GCSE Biology Revision Guide - Higher v Foundation content

[TeenPlusTwenties]

I've just bought the CGP Edexcel Biology Revision Guide.

The Combined science guide comes in 2 formats, Higher & Foundation, but the Biology as part of triple guide doesn't.

Am I missing something on how to work out what is just for Higher tier? Or do I need to go through and compare the guide to the spec myself? I mean, I'm capable of doing it, but is there not some indication in the guide itself somewhere?

I think it's presumed that those who are capable of sitting triple award will be automatically be higher tier.

I guess so, but given that there is a Foundation tier available, it wouldn't have hurt a lot to have some little symbol to indicate higher content, so that those who do 'drop' to foundation know what they don't need to revise.

(My DD might end up switching from Combined to just Biology. Yes I know that is highly unusual, but we live in unusual times.)

I know this doesn't help you, but the Collins OCR Gateway revision guides for the individual sciences definitely have clear markers for content that is on the Higher paper only. So CGP have definitely missed a trick if they are not doing similar in their revision guides.

And I'm not convinced at all that only the more able students take triple science - I think that's very school dependent (it's close to 50/50 at my DC's school - average comp) so there are plenty of students taking the foundation papers.

I guess it might depend on whether a school is doing 'accelerated' triple or using an option re whether a school puts many in for Foundation.

Separate sciences at foundation is possible but very rare. Search up the specification for biology foundation to find out exactly what is on the syllabus.

rivers Yes, I have read the spec, I was hoping to not have to do all the work myself - I hoped there was some special symbol in the text I was missing.

I don't think there is any content for separates science that is higher only. It is all covered on both tiers. The higher tier aspects come from the combined science of which the content is part of separate sciences anyway.

Whiskers The spec is clear there is foundation and higher content. My slight gripe is I'll have to mark up the revision guide as to what isn't needed for foundation.

Puzzling. DS used a cgp guide for his esexcel igcse stand-alone biology and it did mark what was foundations and what higher, so it seems odd they don’t do it for the gcse.

Any consolation, it is pretty clear cut eg a few extra organic families etc

@TeenPlusTwenties
If you buy the Pearson revision guides for Edexcel GCSE 9-1 Biology there are separate ones for Higher tier and foundation tier. The Foundation ones have a green cover.
There are workbooks (with answers) and revision guides.

cat Thank you!

Both my DDs have used these guides (amongst others). The information is clearly laid out and there are worked example questions and a few practice questions for each topic. I’ve been pretty impressed with them.

For AQA biology there isn’t that much that is HT only, level of questions is the main discriminator.
Off the top of my head, monoclonal antibodies and culturing bacteria, brain, eye, eye disorders, kidney and adh, kidney disorders and temperature regulation are the main topics not on FT.