Students should focus on understanding the important relationships, processes, mechanisms and potential extensions and applications of concepts.

                      Less important and the memorization of specialized terminology and technical details. For example, understanding how protein structure affects enzyme action is more important than memorizing a list of enzyme names.

            Questions on future Advanced and IB Biology Examinations will test student's abilities to explain, analyze, and interpret biological processes and phenomena more then their ability to recall specific facts.

                   
                The Pre-IB Biology course is divided up into 3 main topic areas.

                               General Area 1    Molecules & Cells

                                General Area 2    Heredity & Evolution

                                General Area 3    Organisms & Populations

Each of these three topic areas has been further subdivided into major categories. These subdivision categories and percentage breakdowns are shown below.

Molecules & Cells    (25% of the total course)

Cells are the structural and functional units of life; cellular processes are based on physical and chemical changes.

This  general area is further divided up into 3 sections.

             A.    Chemistry of Life (7% of course)

             B.    Cells (10% of course)

             C.    Cellular Energetics (8% of course)

 

Hereditary & Evolution    (25% of the total course)

Hereditary events control the passage of structural and functional information from one generation to the next.

This  general area is further divided up into 3 sections.

            A.    Heredity    (8% of the course)

            B.    Molecular Genetics    (9% of the course)

            C.    Evolutionary Biology    (8% of the course)

 

Organisms & Populations    (50% of the total course)

The relationship of structure to function is a theme that is common to all organisms; the interactions of organisms with their environment is the major theme in ecology.

This  general area is further divided up into 3 sections.

         A.    Diversity of Organisms    (8% of the course)

         B.    Structure & Function of Plants & Animals    (32% of the course)

         C.    Ecology    (10% of the course)