Approach to Biology

You can expect to see around 6 Biology questions in Section 2. These are by far the easiest questions in the whole paper. Why? Because the only things they can really ask simply involve factual recall. As long as you remember the basic facts, you'll get the answer right.

Your aim when doing practice questions and papers therefore, is to get the Biology questions done in the shortest amount of time possible. Section 2 is very pushed for time, so if you can, for example, get all the Biology questions done within 30 seconds (entirely possible), you'll have an extra 3-4 minutes to spend on the more complex Maths or Chemistry calculation questions.


The Official Section 2 'Assumed Knowledge Guide'

In 2014, the Admissions Testing Service, in collaboration with CGP, published a free, online guide to Section 2. This 400-page behemoth contains revision notes (in the style of CGP books) on all the topics that you might be tested on in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Maths. If you're unfamiliar with this excellent resource, you should definitely check it - here's a link to the step-by-step instructions for accessing it that the Admissions Testing Service have put together - http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/for-test-takers/bmat/preparing-for-bmat/section-2-preparation/


The Guide and Biology

The guide is a really good resource to have by your side during your Biology revision. In all honesty, there really won't be much you need to "learn" for Biology, because you'll already have done the vast majority during GCSE and before. There are a few topics that appear in some GCSE exam boards but not in others (nerves, hormones, kidneys etc) that you might not have done - you should definitely consult the official guide for those.


Our Notes

The Biology tutorials you'll see within this part of the Training Temple have attempted to summarise the salient points of what you need to know. As just mentioned, we fully expect that students will know most (if not all) of it already, but for the sake of completeness we're including it anyway. There are a few places where we've explained things slightly differently to how other sources explain them - if you don't understand a topic, it's always good to read multiple explanations.

As always, if you've been through a tutorial and are still struggling with any aspects of a topic, please don't hesitate to contact us, via email/phone/Twitter/Facebook/whatever. We want our notes to be the best they can possibly be, and if you don't understand something having read them, chances are others wouldn't have either. Over time, we're hoping the revision notes in this section will develop into a fully comprehensive resource that anyone can use to fully understand the BMAT Biology syllabus.