This document provides an overview of the core biology syllabus including topics such as keeping healthy, infectious disease, nerves and hormones, use and abuse of drugs, adaptation, food chains, waste materials, genetic variation, evolution, and common ancestors. Key concepts are outlined for each topic in bullet points along with evaluation points to consider. Diagrams are referenced to help interpret processes like the menstrual cycle.

1. BIOLOGY
CORE revision session

2. Overview of the syllabus
 B1.1 Keeping healthy
 B1.2 Nerves and hormones
 B1.3 The use and abuse of drugs
 B1.4 Interdependence and adaptation
 B1.5 Energy and biomass in food chains
 B1.6 Waste materials from plants and
animals
 B1.7 Genetic variation and its control
 B1.8 Evolution

3. Keeping healthy – diet and
exercise
 balanced diet
 metabolic rate
 cholesterol
 obesity
 exercise
evaluate
 effect of lifestyle/food
on health
 slimming programmes

4. Keeping healthy –
infectious disease
 bacteria/fungi/virus  virus infects inside cells
 antigen/antibody  bacteria don’t change
 antibiotics deliberately to become
resistant: mutation and
 antibiotic resistance
natural selection
 immunisation
 immunisation – we don’t
 studying microorganisms –
“remember how to fight the
aseptic techniques/petri dishes disease in the future” ; we
evaluate do “make antibodies
 Semmelweiss quicker”
 mutations and  read up on
epidemics/pandemics mmr/semmelweiss
 vaccination (pro/con)

5. Nerves and hormones
 receptor sensory n  relay
 nervous system  motor n  effector
 reflexes
 synapse (how do drugs affect
these?)
 hormones
 homeostasis:
 controlling internal
water/ions/temp/blood
environment –
water/temp/blood sugar/ ions  FSH  Oes LH Prog
 menstrual cycle
 O/P=contra; FSH = fertility
 controlling fertility
 know how IVF works and
remember the pill needs to be
 tropisms
taken every day to be effective
 auxin
evaluate
 hormones to control fertility
 plant hormones in horticulture

6. Google images: Menstrual
cycle
Be able to
interpret these
kind of
diagrams

7. The use and abuse of drugs
 development of medicines  dependency/
(clinical trials) addiction/withdrawal
 legal/illegal drugs symptoms
 cannabis
 thalidomide
Evaluate
 why use illegal drugs
 progression from recreational
drugs to hard drugs
 effect of drugs on health
 performance enhancing drugs in
sport

8. Interdependance and
adaptation
 competition  plants –
 adaptation water/minerals/light/sp
 extremophiles
ace
 lichens/invertebrate
 animals –
food/mates/territory
evaluate
 desert/arctic
 data on how
environmental changes  detering predators
affects distribution/
behaviour of
organisms.

9. Energy and biomass in
food chains
 Everything starts with the sun.
 Use information in the tables to help
you work out the order. Remember:
 Plant  Plant eating animal  animal eating animal
 The arrows represent energy flow.
 Pyramids:
 Biomass = pyramid; Number = odd
 You must draw pyramid of biomass in
proportion
 Don’t forget to label
 Energy losses – reason why biomass less

10. Waste materials from
plants and animals
 Carbon cycle
 Photosynthesis/ Respiration Feeding
 Decay
 Decomposers – bacteria and fungi
 What are the best conditions for making
compost?
 Evaluate – necessity/effectiveness of
recycling organic kitchen or garden waste

11. Genetic variation and its
control plant cloning: cuttings/tissue
culture

 animal cloning: embryo
 cell  nucleus  DNA splitting/ nuclear transfer
 asexual/sexual reproduction
 genetic engineering
 cloning
 make informed judgements
about the economic, social
and ethical issues concerning
cloning and genetic
engineering, including
genetically modified (GM)
crops

12.  restriction
enzymes – cut
DNA

13. Evolution
 evolution
 natural selection
 extinction
 evolution –
simplecomplex over
millions of years
HSW
 interpret evidence relating to
 natural selection:
evolutionary theory organisms best suited
 differences in Darwin’s theory survive to reproduce
and other theories and reasons pass on genes for
for these survival to offspring
 why it took a long time to accept
Darwin’s theory
 similarities/differences
in organisms show
ecological/evolutionary
relationships

14. Common ancestors and
family trees
 can be used to
find the most
recent common
ancestor of two
species – the
more recent the
ancestor the
more closely
related those
species are.