Look inside the Edexcel GCSE Biology, Foundation tier guide (1BI0)

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Look inside the Edexcel GCSE Biology, Foundation tier guide

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Edexcel · GCSE · 1BI0
Biology Foundation
Active Recall Guide
1,218 questions
Biology FoundationContents
Contents
9 topics, 90 subtopics
  1. Key Concepts in Biology160
  2. Cells and Control112
  3. Genetics142
  4. Natural Selection and Genetic Modification103
  5. Health, Disease and the Development of Medicines183
  6. Plant Structures and Their Functions117
  7. Animal Coordination, Control and Homeostasis121
  8. Exchange and Transport in Animals128
  9. Ecosystems and Material Cycles152
ii
Cells and ControlQuestions
Cells and Control
Mitosis and the cell cycle
  1. What are the two main parts of the cell cycle?
  2. What happens to a cell during interphase?
  3. Name the four stages of mitosis in the order in which they happen.
  4. Describe what happens to the chromosomes and the nucleus during prophase.
  5. Where do the chromosomes move to during metaphase?
  6. Describe what happens during anaphase.
  7. What happens during telophase?
  8. What is cytokinesis?
  9. How many daughter cells are produced when one cell divides by mitosis?
12
Cells and ControlAnswers
Answers
Mitosis and the cell cycle
  1. Interphase, in which the cell grows and copies its DNA, followed by mitosis and cytokinesis, in which the cell divides.
  2. The cell grows and makes more sub-cellular structures such as mitochondria and ribosomes, and each chromosome is copied.
  3. Prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase.
  4. The chromosomes condense so they become visible, and the membrane around the nucleus breaks down.
  5. They line up across the middle of the cell, attached to spindle fibres.
  6. The spindle fibres pull the two copies of each chromosome apart, so one copy moves to each end of the cell.
  7. A new membrane forms around each of the two groups of chromosomes, so the cell now has two nuclei.
  8. The division of the cytoplasm and cell membrane, which finally separates one cell into two.
  9. Two.
13
Natural Selection and Genetic ModificationQuestions
Natural Selection and Genetic Modification
Natural selection and antibiotic resistance
  1. What is meant by natural selection?
  2. Where does the variation that natural selection acts on originally come from?
  3. Explain why only some individuals in a population survive long enough to reproduce.
  4. Explain why an advantageous characteristic becomes more common in a population over time.
  5. A population of mice on dark volcanic rock contains both dark-furred and light-furred individuals. Explain how the population changes over many generations.
  6. Explain how natural selection can eventually give rise to a new species.
  7. Explain why a characteristic gained during an organism's lifetime, such as a scar, cannot be favoured by natural selection.
  8. Name the change in DNA that produces the new alleles on which natural selection acts.
  9. How does a bacterium first come to be resistant to an antibiotic?
34
Natural Selection and Genetic ModificationAnswers
Answers
Natural selection and antibiotic resistance
  1. It is the process in which individuals whose characteristics best suit their environment are most likely to survive, reproduce and pass on the alleles for those characteristics.
  2. Random mutations in DNA, which are then mixed into new combinations by sexual reproduction.
  3. More offspring are produced than the habitat can support, so individuals compete for limited food, water, space and mates.
  4. Individuals with it survive and breed more successfully, so the allele for it is passed to a larger share of each new generation.
  5. Dark mice are better camouflaged from predators, so they survive and breed more often and the allele for dark fur becomes more common.
  6. If two populations become separated and face different conditions, different alleles are selected in each until the two groups can no longer breed together to give fertile offspring.
  7. Only characteristics controlled by alleles carried in the gametes can be passed on to offspring.
  8. A mutation.
  9. A random mutation in its DNA produces an allele that allows it to survive the antibiotic.
35
Animal Coordination, Control and HomeostasisQuestions
Animal Coordination, Control and Homeostasis
Hormones, endocrine glands and homeostasis
  1. What is a hormone?
  2. How does a hormone travel from the gland that makes it to the part of the body it affects?
  3. What is meant by the target organ of a hormone?
  4. Which gland lies just beneath the brain and releases hormones that control several other endocrine glands?
  5. Where in the body is the thyroid gland found, and which hormone does it release?
  6. Which organ lying behind the stomach releases hormones that control blood glucose?
  7. Where are the adrenal glands found?
  8. Which reproductive hormone is released by the testes, and which by the ovaries?
  9. A hormone reaches every organ in the body, yet only some organs respond. Explain why.
56
Animal Coordination, Control and HomeostasisAnswers
Answers
Hormones, endocrine glands and homeostasis
  1. A hormone is a chemical messenger made by an endocrine gland and carried around the body in the blood.
  2. It is released straight into the bloodstream and carried dissolved in the blood plasma.
  3. The target organ is the organ a hormone acts on, because its cells carry receptors that the hormone binds to.
  4. The pituitary gland.
  5. It is found in the neck, and it releases thyroxine.
  6. The pancreas.
  7. There is one adrenal gland sitting on top of each kidney.
  8. The testes release testosterone and the ovaries release oestrogen and progesterone.
  9. Only the cells of the target organ have the specific receptor that the hormone can bind to.
57
Keep going
1,218
questions
90 subtopics

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1,218 questions
Across 90 subtopics, every one of them from specification 1BI0.
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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Edexcel GCSE Biology, Foundation tier Active Recall Guide

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