HOW TO PREPARE FOR ADVANCED LEVEL BIOLOGY PRACTICALS

HOW TO PREPARE FOR ADVANCED LEVEL BIOLOGY PRACTICALS

 Are you wondering on how to prepare for advanced level biology practical lessons maybe because you never covered your syllabus or because you were sick while others tried carrying out practical, and I believe this information will be very helpful to set you on a pace? 

Biology paper 3 just like paper 1 and 2 carries the same percentage mark of 33.3% and as such, every question in every section counts more than you expect if you are thinking of topping with good grades. So let us move into serious stuffs.

Biology paper 3 consist of an experiment part where you might be asked to test for the enzyme catalase in crushed potatoes, beans or measuring transpiration rate and comparing the transpiration rate between two different plant species. And lastly a dissection and identification path

To, easily tackle this section, begin by what you know best and end by bargaining on the sections you have more challenges.

TRANSPIRATION

If you have an experiment like transpiration, start by thinking out load. 

• What is transpiration 
• what will happen to a leaf if it transpires
•  What are the factors that can affect transpiration

If you can answer these three questions, you can answer that question without carrying out the experiment. 

Transpiration is the process by which plants loss water into the environment and when that happens, since the leaves have been detached from their source of water, they will continually loss weight. This will happen until a certain weight will appear to be apparently constant. Leaves that have waterproof covering will loss water with difficulty as such they will take a longer period of time. For example, mango leaves, will loss water less readily than sunflowers? As simple as it is, you know that your graph will slope downward and remain constant at a level.

OSMOLARITY

For osmotic testing, you need to know what is present in which solution, for example in the test for osmolality using potatoes of same size, there are always 3 solutions one containing a base like sodium hydroxide, one containing water and one containing salt like sodium chloride. 

Trick: use 3 different fingers and test the solution with your tongue. If it appears salty, you know it will be sodium chloride. If it appears to slide a little when touched with the hands, it is sodium hydroxide. If it is tasteless and does not slide, then that solution is water.

• For the solution that contains water, when the stripe is, placed inside for a given period, it increases in length and width; this is because it gains water from the surrounding solution.
• For the solution containing salt, the stripe will reduce in height and even width because it losses water to the surrounding solution.
• For the solution with base, the stripe becomes flaccid and discolored.

TAXONOMY

Here you need to be able to give a dichotomous scheme. Which is like distinguishing from a set of organisms using visible features. These groups are often mixed and it is important to ask friends that did theirs about the organisms that was, brought because a good number of these species will be, repeated in a prime number pattern, for example, group 1 and 3 will have very similar stuffs but group 2 and 3 can also have similarities.

DISSECTION

The two organisms that commonly come are fish and chick. If you do not want to read dissection, read these two. If you are dissecting fish, your fish might be bad inside because it have been dead for a couple of days but make sure you know what you are doing. Try as much as possible to display your organs the way you drew them even of its all rot.it will be, taken into consideration

If you are dissecting chick, make sure you display in the direction in which your teachers showed you. Different teachers may have different methods but make sure you follow what they did. It is very important not to damage their mesenteries. Especially when you are, asked to display the GIT. If group 1 was, asked to display the GIT of a chick, group 3 will be, asked to display another system of a chick. Same with fish.

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CONCLUSION

At the end, always clean up your workstation and appear neat and presentable at the end of the day because they all count.

Good luck in your exams, and we wish you well.

I believe I have communicated much already. If you have a question, drop it in the comment section below and we will give you a response.