Subject content
Sections 1–4 are designed to be covered in the first year of the A-level and are also the AS subject content. So you can teach AS and A-level together.
Each section begins with an overview, which puts the topic into a broader biological context and encourages understanding of the place of each topic within the subject. The overview is intended to encourage an overarching approach to both the teaching and learning of topic areas. As such, it will not be directly assessed.
These specifications are presented in a two-column format. The left-hand column contains the specification content that all students must cover and that can be assessed in written papers. The right-hand column exemplifies the opportunities for skills to be developed throughout the course. As such, knowledge of individual experiments on the right-hand side is not assumed knowledge for the assessment.
The codes in the right-hand column refer to the skills in the relevant appendices. MS refers to the Mathematical Skills, AT refers to the Apparatus and Techniques and PS refers to the Practical Skills.
- 3.1 Biological molecules
- 3.2 Cells
- 3.3 Organisms exchange substances with their environment
- 3.4 Genetic information, variation and relationships between organisms
- 3.5 Energy transfers in and between organisms (A-level only)
- 3.6 Organisms respond to changes in their internal and external environments (A-level only)
- 3.7 Genetics, populations, evolution and ecosystems (A-level only)
- 3.8 The control of gene expression (A-level only)
