BIO 1000 – Introductory Biology at UIO tips

Have you enrolled BIO 1000 at UiO? 

Welcome to one of the most boring subjects ever. I mean it. 
Look at the syllabus. 
 
Nevertheless, you need to pass it. Here are my best tips.
 
  • A big amount of material is covered in this course. The chapters are dense and tedious. The teacher will go through 1-1.5 chapters every week. Start studying in the first week. At least start making your own studying notes. Once you fall behind it will take double the effort to catch up. 
  • You are allowed to drop a couple of labs. If you are planning to do it, do so towards the end of the semester. It will buy extra study time right before exam period. It might be the difference between the ‘just pass’ and the good grade.
  • Don’t worry about the colloquium exercises. Go ahead and read on your own or complete your notes if you feel like that is the priority. You’ll be given the solutions to all the colloquium questions about a month before the final exam. If you manage to find someone to work with give it a try. It might work just fine. 
  • You should aim to be done with your study notes up to a week after your last lecture. This will give you 2 weeks to go over previous exams, lab reports, colloquium problems and the most difficult topics. I wasn’t able to do this myself and believe me: I’ve paid the price. It’s way too much material to read properly in a couple of days before the exam. The stress level will increase and you will be forced to make choices. If you are lucky the topics that you focused on will come up on the exam. If not… Good luck improvising! 
  • Study everything as well as you can. The more detailed you can be, the better. A big part of the exam focuses on one topic alone. Example: animals; the eukaryotic cell; macroevolution; plants; etc. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you will be asked a bit of everything since the syllabus is so big. It’s not going to happen and you’ll end up frustrated. 
I did well in the end but I am sure I would have done better if I had started preparing for the exam a little earlier. Now it’s just too late to change that. 
 
For those who want to get into medicine, this subject feels like a joke because it doesn’t cover anything related to the human body. You get a little hint here and there, but generally, you study things that are way out of our area of interest. 

Weekly goals

A beautiful winter

Trade-Off

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