Assessment in Biology Year 8

This is the department's recommended revision strategy and applies to both your ongoing progress tests and end of year exam. 

• Use the unit descriptors for each topic as a checklist. 

Take each learning objective and write out/ draw as much as you can relating to that specific point. Do not look at your notes/ books just yet. Really try hard to remember key terms/ specific details. When you are sure you cannot remember anything else, refer to the topic notes you have for each unit. 

• Use the topic notes to fill in any gaps,

Each unit has a set of topic notes to complement the work you do in class. Once you have practised recalling the content, have a look at the relevant section in your topic notes. Add to your work the details you had forgotten, do this in a different colour. 

• Repeat

You may wish to repeat this process in a couple of days, or try making flashcards that focus on the content that you weren't too confident with. Remember the more retrieval practise you do, the more confident you will become with the subject content. 

• Ask for help

If when doing your revision, there are concepts you don't understand are struggling with, be proactive and discuss this with your class teacher. The benefit of starting revision earlier, is that you have time to seek help and address any issues in good time. 

Do not...

• Read through your notes and think you are revising, even if you are getting someone to test you afterwards. This is too passive and will be able to hold the content in your short term memory to be tested on- this is not active enough to transfer to your long term memory though. 

• Leave revision too late. You will feel overwhelmed and this will be a barrier to efficiently revising.

• Listen to music- this takes up space in your working memory and will make revising less efficient. 

• Have your mobile phone in the same room. This will distract you, you want to get into a good flow of work. 

• Be disheartened by any of your progress test results- see this as important feedback on your progress and discuss with your teacher how you might improve.