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 Best book to use for OCR a2 biology July 10, 2007
This book provides a very clear set of notes on central concepts as compared to the Biology 2 book. Every chapter in this book is a double spead, accompanied with diagrams. Information is mainly in bullet point format, which makes revision easier. At the end of certain chapters, it has a summary test, which contains answers. This book only focuses on the core stuff, whereas biology 2 contains lots of unecessary information. At the very end of book, it has past exam questions taken directly from the past papers, not made up. This book does a fantastic job on homeostasis, respiration and mitosis and cell division.
the only criticism i would point out is like biology 2, it does not have a chapter on unifying cocepts, and it does not provide answers on the exam questions. the glossary also lacks compared to biology 2, and there are times when they do not make a certain key word bold, so people may miss it.
 Great Buy April 1, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is excellent and is a must-buy for the more able (A-B standard) biologists whose schools/colleges only give them the OCR biology 2. It is more detailed and comprehensive.
The only criticism is that it is called "Essential A2 Biology for OCR" and yet it DOESN'T cover the whole of the OCR A2 syllabus - only one module! I understand that it won't have a module 5 section, because this module has 5 options and it would be too much to write for each one.
However, it should have a section at the end on module 6! just a synoptic chapter on what it's about, topic overlaps, how to answer the questions, practice questions etc.
But it is still worth buying for the Central Concepts module, especially if you want to get an A!
Definate good buy March 25, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is excellent, it only corresponds to the central concepts module so don't expect to have any content on the optional modules. But the book is excellent, much much much better than Biology 2 book that my college expected us to use. I would suggest this is used as an alternative to Biology 2, rather than just as a revision guide
Fantastic! February 2, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I used this book instead of the main biology textbook. This one is much easier to read, very colourful and contains very useful pictures. It's not a revision book for those who need simple statements, as it is detailed and mainly paragrapghs. It does contain everything you need to know and is well worth buying!!!
USEFUL January 4, 2005
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book is much more useful than the actual textbook used for the course, which skims over information. I found that this book went in depth, but in a way that you can actually take the information in thanks to the colourful diagrams and double page spread layout. However, the book has no answers for the exam style questions at the back- why? How can you check your progress when there are no answers? Otherwise it is an extremely good resource for anyone doing OCR a level biology- use this, AVOID BIOLOGY 2!
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