BlogStudy5 Critical Mistakes You’re Probably Making in Your HSC Biology Exam

5 Critical Mistakes You’re Probably Making in Your HSC Biology Exam

HSC Biology Exam

It’s easy to make mistakes in the HSC Biology Exam when you’re stressed, particularly in an exam situation where you’re trying to juggle your time, knowledge and writing all at once.

However, there are a few things that you can do to avoid these high stakes mistakes, which can cause students to lose the most marks for the silliest reasons. 

And so, without further ado, here are the five most common high stakes mistakes that students make in the HSC Biology Exam and how you can effectively avoid them!

Mistake #1: Not Reading The Question

In an exam, students sometimes jump to conclusions about what a particular question is asking them to explain because they see a familiar diagram or familiar words.

This happens a lot in multiple choice questions, and can be fatal.

Take this question from the 2012 HSC Biology Exam Paper, for example:

HSC Biology Exam

This is the full question.

When under pressure, students may be tempted to hone in on one part of the question that is immediately familiar.

I imagine it looks a bit like this:

HSC Biology Exam

It becomes tempting to hone in on the haemoglobin part, which is a whole dot point in the syllabus on its own.

This means that if you saw that question in a stressful situation, you would be tempted to choose (A) as the answer because it directly involves oxygen.

However, the correct answer is actually (C) because:
  1. The rest of the question is about an endotherm in a cold environment, which is pointing you towards the amount of energy available, rather than the amount of oxygen available
  2. AND the adaptive advantage of haemoglobin is that it doesn’t actually require any energy to work, leaving more available for the rest of the organism!

It is so important to read the question properly (especially) in Biology because the underlying point of a question can change based on a very slight difference between the wording of the questions, just like the example above.

When you’re reading the question in detail, keep your eyes open for the key verbs which are in the question, to make sure that you are producing an answer that addresses the question.

Mistake #2: Not Breaking The Question Down

So, as we all know, each HSC Biology Exam question is made up of a number of parts.

In an exam, when you’re feeling stressed it is super tempting to skip over the ‘breaking down the question’ step and get straight to answering the question.

The risk is that a question which looks like this:

HSC Biology Exam

…starts to look like this:

HSC Biology Exam

Needless to say, your answer to this squished up question is going to be nowhere near as detailed as your question to the nicely spaced out and broken up question.

This means that you will be losing marks even if you understand the content.

How to avoid this? Easy, slow it down.

You can break the question down into smaller parts in a few ways:

Highlighting or underlining key words

Drawing vertical lines between parts of the question and numbering them so you can tick them off once you’ve addressed each part of the question.

Scribble key words relating to the content you need for the question

Mistake #3: Spending Too Much Time On One Question

Needless to say, this can cause you to lose marks all over the shop, even if you understand the content! 

This is particularly bad in the HSC Biology Exam because there are tonnes of easy marks throughout the paper, not just in the multiple choice questions, which you would be losing for no reason at all…

How to combat this:

During reading time, you should spend at least 2 minutes calculating how much time you can spend on each question. The easiest rule of thumb is 1 mark per minute.

If a question is worth 6 marks, you should be spending 6 minutes on it.

If you do not answer the question in the allocated time, mark the question with a pencil and move on to the next question.

You can come back to these marked questions after you’ve attempted all of the questions.

This means that you will be snatching up every single easy mark possible and so you will not be losing marks unnecessarily.

Any challenging parts that you go back and address will be well-deserved ‘bonus marks’!

Mistake #4: Freaking Out

I know that this happens to the majority of students.

The key, however, is not to avoid the stress of the HSC Biologu exam, but to know how to manage it.

Freaking out in the HSC Biology Exam can be particularly fatal because:
  • You may skip over easy marks
  • You won’t be able to read the question properly
  • Which means you can’t answer the question properly
I have 3 suggestions for overcoming exam freaking out:

1. Breathe 

Take a few deep breaths before the exam, and squeeze in a few before each questions too.

This will allow you to take a quick mental break so that your brain can hit refresh, and you will be able to see the questions effectively

2. Do a mental warm up

Just like for a big sporting game, mental warm ups can ensure that you’re ready to sit the HSC Biology Exam.

I recommend having some short questions on a palm card which you can use to test yourself just before your exam to bring it all back in time for the start of the exam

3. Do lots of practice papers

Even better: do lots of practice papers under exam conditions.

This means that the real exam is familiar and so that you know that you can work in exam conditions.

This will help you reduce your exam anxiety so that you can think straight.

Mistake #5: Running Out Of Time

Running out of time is often the by-product of the above issues.

The best way to avoid running out of time is by ensuring that you do not make the other 4 mistakes!

Make sure that you put enough time in your study before the exam to combat these issues to avoid running out of time!

Looking for extra help with HSC Biology?

We pride ourselves on our inspirational HSC Biology coaches and mentors!

We offer tutoring and mentoring for Years K-12 in a variety of subjects, with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at our state of the art campus in Hornsby!

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Give us a ring on 1300 267 888, email us at [email protected] or check us out on Facebook!


Gia-Yen Luong has been an Art of Smart coach for 3 years, coaching a range of subjects including HSC English, Legal Studies, Biology, Chemistry and General Maths. She is in her final year of a mega double degree in Law/Science (Neuroscience). She graduated high school with an ATAR of 99.9 and spends most of her time trying to convince people that it’s wholly possible to get such a mark while still having a normal life during YR 12. She enjoys reading, podcasts and truly believes that she was born to be a blogger.

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