) is an expert in memorizing large chunks of information so easily. But,take my word,it's not impossible! The problem of memorization comes with the presentation of information. Plain Black and White modules of coaching institutes with all the boring fonts wouldn't fascinate you in learning so much information.
This problem can be solved by various methods. First, if your teacher is helping you make readable and specific notes, that's well and good. If not, you yourself can make notes in your own handwriting and using various coloured pens like red,green,pink,violet along the blue and black. This will make the notes more readable and appear picture like and everyone can remember pictures better than plain text. Make some diagrams separately on your own, label properly and you will have a very clear understanding of those in your minds. Also, remember that it's not necessary to make such notes for all chapters, but only the ones you feel difficult to remember in order to avoid wasting time.
Also to fit all of this information in your mind,you need to practice a lot of questions.Yes,you heard that right - a lot of questions. The reason behind it that these questions will help to stimulate your brain again and again to put stress and remember that piece of information, which with continuous practice will shift it in your long term memory. Once it goes in your long term memory, it would be difficult to get forgotten than earlier. So do a lot of questions from your coaching modules, test papers, DPPs, Dr. Ali,MTG etc. The key is distributing all this information in form of separate questions and then fitting it in your memory.
Coming to the individual topics - 
Animal Diversity - The main thing is to remember the various taxa and their characteristics along with the examples. If you are able to connect examples with characteristics, most of the questions which can come are done. Also, for out of NCERT stuff, you can do Aakash/Allen modules but don't go too deep in learning useless classes and examples but stick to the pattern of the 2013-2016 papers rather.
Biological Diversity(including plants) - The pattern to be followed is similar to Animal Diversity but additionally you should make comparison tables of like sub-categories of a single category.For example - Comparison of Red,Green and Blue Algae in the topic Algae. Such questions may come as the plant and fungi and even bacteria contain quite directly comparable categories.
Plant Morphology - Pretty much memorization only but prefer learning NCERT examples and their characteristics rather than going in depth with the stuff given in coaching modules. Do more and more questions and then stuff will automatically click in you mind.
Plant Anatomy - This topic has conceptual part so do them carefully. Learn the characteristics of various tissues along with proper diagrams so that if the picture comes in AIIMS/NEET exams you can identify it easily.
Cell Biology - As such it's an easy topic so whatever you are doing at coaching is sufficient.
Plant Physiology - Many intricate concepts are difficult to understand at first sight, especially in Respiration and Photosynthesis, so take time and understand them clearly. Flow charts and good reference diagrams made by yourself can help here too.
Human Physiology - Again quite conceptual like Plant Physiology. So do it similarly. Also, do pickup additional concepts aside from NCERT to ace all the question that can come.
So,to end,basically Biology has to be done in a fun and interesting way to keep your mind focused to it and avoid getting bored.
Till next time
Bye!

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