- International
- Education Jobs
- Schools directory
- Resources Education Jobs Schools directory News Search
AQA A-level Biology essay writing resources
Subject: Biology
Age range: 16+
Resource type: Unit of work
Last updated
4 June 2021
- Share through email
- Share through twitter
- Share through linkedin
- Share through facebook
- Share through pinterest
A compilation of useful resources to help you develop the essay writing skills of your pupils. The adapted learning map resource is a sample ( you may choose to change the essay topics). It is a good idea to incorporate the learning map into the Scheme of Work for the cohort at the start of term 1, this will help ensure that time is set aside for essay practice.
Good essay skills contribute effectively to pupil outcomes in Biology, it accounts for 25 marks of the AQA A-level Bio paper 3 exam but is often overlooked. Building the synoptic essay wring skills will ultimately result in improved outcomes for pupils.
Creative Commons "Sharealike"
Your rating is required to reflect your happiness.
It's good to leave some feedback.
Something went wrong, please try again later.
miss-w-chem
Very good to see another example of Year 13 work schedule as includes timetable of essay titles for class work, annotated mark schemes, and a couple annotated spec points!
Empty reply does not make any sense for the end user
Report this resource to let us know if it violates our terms and conditions. Our customer service team will review your report and will be in touch.
Not quite what you were looking for? Search by keyword to find the right resource:
Biology AQA A LEVEL essay help!
Quick reply, related discussions.
- science a levels
- essay a level biology
- Geography or Environmental science A levels?
- EDUQAS or AQA for biology A level?
- psychology or biology?
- loreto college or xavarian?
- Is OCR or AQA a-level biology better?
- Should i do chem, bio, psychology a level
- Changes to the A-Level course?
- A level biology aqa revision
- biology a level aqa
- Im thinking about taking psych a level help
- Year 12 Mocks
- A-level biology; which exam board: "OCR (A/B)" or "AQA"?
- Any advice on what I should pick?
- A level tips
- Triple Science revision
- hey iâm yr 11 and want to pick biology chem and philosophy
- Need urgent help deciding third choice for alevel
Last reply 1 week ago
Posted 2 weeks ago
Posted 1 month ago
Last reply 1 month ago
Last reply 2 months ago
Posted 2 months ago
Articles for you
How to revise for A-level Biology exams: AQA explains what to do
Finding a university place in Ucas Clearing 2024: 10 top tips to help you get ready
Top 10 tips for Ucas Clearing 2024
Bringing business people into the classroom: what students learn from industry professionals
A Christmas Carol: Overview ( AQA GCSE English Literature )
Revision note.
English Senior Content Creator
A Christmas Carol: Overview
As part of Paper 1, Section B you will study one 19th-century novel and write one response to one set question in your paper. The question will include an extract from your studied text but it is a closed-book exam, which means you will not have access to a copy of the text in your exam. There are two Dickens novels that you could study for the exam:
A Christmas Carol
Great Expectations
This page contains some helpful information, and links to more detailed revision note pages, that will enable you to aim for the highest grade when studying A Christmas Carol. This page includes:
Who was Charles Dickens?
A Christmas Carol summary
A brief overview of what is required in the exam
A Christmas Carol characters
A Christmas Carol context
A Christmas Carol themes
A Christmas Carol quotes
Top tips for the highest grade
Charles Dickens was a 19th-century novelist and he is regarded as one of the most famous British authors of all time. Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England on February 7, 1812 and died on June 9, 1870. He is buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey despite his request to be buried in Rochester Cathedral.Â
Dickens was the author of 15 novels, 5 novellas and hundreds of stories and essays. He also edited a weekly journal for 20 years. He is particularly renowned for his stark portraits of poverty and the suffering of the masses in Victorian London during the Industrial Revolution. His work clearly demonstrates his consciousness of and commitment to social justice and his writing mixed social criticism with animated representations of characters using both humour and satire. While many of his works can be seen to contain idealised characters, Dickens uses them to underscore the terrible living and working conditions endured by so much of the population during this period.Â
A Christmas Carol is a novella written by Charles Dickens and first published on 19th December, 1843. The novellaâs full title is:Â âA Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmasâ. In the Preface, Dickens declares: âI have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay itâ.Â
A Christmas Carol is a novella composed of five staves (chapters) and it is set in mid-19th-century London. It narrates the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser, who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and three spirits: the spirit of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. Through their valuable lessons, the spirits enable Scrooge to be transformed into a charitable philanthropist. His journey of transformation from a cruel miser to a benevolent and kind man conveys Dickensâs message that everyone has the ability to show compassion and kindness to others, regardless of their social position.
Like many of Dickensâs other works, A Christmas Carol was written as a piece of social commentary. It is an allegorical tale of redemption written in response to the appalling social conditions of Victorian England. It is an exploration of the themes of poverty, family, transformation and redemption. For a more detailed summary, please see A Christmas Carol: Plot Summary page.
How is A Christmas Carol assessed in the exam?
Your GCSE Paper 1 requires you to answer two questions in 1hr 45min. That means you have approximately 52 minutes to plan, write and check your essay
Paper 1 is worth 64 marks and accounts for 40% of your overall GCSE grade
Your essay is worth 30 marks in total
Section B of Paper 1 contains the question and you are required to answer the one available question on the novella
Your question will also include a printed extract of about 35 lines from the novella
It is a closed-book exam, which means you will not have access to a copy of the text (other than the printed extract) in your exam
You will be asked a question that asks you to analyse and write in detail about an aspect of A Christmas Carol
Your answer will need to address both the extract from the novella that you will be given, and the novella as a whole
For a much more detailed guide on answering the A Christmas Carol question, please see our revision notes on How to Answer the 19th-Century Novel Essay Question .
The characters you should focus on when revising A Christmas Carol are:
Jacob Marley
Ebenezer Scrooge
Bob Cratchit
Ghost of Christmas Past
Ghost of Christmas Present
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
There are also other minor characters in A Christmas Carol who contribute to Scroogeâs transformation and it is important to understand their role in the novella. For example: Tiny Tim, Fred, Fan, Fezziwig, Belle, Ignorance and Want.
It is always vital to remember - when considering a Dickens novella, or any text - that characters are deliberate constructions created by a writer for a purpose. These characters often represent ideas, or belief systems, and a writer, like Dickens, uses these characters to explore these ideas and beliefs through them. For more details on how Dickens uses his characters in A Christmas Carol, please see the A Christmas Carol: Characters revision notes page.
There are a maximum of six marks available in the 19th-century novel question for context. It is important that you understand what context means as examiners understand context not as historical information, or biographical facts about a writer, but as the ideas and perspectives explored by a writer through their text. Therefore, for the context of A Christmas Carol you should not write about random, irrelevant information about London in the 1840s, or biographical information about Dickens, but ideas about:
Family and Relationships
Transformation and Redemption
Death and Loss
Crucially, context is about how the above ideas and perspectives give us a better understanding of the authorâs intentions, or messages. Many of these ideas and perspectives are universal, so your own opinions of them are valid, and will be rewarded in an exam. For a detailed breakdown of the contextual topics listed above, see the A Christmas Carol: Context page.
Exam responses that are led by ideas are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. Exploring the ideas of A Christmas Carol, specifically in relation to the question being asked, will help to increase your fluency and assurance in writing about the text.
Understanding the themes that Dickens explores in A Christmas Carol is one of the best approaches any student can take when revising the novella. This is because to get the highest mark on your exam, you need to take what examiners call a âconceptualised approachâ: a detailed and perceptive exploration of Dickensâs ideas and intentions. The main themes explored by Dickens in A Christmas Carol are:
There are many more themes than just those listed above that are explored by Dickens in A Christmas Carol, and you are encouraged to consider these too. However, the above list makes a great place to start, and detailed breakdowns of each of these themes can be found on our A Christmas Carol: Themes page.
The assessment objectives state that you should be able to âuse textual references, including quotationsâ. This means summarising, paraphrasing, referencing single words and referencing plot events are all as valid as quotations in demonstrating that you understand the text. It is important that you remember that you can evidence your knowledge of the text in these two equally valid ways: both through references to it and direct quotations from it. If you are going to revise quotations, the best way is to group them by character, or theme. We have already identified some quotations that you may wish to review in preparation for your exam. For a detailed analysis of each of these quotations, see our A Christmas Carol: Key Quotations page.
Please see our revision pages on the 19th-century texts for guides on:
Structuring A Christmas Carol essay
A Christmas Carol methods and techniques
How to include context in A Christmas Carol essay
Understanding A Christmas Carol mark scheme
A Christmas Carol model answer
You've read 0 of your 0 free revision notes
Get unlimited access.
to absolutely everything:
- Downloadable PDFs
- Unlimited Revision Notes
- Topic Questions
- Past Papers
- Model Answers
- Videos (Maths and Science)
Join the 100,000 + Students that â¤ď¸ Save My Exams
the (exam) results speak for themselves:
Did this page help you?
Author: Nick Redgrove
Nick is a graduate of the University of Cambridge and Kingâs College London. He started his career in journalism and publishing, working as an editor on a political magazine and a number of books, before training as an English teacher. After nearly 10 years working in London schools, where he held leadership positions in English departments and within a Sixth Form, he moved on to become an examiner and education consultant. With more than a decade of experience as a tutor, Nick specialises in English, but has also taught Politics, Classical Civilisation and Religious Studies.
IMAGES
COMMENTS
Step 1 Determine a level. Start at the lowest level of the mark scheme and use it as a ladder to see whether the answer meets the descriptor for that level. The descriptor for the level indicates the different qualities that might be seen in the student's answer for that level.
Advice for the essay. The levels scheme states that more than two A-level topics need to be addressed to get higher than 10 marks. A minimum of four topics is required to get higher than 15 marks. A topic area is a numbered sub-section in the specification. For example, for the 2017 'diffusion' essay, gas exchange (3.3.2) was a topic area.
The AQA Biology essay may fill you with dread, but that's why I am going to make it easier and boost your confidence. In this video, I talk you through two ...
Throughout the development of the current 7402 A-level Biology specification, AQA spoke to teachers and university experts about the biology essay. It was clear that that extended writing was seen as an important skill that biology students should be developing. 'Level of response' mark
Learn how to write the 25 mark essay on the AQA A-level paper 3. I fully explain the mark scheme, how to analyse the titles, how to structure your paragraph...
I have been working with some tutees to improve their approach to the AQA Paper 3 Extended Essay - so here are a few tips, and all of the essay titles (and markschemes) since 2007. A Few Points Raised By The Exam Boards Feedback. The essay is designed to assess whether you can bring together material from a range of topics to illustrate and ...
Find out exactly what to structure and write your essays to get full marks.Here is what I recommend you learn to try and get the 'beyond the specification' m...
AQA A-level Biology essay writing resources. A compilation of useful resources to help you develop the essay writing skills of your pupils. The adapted learning map resource is a sample ( you may choose to change the essay topics). It is a good idea to incorporate the learning map into the Scheme of Work for the cohort at the start of term 1 ...
The importance of ions in biology. Click the card to flip đ. 1.) Na+ ions in cotransport of glucose. - importance: Na+ ion concentration gradient is what drives the movement of glucose into cell - utilising energy efficiently. 2.) Na+ ions in osmoregulation. - Loop of Henle - maintains Na+ ion gradient. - importance: ensures water can leave ...
The importance of shapes fitting together in cells and organisms. 1) Enzyme properties and digestion. 2) Protein structure. 3) Plasma membrane structure and cell transport. 4) Antigens, antibodies, B cells & T cells. 5) Vaccines. 6) Structure of DNA. 7) DNA Replication (not PCR) 8) Transcription & translation.
Biology essay titles This document contains the essay titles and mark schemes used in AQA A-level Biology examinations since 2007. The specifications these exam questions came from are no longer in ... Write an essay about cycles in biology 2010 10 a Carbon dioxide may affect organisms directly or indirectly. Describe and explain these effects.
Learn how to score top marks in the Paper 3 AQA A-Level Biology ESSAY. I'll cover including detailed and comprehensive A-Level knowledge, linking your points...
Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like The importance of responses to changes in the internal and external environment of an organism, How cells and organisms carry out exchanges with their external environment to maintain their internal environment., Carbon dioxide may affect organisms directly or indirectly. Describe and explain these effects. and more.
44 essay titles and indiciative mark schemes for AQA A level biology Paper 3 25 mark essay question. contents essay mark schemes general guidance. Skip to document. University; High School ... 44 essay titles and indiciative mark schemes for AQA A level biology P... View more. Module. Biology. 555 Documents. Students shared 555 documents in ...
Try not to aim for 25/25 because you actually need to go off spec to get this which is more stress, I would aim for 20/21 which is more than enough. First off, you're gonna need to write 5 or 6 fairly detailed paragraphs on the topic of the essay. If you do other essay subjects at sixth form then this will come in handy, write up a quick plan ...
A-level Biology essay Training guide for teachers Throughout the development of our new A-level Biology specification, we spoke to teachers and university experts. We were told that extended writing was an important skill that students should be developing. The 25 mark essay has been an element of AQA A-levels for many years, going back several
In this video, I go through some general advice on how to approach the paper 3 essay for AQA A Level Biology and also some specifics about what the mark sche...
AQA A level Biology Essay. The importance of responses to changes in the internal and external environment of an organism. Click the card to flip it đ. Control of heart rate (changes in pH and pressure) Control of blood glucose (glucagon and insulin) Osmoregulation (water potential changes) Action potentials/ pacinian corpuscles (stimulus)
A-level Biology Essay Teacher Guide Paper 3. This resource is designed to help you to plan your teaching to prepare students for the essay in A-level Paper 3. It has been designed for a number of teachers in the same department to work together, but could be adapted for single teachers, or for use with students.
I want to help you achieve the grades you (and I) know you are capable of; these grades are the stepping stone to your future. Even if you don't want to stud...
Your GCSE Paper 1 requires you to answer two questions in 1hr 45min. That means you have approximately 52 minutes to plan, write and check your essay. Paper 1 is worth 64 marks and accounts for 40% of your overall GCSE grade. Your essay is worth 30 marks in total
10 Write an essay on one of the followlng topics. EITHER 10 (a) How cells and organisms carry out exchanges with their external environment to ... A-level Biology Essay Question 10a: Answer 10 Paper 3 June 2014 ... Author: AQA Subject: A-level Biology Keywords: A-level Biology; 7402; CEX; 74023; ; 2014; Essay Question 10a: Answer 10 Created ...