Then you need a different guide. The separate sciences are examined on their own specifications, Biology (1BI0) among them, and they carry more biology than Combined Science does.

The one you want is Edexcel GCSE Biology, Higher.

This is the Higher tier guide, offering grades 9-9 to 4-4 of the double award, with an allowed 4-3.

Edexcel sits the same numbered papers at either tier, so Paper 1 and Paper 2 is what you sit whichever tier you are entered for. The tier changes the content and the grades available, not the paper numbers.

Higher carries everything on the Foundation papers plus the higher-tier content, so a student later moved to Foundation has lost nothing.

Paper 1, Biology 1, covers Key Concepts in Biology, Cells and Control, Genetics, Natural Selection and Genetic Modification, Health, Disease and the Development of Medicines. Paper 2, Biology 2, covers Key Concepts in Biology, Plant Structures and Their Functions, Animal Coordination, Control and Homeostasis, Exchange and Transport in Animals, Ecosystems and Material Cycles.

Note that the first topic appears on both papers. The full breakdown is here.

Yes, on the written papers. Edexcel does not assess them separately, so questions about method, apparatus, variables and results appear inside the topics: microscopy, food tests, enzyme rate and pH, osmosis, photosynthesis rate, respiration rate, and field investigations using quadrats and transects.

Those questions are in the guide in the topics they belong to.

Yes, and they sit in the topics they belong to rather than being folded into theory: magnification and scale, surface area to volume, rate calculations from graphs, percentages and percentage change, ratios and probabilities in genetic crosses, and the handling of quadrat and transect data.

By subtopic, never by topic. The largest topic here is 147 questions, which is not a session. It divides into subtopics of 8 to 25 questions, and one of those is twenty minutes.

Any point in Year 10 or Year 11. Both papers are sat at the end of Year 11 and cover the full two years, so no part of the guide is too early.

The usual pattern is a subtopic in the week it is taught, then returns on days 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30.

Yes. This guide handles recall. Past papers handle the six-mark answers, the unfamiliar contexts and finishing the paper in the time. Pearson publishes them free.

A PDF of 968 exam-style questions covering the whole of Edexcel GCSE Combined Science Biology, Higher tier, with the answers printed after each topic.

It is not a textbook. It is the tool for getting taught content into memory and for showing whether it went in.

Two things decide it, and both are on the exam timetable.

The route. Separate sciences, sat as three GCSEs, are Biology 1BI0 and its two siblings. Combined Science (1SC0) is a double award sat as six papers.
The tier. Higher offers grades 9-9 to 4-4 of the double award, with an allowed 4-3.

This guide is Combined Science, 1SC0, Higher tier.

There should be handwritten answers on paper and three passes over the same questions. The method produces two numbers each session, the score on the first closed-book pass and the score on the third. Those two numbers are a better thing to ask for than the number of hours spent.

Rereading and highlighting are the two most common revision activities and Dunlosky and colleagues rated both low utility in their 2013 review of ten techniques. They raise how familiar the material feels without raising the ability to produce it with the book shut.

The method page sets out what to do instead.

£7.00 for the whole specification at that tier. A GCSE biology revision guide is usually £6 to £10 and a full textbook £20 to £30. The three sciences within Combined Science are sold as three guides because chemistry and physics are examined on their own papers.

69 subtopics at roughly twenty minutes each is about 23 hours for a full first pass of the course. Returns afterwards are three to five minutes each.

That is your school’s decision and they will make it on mock performance. What is worth knowing is that Higher offers grades 9-9 to 4-4 of the double award, with an allowed 4-3 and Foundation caps at grade 5-5.

Higher content is a superset of Foundation content, so a student preparing on this guide who is later moved to Foundation has lost nothing.

Past papers, free from Pearson, a calculator, and their own notes for anything not yet taught.