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Bio Study Guide or Course Companion


masson

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Hi everyone. I have HL Bio this year. My teacher suggested that if your aim is a 7, he recommended a course companion, but then I have talked to other people saying that the course companion is another version of the text book and isn't going to help that much. They say if I buy study guide instead...I'll know exactly what to study. Can the experts let me know which one should I buy? Price is not really an issue as they are both $50 CDN from amazon.ca. Thanks and have a great day.

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one word for u. if u want to learn and ur textbook is good go study guide. study guide is awesome because it pretty much summarizes what we need to know

however in course companion they miss some stuff but they have a lot of "data-based" questions which i find the hardest type of questions in any science. well yea i prefer the study guide. and urge u to get it. and maybe ask a friend to buy the course companion just so u can copy few questions. hope this helped.

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I would get the study guide. The course companion is more helpful if you're a teacher, and offers some interesting things related to TOK, etc. but when you're studying for exams, the study guide is much more concise. The only pro about the course companion are the data questions, which can be accessed through past papers. The study guide is divided by topic and offers IB multiple choice questions from past exams.

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Well talked to my HL Bio teacher. He said that I should get course companion considering I am only in the first semester of HL Bio out of the three I have to complete. He said I should try to understand the material thoroughly at the moment. He suggested that if study guide was good option nearing exam time. You guys agree?

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Thank you sir for your input, however, my parents find it extremely hard to believe that only the exam counts. However, for us here in Canada, the it is not the marks that you get on the exam which count towards your university application, but more of what is done in class, from which the teacher predicts your final mark. And this is the mark that gets forwarded to universities. It is useless wasting a year waiting for your final mark on your Biology exam. I do find that there is a very strong positive correlation between the students who do well in class and students who do well on the exam. As a result, I am more lenient towards buying the course companion now, and buying the study guide near exam time.

Edited by masson
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Thank you sir for your input, however, my parents find it extremely hard to believe that only the exam counts. However, for us here in Canada, the it is not the marks that you get on the exam which count towards your university application, but more of what is done in class, from which the teacher predicts your final mark. And this is the mark that gets forwarded to universities. It is useless wasting a year waiting for your final mark on your Biology exam. I do find that there is a very strong positive correlation between the students who do well in class and students who do well on the exam. As a result, I am more lenient towards buying the course companion now, and buying the study guide near exam time.

That's true to an extent. BUT, if you do well on your exam, most IB coordinators will change your mark so that it corresponds to your Canadian mark. And in order to get transfer credits, scholarships, etc. universities in Canada look at your IB scores and not your Canadian score. Plus, it's not difficult to get accepted into a Canadian university. They couldn't care less if you got a 95 or an 90, unless they're counting it towards scholarships, which in that case, they would look at your IB score anyway. And... with most teachers, they will use IB questions on your test to prepare you for the exam. (Some of the questions in the Study Guide were on my Biology Test.) It's essentially up to you, but I personally find that if your school is giving you a textbook, there's little reason to buy the Course Companion unless you are willing to pay a considerable amount for data questions.

And the reason that your Biology teacher may recommend the CC is because it IS more useful... but usually for the teachers than the students.

Edited by ivy12003
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I agree with most of the people above: the revision guide would be a better option. However, it is also important to remember that the course companion (like a text book) includes a lot of extra information, other than what is on the syllabus. This is helpful because we only retain 75% of the information we read/learn, so if you learn 100% of the stuff in the course companion you will hopefully remember more of the actually syllabus.

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I will like to suggest another book for BIO HL, Biology for the IB Diploma by C J Clegg.

You can take a view at the following link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Books/s?ie=UTF8&am...legg&page=1

This second hand book costs £30.15 at amazon.

I found that it is very useful as it follows the IB syllabus and have the same topic sentence as has been outlined by IB.

It has coloured picture and clear diagram which is better than course companion that only has one set of colour only. The notes is reliable and complete as well.

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Hello everybody,

I'd like to ask if there is a study guide available online somewhere. All I can find are study guides from the last year, but since this year the syllabus changed, they're all outdated. I would even purchase such a guide online, as long as I can get it through Digital Distribution, because I can't order stuff from the net till here.

Any advice on how to get my ands on something like that? I'm killing myself going through text books and websites to complete that humongous syllabus.

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Hmmm. I know that the Study Guide is just awesome because I'm using it right now. It helped me a lot with the exams and stuff, and even referencing for your science portfolios. I can't say anything for the bio CC, cause I don't have it. But I can add that the English CC has helped me a lot as well, and if they are basically the same, it should be good to get one as well. In my case, we have a CC in our school library, so I use it there.

Nevertheless, I would rather recommend Study Guide: from what I have heard of other IB people, it should be more helpful.

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I hate biology books, whether its the CC or the study guide or the main book why?

because my teacher gives us the BESTTT notes ever, she has been teaching me since 9th grade and im in 11 grade and she taught both my younger brother and older brother she is reallly the BEST teacher in school the best notes she taught me during my IGCSE's and now IB HL she knows the material,i hate studying from the book but sometimes i have to so i got the study guide but honestly study guide is my favorite for only one subject Chemistry, but yea i have the Oxford,IBID,Clegg and study guide ( my bro was ib bio too) but stick with the study guide

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