Queen's University ~ Biology 103

Tips for writing a successful final exam

The 2012 final exam for BIOL103 is currently scheduled for: April 17, Tuesday, 2pm - 5pm. To confirm final exam information (when and where), it is your responsibility to check the official timetable using SOLUS or at the registrar's office: http://www.queensu.ca/registrar/currentstudents/exams.html

You have 3 hours to write the exam, and time should not be limiting if yoiu know the material well. The marks are spread evenly between Money and Boag material, with a total of just under 100 questions. The format of multiple choice questions will be similar to those in the Moodle quizzes and our practice questions. As described elsewhere on this site, you ARE responsible for material in lectures AND in the text readings generally outlined for Money here and Boag here. Additional detail on Boag readings is available here. It is fair to assume that material covered in BOTH lectures and text is particularly important, but you do need to know topics in the readings even if they were not covered in lecture. You also need to know topics covered in guest lectures and videos; less detail will be expected but you should be familiar with the general concepts and examples presented. Calculators are not allowed nor are they needed to answer any questiuons; if you think you need one you are on the wrong track!

Dr. Boag's section is entirely multiple choice, although in some cases you may need to work something out and then choose the correct answer; such questions can be worth 2 marks instead of 1. Dr. Money's section will be similar.

Note the Q&A sessions will be on TBA in BioSci rm. 1101; both Money and Boag will be available to answer questions.

Below are some general tips for studying and writing the exam. Also see general info on doing well on MC questions here.

General Information

• Try to find a group of students to study with. It is very useful to quiz each other and be forced to explain concepts and examples to each other. Do the textbook tests for each chapter, along with the companion web site quizzes. There is a knack to answering multiple choice questions - practice really does help!
• The first thing to know is the list of fundamental concepts covered in each lecture. Refer to the back of each chapter in the book and see if you can make a list of the key concepts covered.
• Check out Moodle discussions to ask questions and see them answered.
• Get a good night's rest before the exam.
• Once you have the exam in front of you, READ EACH QUESTION CAREFULLY BEFORE TRYING TO CHOOSE AN ANSWER. So MANY mistakes are made because students do not read the question and potential answers carefully. If more than one answer seems possible, pick the BEST answer.
• Pace yourself and leave enough time to answer all the questions. Don't get hung up for long periods of time on one or two difficult questions. Flag them for later and move on to other questions. Then return and use process of elimination to narrow the options; when all else fails, remember a) your first, gut feeling about which answer was correct is more likely to be right, and b) no marks are lost for guessing, so never leave a question unaswered!!
• Every year several Bio 103 exams are handed in without student numbers or other identifiers! PLEASE put your student number on the answer sheet, AND on the question booklet. Also write your full name on the Scantron answer sheet, and initial the question booklet and short essay answer sheet. We strongly suggest you circle your multiple choice answers in the question booklet AND record them on the Scantron sheet. That way if there is a problem with a missing or illegible Scantron sheet we have the option of checking the matching question booklet.

Specific Advice on Boag material

• Don't memorize equations, understand what they mean intuitively. For example, be able to explain in words the essential difference between the exponential and logistic equations for population growth. 
• For example, if we give you a table with the states of various characters for a set of species, you should be able to build an evolutionary tree from these data. In a multiple-choice context, you should be able to choose the correct tree from among several trees presented as alternatives.
• When simple quantitative problems are given, such as calculating allele frequencies under H-W, since you won't have calculators it is safe to assume that the questions will be designed for easy solution 'in your head'. So if you are taking a lot of time or doing a lot of math to answer a question, chances are good that you are not approaching it the correct way.