Biology 1001A/1002B Review
Written By: Bob AH W.
These courses were taken during the 2010/2011 school year.
Course Overview:
Biology 1001A
Clicker Participation-5%
Labs-15%
Self-Assessments-12%, Online MC quiz, 4 self-assessments, 3% each.
Tutorials-8%
Midterm-20%, Haffie’s lectures
Final Exam-40%, Cumulative, but focuses on Thorn’s lectures
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Content:
Tom Haffie’s section (general topics):
Cell Biology, Cell division, Cell Cycling, Prokaryotic Recombination, Eukaryotic Recombination, DNA and Chimera, Mendel
Greg Thorn’s section (general topics)
-Darwinian evolution, Heritability, Hardy–Weinberg Equation, Population Variation, Sex and Sexual Selection, Species, Phylogeny, Macroevolution, Evolutionary Ecology, Population Ecology, Population Growth, Community Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology.
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Biology 1002B
Tutorials-15%
Laboratory-15%
Midterm I-20%, Non-cumulative, Maxwell’s lectures
Midterm II-15% Non-cumulative, Haffie’s lectures
Final Exam-35% Cumulative from first lecture to last lecture, mostly Maxwell’s lectures
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Content:
Denis Maxwell’s section (general topics):
1st Midterm, 10 lectures
Origin of Life, Drake Equation, Biochemistry, Thermodynamics, Energy and Enzymes, Membranes and Transport, Photosynthesis, Cellular Respiration.
Final Exam, 9 new lectures + every other lecture
Oncogenes, DNA Technology, Genetically Modified Organisms, Signal Transduction, Oxygen and Aging, Gas Exchange, Nitrogen, Biological Time-keeping.
Tom Haffie’s section (general topics):
2nd midterm, 7 lectures
Endosymbiosis, Prokaryotic Gene Structure, Regulation of Gene Expression, Eukaryotic Gene Expression, Epigenetics, DNA Structure and Replication, Gene Mutation, Chromosome Mutation.
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Professor Overview:
Tom Haffie:
Professor Haffie likes big picture ideas and he focuses on making connections between related concepts. He is excellent at making multiple choice questions that make you think in terms of connections between concepts and scenarios. Professor Haffie enjoys using clicker questions to test the class for understanding of concepts and theoretical consequences and effects. His multiple-multiple choice questions are extremely tricky, as they require you to think and analyze each scenario. Tom Haffie is primarily responsible for the genetics section of the course. His PowerPoint notes posted online often lack important information and diagrams purposely, forcing students to go to class and take down important information from his in-class PowerPoint slides. Many of his lecture slides will simply show a diagram with a title above, and therefore you have to pay close attention to what he is saying.
Greg Thorn:
Greg Thorn is primarily responsible for the evolution/ecology part of the second half of Biology 1001A. His online notes match closely with his actual slides in class, and his notes are well-organized and summarized clearly in point form. His exam questions are fairly straightforward and mostly factual recall. Most of his questions come from his PowerPoint notes.
Denis Maxwell:
Maxwell is the primary professor for the Biology 1002B course. He focuses on cellular biology and other interesting biological concepts. His online notes match closely with his actual in-class slides, but you will still miss out on a lot of important details if you only use his online notes. His exam questions are quite straightforward compared to Haffie’s questions, but they will still require a bit of thinking and analyzing. Maxwell is a funny professor and I enjoyed his lectures due to the less depressing atmosphere.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Course Overview:
Once again, many of the concepts learned in these two courses come from grade 11 and 12 high school curriculum, and therefore a strong foundation in high school biology acts as a great groundwork for success. The exams will mostly test lecture material, and therefore the books required for these two courses only act as a good reference for further explanation. Although the book content is not tested, it is a great help because it will provide you with further clarification on concepts that you learned in lectures. The in-class lecture presentations are recorded and posted online a few days afterwards and therefore you can download them to your computer and watch them when needed.
The self-assessments for the Biology 1001A course are done online through WebCT and they are multiple choice quizzes with exam-level questions. You will have roughly 2-3 days to complete the self-assessment online, and it usually falls on the weekend. The questions are fair but challenging, but remember that it is an open-book test.
The biology labs are generally not too difficult, but it is very hard to get perfect on them due to subjective marking. There are no pre-labs or quizzes before the labs. The instructions in the lab manual are less clear than those found in the chemistry lab manual, but they are sufficient for what you need to accomplish during the labs. In the labs, you will do small experiments and the labs generally focus on lab techniques, statistical analysis, and the scientific method. Many of the labs require you to answer short-answer questions, complete statistical analysis and create charts/tables/graphs. Many short-answer questions require a bit of prior knowledge to complete, and therefore I recommend you to do a bit of research before your lab. When you get to your lab room, there will be a lab presentation by the TAs that will include instructions and information that you will need to know in order to answer the lab questions. But, they often go quickly through the slides causing you to miss important information. Perform the labs carefully and answer questions to the best of your ability. How much you receive heavily depends on your TA, because they decide whether you get full marks or lose 0.5 marks here or there. Labs are often only out of 15-22 marks, and therefore losing 0.5 marks can quickly add up. First year students often don’t know much about statistics, therefore they can be quite intimidated by the statistical tests that have to be performed such as Chi-square test, T-test, and other terminologies such as critical values, null-hypothesis, alternate hypothesis, etc.
The tutorials for the two courses are easier than labs in that they are almost always pass or fail marks. They are often done in small groups and many of the assignments are small writing tasks. The tutorials are quite easy as long as you know what you are doing. It is easy to get a pass mark if you followed instructions and didn’t make any obvious mistakes. Tutorials often only last for one hour or so.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tips:
Although lecture recordings are posted online, it is absolutely crucial that you go to class and listen to what your professor says. You will miss out on a lot of the small details and diagrams drawn with the projector that cannot be recorded through software. You will also miss out on where the professor points on the screen with his laser pointer.
I suggest taking down what the professor says in class as much as possible, and the best way to do this is with a laptop. The only disadvantage of using a laptop is that it is harder to take down diagrams. Take down notes using PowerPoint’s built in notes function, which makes it easier to match notes with the corresponding slide. What I do is I take down as much notes as possible in class and then at home, I download the lecture recording and type all of the useful information the prof said word for word. When exam studying time comes, I can simply read what I wrote down instead of rewatching lectures, which can take a lot of time. If the PowerPoint note posted online is missing something compared to the lecture recording, I do a printscreen and copy and paste the lecture recording slide over the original slide.
When studying, read every lecture PowerPoint note as many times as possible, and try to memorize the facts and understand the concepts. Read the book once or more if required, as this will further increase your understanding of the concepts tested on exams.
The professor will post what is known as an exam outcome pdf file that will have the topics tested on the exam. Read over the outcome and research the terms and concepts that you are not sure of. You should be confident with the terms and concepts found in the outcome.
During the exam:
I strongly recommend you to bring a watch to the exam. You don’t have to wear it, you can just put it on the table. Keeping track of time is absolutely essential for managing time wisely in order to get as much marks as possible. I found that a lot of exam rooms don’t have a clock, and the TAs monitoring the exam will only remind you of how much time is left on a fixed interval such as 15 minutes or 30 minutes. Therefore, you can never go wrong by having a watch.
You should try to bring a water bottle to the exam as well, because staying hydrated helps you to maintain proper brain function.
Bubble your student number, exam code, section code, and other things immediately when you see one, as this will save valuable time to do problems.
Skip whatever problem you are stuck on, and come back to it later. I also like to put a star beside a question that I’m debating the answer to or not 100% sure. When I’m done the exam, I will go back to these starred questions and do them or check them. I also cannot stress this enough, DON’T LEAVE EARLY. This applies to every course you will ever take in university. Check as much as possible, since this is the best way to guarantee success. Many mistakes are preventable, and NO, leaving an hour early does not make you look like a genius. So use whatever time left wisely and do not let it go to waste. Finally, learn from your mistakes, if you made a silly mistake, then you shouldn’t be worried, but if you made a mistake because you didn’t know why or how to do when you entered the exam, then you must seek help, as this will continue to haunt you since exams are cumulative.
Overall, the course is fair but challenging. Your success heavily depends on how much effort you put into studying, preparing, and executing on the exams.
Disclosure: I’m going into second year here at UWO and I’m registered in the HSP module of the BMsc program. I took regular 12U Biology course at a TDSB high school in Toronto. I did well in both of these courses and I hope what I wrote can help you.
These courses were taken during the 2010/2011 school year.
Course Overview:
Biology 1001A
Clicker Participation-5%
Labs-15%
Self-Assessments-12%, Online MC quiz, 4 self-assessments, 3% each.
Tutorials-8%
Midterm-20%, Haffie’s lectures
Final Exam-40%, Cumulative, but focuses on Thorn’s lectures
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Content:
Tom Haffie’s section (general topics):
Cell Biology, Cell division, Cell Cycling, Prokaryotic Recombination, Eukaryotic Recombination, DNA and Chimera, Mendel
Greg Thorn’s section (general topics)
-Darwinian evolution, Heritability, Hardy–Weinberg Equation, Population Variation, Sex and Sexual Selection, Species, Phylogeny, Macroevolution, Evolutionary Ecology, Population Ecology, Population Growth, Community Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Biology 1002B
Tutorials-15%
Laboratory-15%
Midterm I-20%, Non-cumulative, Maxwell’s lectures
Midterm II-15% Non-cumulative, Haffie’s lectures
Final Exam-35% Cumulative from first lecture to last lecture, mostly Maxwell’s lectures
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Content:
Denis Maxwell’s section (general topics):
1st Midterm, 10 lectures
Origin of Life, Drake Equation, Biochemistry, Thermodynamics, Energy and Enzymes, Membranes and Transport, Photosynthesis, Cellular Respiration.
Final Exam, 9 new lectures + every other lecture
Oncogenes, DNA Technology, Genetically Modified Organisms, Signal Transduction, Oxygen and Aging, Gas Exchange, Nitrogen, Biological Time-keeping.
Tom Haffie’s section (general topics):
2nd midterm, 7 lectures
Endosymbiosis, Prokaryotic Gene Structure, Regulation of Gene Expression, Eukaryotic Gene Expression, Epigenetics, DNA Structure and Replication, Gene Mutation, Chromosome Mutation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Overview:
Tom Haffie:
Professor Haffie likes big picture ideas and he focuses on making connections between related concepts. He is excellent at making multiple choice questions that make you think in terms of connections between concepts and scenarios. Professor Haffie enjoys using clicker questions to test the class for understanding of concepts and theoretical consequences and effects. His multiple-multiple choice questions are extremely tricky, as they require you to think and analyze each scenario. Tom Haffie is primarily responsible for the genetics section of the course. His PowerPoint notes posted online often lack important information and diagrams purposely, forcing students to go to class and take down important information from his in-class PowerPoint slides. Many of his lecture slides will simply show a diagram with a title above, and therefore you have to pay close attention to what he is saying.
Greg Thorn:
Greg Thorn is primarily responsible for the evolution/ecology part of the second half of Biology 1001A. His online notes match closely with his actual slides in class, and his notes are well-organized and summarized clearly in point form. His exam questions are fairly straightforward and mostly factual recall. Most of his questions come from his PowerPoint notes.
Denis Maxwell:
Maxwell is the primary professor for the Biology 1002B course. He focuses on cellular biology and other interesting biological concepts. His online notes match closely with his actual in-class slides, but you will still miss out on a lot of important details if you only use his online notes. His exam questions are quite straightforward compared to Haffie’s questions, but they will still require a bit of thinking and analyzing. Maxwell is a funny professor and I enjoyed his lectures due to the less depressing atmosphere.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Course Overview:
Once again, many of the concepts learned in these two courses come from grade 11 and 12 high school curriculum, and therefore a strong foundation in high school biology acts as a great groundwork for success. The exams will mostly test lecture material, and therefore the books required for these two courses only act as a good reference for further explanation. Although the book content is not tested, it is a great help because it will provide you with further clarification on concepts that you learned in lectures. The in-class lecture presentations are recorded and posted online a few days afterwards and therefore you can download them to your computer and watch them when needed.
The self-assessments for the Biology 1001A course are done online through WebCT and they are multiple choice quizzes with exam-level questions. You will have roughly 2-3 days to complete the self-assessment online, and it usually falls on the weekend. The questions are fair but challenging, but remember that it is an open-book test.
The biology labs are generally not too difficult, but it is very hard to get perfect on them due to subjective marking. There are no pre-labs or quizzes before the labs. The instructions in the lab manual are less clear than those found in the chemistry lab manual, but they are sufficient for what you need to accomplish during the labs. In the labs, you will do small experiments and the labs generally focus on lab techniques, statistical analysis, and the scientific method. Many of the labs require you to answer short-answer questions, complete statistical analysis and create charts/tables/graphs. Many short-answer questions require a bit of prior knowledge to complete, and therefore I recommend you to do a bit of research before your lab. When you get to your lab room, there will be a lab presentation by the TAs that will include instructions and information that you will need to know in order to answer the lab questions. But, they often go quickly through the slides causing you to miss important information. Perform the labs carefully and answer questions to the best of your ability. How much you receive heavily depends on your TA, because they decide whether you get full marks or lose 0.5 marks here or there. Labs are often only out of 15-22 marks, and therefore losing 0.5 marks can quickly add up. First year students often don’t know much about statistics, therefore they can be quite intimidated by the statistical tests that have to be performed such as Chi-square test, T-test, and other terminologies such as critical values, null-hypothesis, alternate hypothesis, etc.
The tutorials for the two courses are easier than labs in that they are almost always pass or fail marks. They are often done in small groups and many of the assignments are small writing tasks. The tutorials are quite easy as long as you know what you are doing. It is easy to get a pass mark if you followed instructions and didn’t make any obvious mistakes. Tutorials often only last for one hour or so.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tips:
Although lecture recordings are posted online, it is absolutely crucial that you go to class and listen to what your professor says. You will miss out on a lot of the small details and diagrams drawn with the projector that cannot be recorded through software. You will also miss out on where the professor points on the screen with his laser pointer.
I suggest taking down what the professor says in class as much as possible, and the best way to do this is with a laptop. The only disadvantage of using a laptop is that it is harder to take down diagrams. Take down notes using PowerPoint’s built in notes function, which makes it easier to match notes with the corresponding slide. What I do is I take down as much notes as possible in class and then at home, I download the lecture recording and type all of the useful information the prof said word for word. When exam studying time comes, I can simply read what I wrote down instead of rewatching lectures, which can take a lot of time. If the PowerPoint note posted online is missing something compared to the lecture recording, I do a printscreen and copy and paste the lecture recording slide over the original slide.
When studying, read every lecture PowerPoint note as many times as possible, and try to memorize the facts and understand the concepts. Read the book once or more if required, as this will further increase your understanding of the concepts tested on exams.
The professor will post what is known as an exam outcome pdf file that will have the topics tested on the exam. Read over the outcome and research the terms and concepts that you are not sure of. You should be confident with the terms and concepts found in the outcome.
During the exam:
I strongly recommend you to bring a watch to the exam. You don’t have to wear it, you can just put it on the table. Keeping track of time is absolutely essential for managing time wisely in order to get as much marks as possible. I found that a lot of exam rooms don’t have a clock, and the TAs monitoring the exam will only remind you of how much time is left on a fixed interval such as 15 minutes or 30 minutes. Therefore, you can never go wrong by having a watch.
You should try to bring a water bottle to the exam as well, because staying hydrated helps you to maintain proper brain function.
Bubble your student number, exam code, section code, and other things immediately when you see one, as this will save valuable time to do problems.
Skip whatever problem you are stuck on, and come back to it later. I also like to put a star beside a question that I’m debating the answer to or not 100% sure. When I’m done the exam, I will go back to these starred questions and do them or check them. I also cannot stress this enough, DON’T LEAVE EARLY. This applies to every course you will ever take in university. Check as much as possible, since this is the best way to guarantee success. Many mistakes are preventable, and NO, leaving an hour early does not make you look like a genius. So use whatever time left wisely and do not let it go to waste. Finally, learn from your mistakes, if you made a silly mistake, then you shouldn’t be worried, but if you made a mistake because you didn’t know why or how to do when you entered the exam, then you must seek help, as this will continue to haunt you since exams are cumulative.
Overall, the course is fair but challenging. Your success heavily depends on how much effort you put into studying, preparing, and executing on the exams.
Disclosure: I’m going into second year here at UWO and I’m registered in the HSP module of the BMsc program. I took regular 12U Biology course at a TDSB high school in Toronto. I did well in both of these courses and I hope what I wrote can help you.