SNAB revision tips

Revision tips for students from Nicola Wilberforce of Esher College

These notes, for the current SNAB course, assume that you have access to the Heinemann website www.snabonline.

1 Print off the 'Check your notes' activity for each SNAB topic. This is always the last activity number in any topic. It is a student-speak version of the specification and is cross-referenced back to the learning activities and Checkpoint questions in the students' textbook.

2 For each SNAB topic, make sure you complete all the checkpoint questions in the blue/purple shaded boxes in the text book. Redo as many interactive tutorials on snabonline as you can, completing another copy of the paper worksheet you can download from there. Compare your answers with the original tutorial you did and your teacher marked.

3 Ask your teacher to reset the interactive end-of-topic tests on snabonline, or to make them open access for you.

4 There are some revision resources that can be downloaded from snabonline. Go to your SNAB homepage, then to SNAB Communications in the left-hand panel. Then go to new / shared resources and you will find several things which are good for revision. These include an A-Z biology quiz with answers, and an AS Glossary of words you must know. These can also be used to make revision cards, with a word on one side and the definition or explanation on the other. Test yourself or get others to test you.

5 Use the mediabank link on left-hand panel of snabonline to go to images from the students book. Print off the unlabelled ones (black and white to save ink) and label them, or use the labelled images to create mix and match or cut and stick revision activities, where you can order processes, make comparisons and describe and label things.

For example, use image 1.9B for learning the structure of the heart. Print off the labelled image, cut away all the labels and stick the unlabelled heart to another background piece of paper. Separate and trim the labels, mix them up and then place them all in the right position. Use your AS students book (page 8) to check you are correct. Do it again. Then put all the cut-up pieces of paper and background sheet into a large labelled envelope or plastic wallet, and whenever you want to revise a topic, shake out the pieces onto your desk and do it again! You can do this with many different topics.

6 Finally, practise completing past examination questions and checking them against the examiners mark scheme. These can be purchased from the Exexcel website as downloadable zipped files, if you do not have access to them through your school or college.