Look inside the AQA GCSE Biology, Foundation tier guide (8461)

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Look inside the AQA GCSE Biology, Foundation tier guide

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AQA · GCSE · 8461
Biology Foundation
Active Recall Guide
1,322 questions
Biology FoundationContents
Contents
7 topics, 91 subtopics
  1. Bioenergetics84
  2. Cell Biology199
  3. Ecology220
  4. Homeostasis and Response182
  5. Infection and Response138
  6. Inheritance, Variation and Evolution282
  7. Organisation217
ii
Cell BiologyQuestions
Cell Biology
Eukaryotes and prokaryotes
  1. What three features are found in both plant and animal cells?
  2. What name is given to cells whose genetic material is enclosed in a nucleus?
  3. Name two groups of organisms whose bodies are built from eukaryotic cells.
  4. Where in a plant or animal cell is the genetic material kept?
  5. What type of cell is a bacterial cell?
  6. How does the size of a bacterial cell compare with the size of a plant or animal cell?
  7. Describe how the main genetic material is arranged in a bacterial cell.
  8. What is a plasmid?
  9. What lies outside the cell membrane of a bacterial cell?
12
Cell BiologyAnswers
Answers
Eukaryotes and prokaryotes
  1. A cell membrane, cytoplasm, and genetic material held inside a nucleus.
  2. Eukaryotic cells.
  3. Plants and animals.
  4. Inside the nucleus, which encloses it.
  5. A prokaryotic cell.
  6. A bacterial cell is much smaller.
  7. It is a single loop of DNA lying free in the cytoplasm, not enclosed in a nucleus.
  8. A small ring of DNA in a bacterial cell, separate from the main DNA loop.
  9. A cell wall surrounding the membrane.
13
EcologyQuestions
Ecology
Competition, interdependence and stable communities
  1. Name four things that plants in a habitat compete with each other for.
  2. Name three things that animals commonly compete with each other for.
  3. Explain why seedlings growing directly under a tall tree usually grow poorly.
  4. Why do plants compete for mineral ions?
  5. Explain why male deer fight each other in the breeding season.
  6. What is meant by interdependence?
  7. Name four things that one species may depend on another species for.
  8. What is a stable community?
  9. A disease kills almost all the bees in an area. Explain the effect on the flowering plants growing there.
34
EcologyAnswers
Answers
Competition, interdependence and stable communities
  1. Light, space, water and mineral ions from the soil.
  2. Food, mates and territory.
  3. The tree's canopy takes most of the light, so the seedlings cannot photosynthesise fast enough to grow.
  4. They need mineral ions such as nitrate from the soil to make the proteins needed for growth.
  5. They are competing for territory and for mates, so the winner fathers more offspring.
  6. Each species in a community depends on other species, so a change in one species affects the others.
  7. Food, shelter, pollination and seed dispersal.
  8. One in which all the species and environmental factors are in balance, so population sizes stay fairly constant.
  9. Far fewer flowers are pollinated, so fewer seeds are produced and the plant populations fall.
35
Inheritance, Variation and EvolutionQuestions
Inheritance, Variation and Evolution
Sexual and asexual reproduction
  1. Which type of cell division produces cells that are genetically identical to one another?
  2. Why are the cells produced by meiosis described as non-identical?
  3. What happens to the male and female gametes during sexual reproduction?
  4. Name the male gamete and the female gamete in animals.
  5. Name the male gamete and the female gamete in flowering plants.
  6. Why does sexual reproduction produce offspring that vary?
  7. In sexual reproduction, where does the genetic information in a fertilised egg come from?
  8. How many parents are needed for asexual reproduction, and do gametes fuse?
  9. What name is given to the genetically identical offspring produced by asexual reproduction?
56
Inheritance, Variation and EvolutionAnswers
Answers
Sexual and asexual reproduction
  1. Mitosis produces genetically identical cells.
  2. Meiosis produces cells that all differ from each other genetically, unlike mitosis, which produces identical copies.
  3. They join together, or fuse, at fertilisation.
  4. The sperm cell is the male gamete and the egg cell is the female gamete.
  5. Pollen is the male gamete and the egg cell is the female gamete.
  6. Genetic information from two parents is mixed, so the offspring are not identical to either parent or to each other.
  7. Half comes from the male gamete and half from the female gamete.
  8. Only one parent is needed and there is no fusion of gametes.
  9. They are called clones.
57
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1,322
questions
91 subtopics

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1,322 questions
Across 91 subtopics, every one of them from specification 8461.
One PDF
Print it, or work from a screen with a notebook beside you.
Answers after, not beside
Covering the answers is a matter of not turning the page, which is what makes the closed-book pass possible.

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

  1. Step 1 · Closed book

    Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.

  2. Step 2 · Open book

    Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.

  3. Step 3 · Closed book again

    Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.

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