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LEARNING BIOLOGY

What Is Biology?

Biology comes from a Greek word “bios” which means life. While “-logy” means “study of”, “science of” or “knowledge of”. Hence, according to Live Science:

 “Biology is the study of everything that is, or was once, alive – whether it is a plant, animal or microorganism”.

Biology provides a lot of knowledge about human bodies, animals, plants, and every microorganism in this world. It helps us to understand each other a lot better. With biology we will understand why animals hunt and eat other animals, why volcanic eruption occurs, how the earth and other planets rotates around the sun, how does thunderstorm appear, where do babies come from and a lot more!

Biology is the study of the ecosystem and how it is important to balance it. Every creature in this world, even the tiniest little ant has its function and contribution to our ecosystem. Sometimes, learning Biology does not necessarily comes from a book, it can also come by observing the nature and watching documentaries like National Geographic.

I remember back in primary school watching a documentary on a tadpole evolving into a frog. The documentary provides the changes made from a tiny squirmy wiggling little tadpole to its hands and feet pushing through the body, the tail slowly disappearing, and the formation of a frog’s head finally appeared. I was immediately in awe! It felt like the nature was performing a magic show. The child in me was curious!

The more curious I was, the more I wanted to learn. Hence, more documentaries watched. For all I know, this was probably science. Little did I know, the explanation lies in the biology segment in life.

But only later in high school that I finally learnt biology in depth.

Biology In High School

After PT3, form 4 students are being streamed into different classes. These classes are differentiated within the students’ ability. Students have the alternatives to choose their desired streams in accordance with their PT3 results. The streams available mainly divided into science, technology, literature, art and music.

Although many arguments were voiced out debating on the disadvantages of streaming classes, the advantages out-weight them all. Many debated that the grouping only brings the students further apart between the top and low achiever. However, for years we have seen that ability grouping helps the student expand their interest better and allow them to be sure of what they wanted to pursue in the future.  

Biology in high school is only taught in form 4 and form 5 in the science stream classes. The syllabus varies from human anatomy to chromosomal mutation. Students will start to get the grasp of what is happening inside their body, how nerves system functions and how reproductive system works. It is one of the subjects that is very interesting as it involves around ourselves, the nature as well as the surrounding.

Who Needs To Study Biology?

In Malaysia, Biology is only made compulsory for students in the science stream classes for which they would normally go for science-based career later like medicine, pharmaceutical, dentistry, researcher, marine biologist or even plant botanist.

Of course, learning Biology does not stop in high school. It continues until Form 6 and in the university.

Some even changes career later if they could not find the chemistry with Biology. And no problem with that as with Biology background, a student can change into architectural, teaching, accounting, and many other professions.

Studying Biology

It is true that biology is a complicated subject, but it is also the most interesting one too. I am saying this based on my own experience taking Biology back in high school. My straight A’s in PMR (now PT 3) allowed me to join into the science stream armada with Biology on board. And boy, was I shocked to find the subject to be extremely challenging! I had a hard time adjusting and learning Biology during my high school years.

I was ashamed to admit that my test results for Biology were always a C and I even failed once. Therefore, I was worried sick for SPM.

Lucky enough, the boarding school that I entered had a mentoring program to help low performing students like me. The school identified top scorers and put three to four low performing students under each scorer. During night classes, the scorers tutored us topic by topic and even helped tackling past years’ examination papers. With their tutoring help, I managed to understand the subject clearly and brought home an A1 for Biology in SPM.

This is when I realized that even the most killer subject can be tackled with proper help from a tutor. However, finding a tutor is not an easy task. I was lucky with the school’s free mentoring program, but how about struggling students at home?

How To Find The Best Tutor For Biology?

Looking for the best tutor can be quite a challenge. It is even tedious when there are not many tutors or tuition centres available in your area. Some of the famous A-lister tutors are fully taken up leaving parents with not many choices for their kids. Even when you find a tutor, commuting to the centre will be time consuming, while arranging the transportation even becomes a headache for parents!

Afraid not parents, we have a solution for you. Have you ever heard of Superprof? Superprof is an online and face to face private tutoring website which started in the USA with over 100,000 tutors and hundreds of courses to choose from. And now, Superprof is available in Malaysia!

Currently, Superprof Malaysia have over 200 tutors for Biology with rate as low as RM30 per hour. All these tutors offer free trial on the first class which makes it easier for parents to choose which tutor is the best for their children.

Superprof offers one to one learning as well as online learning. We understand for some parents during this pandemic, they prefer an online learning to minimize the contacts with outside. Online learning allows parents to choose tutors from anywhere in Malaysia as the classes are done online. All they need are a good internet quality and a laptop or tablet