#biol 230

[ayyellesrambles]

Hi there. Do you remember the second isopod lab in BIOL 230? I feel like this lab will be really hard and it's report as well, and I have my midterms coming up near it. Just scared. Wayne Goodey hasn't even given us our first lab reports yet. What a lazy bum who makes the TA's go out into the field, while all he does is post stuff online. Digression aside (sorry!), have any advice?

Is that the lab where you go count the occurrence of certain species and then come up with an explanation about why they’re found in certain locations? Or were all the labs like that?…I actually don’t really remember because going out into the field was optional for us haha…

But I do recommend getting together with some friends and discussing the questions together; I remember staying late on campus with a couple of friends in the Science Information Centre after the washrooms were locked. 

[ayyellesrambles]

I'm taking BIOL 230 and BIOL 204 in term 2 and was wondering if you would recommend having both labs from 2-5 or if its better to have the BIOL 204 lab from 9-12(Fri) and having the BIOL 230 lab from 2-5 (Wed)? Are the BIOL 204 labs intensive?

The BIOL 204 labs were quite a bit of work, if I remember correctly. And if BIOL 230 hasn’t changed, then the labs actually only run once a month. I’m personally not a fan of morning labs, but that’s because I have to commute from Burnaby. 

[ayyellesrambles]

Biol 230... Well i'm taking it now (summer). So far I'm finding the content pretty easy to understand (as long as i pay full attention in class). I know you said the exams were terrible but how am i supposed to prepare? Did you find the content difficult to understand, is that why you may have struggled on the exam? Or was it just the exam was insane? Also any advice on studying? Should i focus on studying the textbook or inclass slides/notes? THANKS AND CoNGRATS ON GRADUATING!

Thank you!!! =D

The exam questions were fair, but like I’ve mentioned before, they’re looking for very specific answers to specific scenarios. You also have to be rather eloquent and concise with your answers, don’t just barf words onto the paper. You’ll be getting practice questions but without answer keys, so it would probably be helpful go try those questions and then go to the TAs with your answers to see if you’re correct. 

Other than that, I find what sometimes it helps is remembering the 4 Ws and the H: What, Where, When, Why, How and making sure you can describe the scenario in the exam question by answering those questions. 

[ayyellesrambles]

When you took Biol 230 did you have tutorials? What were they like? Also you said that they looked for very specific answers, did you lose marks from writing too much?

No, we didn’t have tutorials, we were the transition year where they combined Biol 230 with Biol 304 so we didn’t have a lot of the things they offer now for the course (such as mandatory labs and tutorial sessions). It doesn’t appear like they have tutorial sessions for the 2014W session though, you can check by looking at the courses website.

I’m not particularly eloquent during exams so that was my downfall, they look for very specific answers to questions and yes, you do lose marks if you’re not consistent enough and write too much. 

[ayyellesrambles]

could you get away with using an older edition textbook for biol 230? and biol 234 for that matter?

I used the first edition for Biol 230 and it was fine, but that was 2 years ago, I don’t know if they’ve changed things so that you can only use the second edition. Biol 234 can get a little tricky when it comes to using the older edition because the assignments are usually based on questions from the textbook and they can vary from edition to edition. 

[ayyellesrambles]

For your Biol200 and Biol230, did you buy the textbooks? Do you think it's worth buying the textbooks? I don't want to buy those expensive textbooks and end up not using them like first year

The Biol 200 textbook has been optional for the past few years, I got an older edition for $20, just in case, but I only used it once! All the professors seem to have really comprehensive notes! 

You need the Biol 230 textbook because there are pre-reading quizzes every week, you could get away with just spending 2 full hours at Woodward with a copy from the reserve section, but I don’t know if you really want to do that…:)

[ayyellesrambles]

Advice for how to do well in second year bio? What are things you wish you did differently? Also, I'm really scared of Bio 230. Any suggestions for that? Should I take it in summer school? If I can't get a spot for summer school, will I not be promoted to third year?

Pre-read and post-read, get together with friends and study! I wish I didn’t fall behind in O-Chem, it got hard so I got discouraged, bad idea! 

I can’t give you get any suggestions for Biol 230 b/c I got a terrible mark in it so whatever I was doing…I was doing wrong, but getting help from TAs would be a good idea. I was too lazy to do that. 

Promotion to third year is based on what you’ve done in the winter session, your summer courses don’t count! For Biology course, you’ll need to finish at least 3 of the required courses and 1 of the organismal. 

[ayyellesrambles]

what was difficult about bio 230? Now I'm getting kind of scared because I put it with my two bio choices which would be a lot of memorization, bio 260, and a harder elective, overall five courses. Also how was bio 260 and 234?

I felt they marked pretty harshly on exams and assignments for Biol 230, they expected very specific things.

Biol 260 was really good, I liked it, very well organized with fair exams! We also got to use a "cheat sheet" for exams!

Biol 234 was okay, a bit disorganized but I took it when they first started to teach the course, I hear it’s gotten a lot better now! Tutorials were definitely very helpful!