FranksBio.net

Parent's Guide to Survive Biology

How to help your child pass Biology and the Biology State Test.

Ten to fifteen minutes a night is enough, if it is the right ten to fifteen minutes.

Most students who struggle in Biology are not confused by the science. They are trying to learn it by rereading, which feels productive and does almost nothing. What works is recall: closing the notes and trying to remember.

Start with the notes page they already have

Your child's packet is built in pairs. Each fill-in-the-blank page has a completed set of notes on the page before it. If they missed something in class, the answers are already sitting right there.

That means nightly review is one page, not a packet. If they open it and see something thick and overwhelming, tell them to look at that day's page and the notes page facing it. Nothing else.

The nightly routine

  1. Skim the notes pageTwo or three minutes. Then check their own page against it and fill in anything blank.
  2. Close the notes and recallFlashcards, or just saying it out loud. This is the part that actually builds memory.
  3. Retake the practice setPractices can be redone in Google Classroom for a higher grade.
  4. Play a review gameBlooket and the mixed review quizzes. Closest thing to the next morning's quiz.

Why recall and not rereading? Rereading builds a feeling of familiarity that disappears under test conditions. Pulling an answer out of memory, getting it wrong, and correcting it is what makes it stick. Every tool below is built for that.

Where everything lives

Units by term

First term

  1. Studying Life
  2. The Chemistry of Life
  3. Cell Structure and Function
  4. Cellular Transport
  5. Cellular Reproduction
  6. Cellular Energy

Second term

  1. Meiosis
  2. Genetics
  3. DNA and Proteins
  4. Evolution
  5. Ecology

Two things worth knowing

Classwork can always be redone

Any practice, case study, or lab quiz can be redone for a higher grade at any point in the term. Grades are updated once the work is finished. A low score is never final.

Tests can be retaken

Any student who is failing can retake a test, as long as they prepare for it first. Tests are half the grade, so this is usually the fastest way to move an average.

Getting in touch