Genuinely, if you haven't done any sort of Bio or Human Bio ATAR, stay far away from this unit. If it's required, then be ready to spend a lot of time studying if you want a good grade in the exam. They genuinely crammed all the content from 2 years of ATAR Biology into 12 weeks. The lectures are interesting (as someone who has already studied the subject), but a lot of the lecturers would only really briefly introduce the topics, not really explaining so much as reciting the textbook definitions; the guest lectures were also mostly dry and didn't do much for me. They also don't even touch on the level of detail that is required of you in the exam, and you are expected to do all of the textbook readings for each lecture (2 per week) and take notes on them. It's to the point where you will not retain any of the information you are trying to learn because you will be so overwhelmed with the amount of content you're falling behind on. ~ There were NO practice exams; the most revision given for the end of sem exam was (from memory) 10-15 practice multiple-choice exam questions formatted 'in the style' of what the exam would be (100+ questions on the exam for 4 different modules btw...). My best advice if you're looking to revise is to leave the weekly textbook revision (TBR) modules on the interactive until you're ready to start revising (they aren't marked, and only close after the semester finishes, so you can utilise them whenever you want to, and they are pretty helpful for going through each topic), or go on vaultofthewace for revision materials for ATAR Bio (with the caution that the content is not identical). I'm pretty sure there were revision sessions offered, but I can't say for sure about their quality, as I did not attend :/ ~ As someone who did ATAR biology in high school, I felt like it was just a repeat of everything I had been learning for 2 years, with maybe a couple of topics being new? It was a LOT of content for a first-year core unit IMO, and it should not have been crammed into just 12 weeks. ~ The labs were truly the worst 3 hours of my week (didn't always go that long, but when it did, it was a dragggg). My demonstrator was nice but not particularly involved (don't remember her name, sorry); she could rarely answer any slightly more complicated questions about the content, mostly just reading off of the PowerPoint slides provided to all the demonstrators, and just seemed a bit frazzled at trying to handle a class of like 20+, bless her cotton socks for trying to deal with one student who practically terrorised our class and was the most disruptive I've seen at his grown age. The whole environment of the labs was just so dull and tedious; they rotated between practical and report-based, but even the practical ones were not interesting. One involved cold-shocking flies and legit just waiting for them to wake up so we could check how long it took (which is also what the lab report was on), and others were things like looking at root cells under microscopes. ~ The report in itself was pretty easy to complete; they basically gave you a table of information and an exact template of what you had to write, but for how simple it was, I have heard from others that it was marked relatively harshly (I think my demonstrator was quite good with the marking). ~ Despite all this, I would still say the unit is decently passable (depending on how much work you put in). The post-lab quizzes are easy if you pay attention and are also not invigilated, so if you are desperate to bring your average up, you could probably search up the answers in another tab. They are worth 20% of the unit, but you can only complete them by staying for the entire 3-hour lab and getting a code to complete the quiz; technically could also get it from someone attending since it was the same for all classes (at least for those on at the same time). The other 20% comes from the lab report and the remaining 50% from the exam, which, in all reality, is still multiple choice, so you only need to get up to the level of being able to recognise the correct answer (easier said than done). Again, me being petty, but even that as a concept rubs me the wrong way because I think that you should be getting more out of a unit than just surface-level knowledge and recognition; obviously the content is all there, but most times it felt like they just expected you to teach yourself. The last thing I'll say is that I definitely would not have passed the exam with no prior knowledge of Biology, but it really depends on your time management and level of commitment to studying for the unit. For anyone who read this far and is doing this unit, good luck!

Lab report (worth 20%) really was marked harshly and there was little help for students looking for clarification on the report instructions and what was expected from us - Jennifer Kelley (UC) stopped answering questions on the discussion forums early on in the sem even when so many questions were being posted about the lab report (eventually there was an LMS announcement from Matthew Navarro (other UC) answering SOME questions but it only made things more confusing so more questions were posted on the forum which were again just left unanswered) and the lap report help session was unhelpful because there were too many students, too little time and only one staff member answering nothing more than a question or two from each student who honestly sometimes sounded as lost as we were about the assignment. The unit was also very content heavy and time-consuming to study and absorb properly, especially during modules 2 and 3 for DNA and genetics, but that might just be because I've never studied ATAR biology, people who had studied it before said that a lot (but not all) of this unit was just revision of what they'd learnt back in that class. Weekly textbook readings were annoyingly lengthy but I can somewhat forgive it because the optional quizzes based on those textbook readings were helpful, I recommend doing them even though they don't contribute to your grade and are a bit long. Weekly quizzes based on labs/practicals were the easiest things I've ever done in my life, bless whoever made those things worth a whole 20% of our grade, they take 5 minutes or less to complete and you'll probably get perfect scores for all as long as you pay even the barest minimum of attention in the lab/practical. Exam (60%) was fine, not overly hard or easy - we were tested on the textbook readings, module lectures (not the guest speaker lectures) and labs/practicals. Labs/practicals, module lectures and guest speaker lectures were all interesting except for the module 2 lectures (DNA) from Thomas Bergmann since they were basically just word-for-word recitings of what was in the textbook - Bergmann seemed like a nice person, those lectures just weren't as engaging as the others (sorry, Bergmann, still love ya, rock on).

I didn't mind this unit up until the exam. It gets quite content heavy in the 2nd and 3rd topic (out of 4) so you really need to be keeping up to date. If you did human biology and biology in year 12, you will probably find this unit relatively straightforward. However, if you didn't, it will require a large amount of work weekly to understand each concept. There was a lab report worth 38% of your grade, which wasn't marked too badly, but a lot of the marks were taken off for things we never got taught. As for the exam, the questions for the first module were quite wacky and you had to remember a bunch of random species. The exam wasn't even proof read, and there was a large number of mistakes made throughout the whole paper. You would think they would proof read it? I wouldn't recommend this unit as an elective unless you did those subjects in high school.

Boring. Lab reports were marked harshly. Lots of the feedback they gave was never taught or told to the students. It would of been better if they thoroughly discussed what they wanted in specific detail.

Took this unit as an elective as a third-year student. Unit was quite boring, the lectures were superficial and there was lots of expected and examined reading. Being up to date is very important in this unit as you will fall behind quickly. The lab assessment was pretty straight forward, doing a fly cold chill experiment and writing a report on it. Thankfully, I have lots of experience writing lab reports and so easily got a HD, but it was marked VERY harshly for a first year standard. Probably would recommend avoiding this unit if you can.

This unit wasn't too great in my opinion. This is predominantly because of the structure; having lectures where people present their research, although a fun concept, literally took up half of lecture space (2 lectures a week). So one, one-hour lecture a week was dedicated to all this content, which felt crammed and this was reflected in lecture delivery. It also really sucked that the research-based lectures were examinable. How am I, a lowly first-year student, supposed to remember and correctly answer questions about your very specific field of research? As for the labs, I actually enjoyed them quite a lot, but only because I switched to a better demonstrator. The report was, in all fairness, well-structured and instructions were clear. In terms of getting a good grade (D/HD) it wasn't that hard, especially considering this was an elective. But the structure of this unit needs a LOT more work.

Took this unit as an elective, and I wish I could give this 0 stars because it is honestly one of the worst units offered at UWA by far. The assessment and lab layout was awful and genuinely so boring. The lecturers nearly made everyone in the room fall asleep with how unenthusiastic they were about their OWN subject in every single lecture I went to. I hated how we had to read so many content heavy textbook chapters and complete silly little quizzes (that, mind you, weren't even graded) on them or else get shamed by the unit coordinators for not being up-to-date with them (hated it even more when the exams were so heavily dependant on these textbook chapters rather than the lecture material). The unit coordinators and lab demonstrators are also so unhelpful, lack empathy and are quick to judge/shame you whenever you approach them with something. DO NOT TAKE THIS UNIT if you care about your GPA even the slightest bit.

This unit is hard for a level 1 if you didn't do any bio, human bio in high school. Being my pre-req I had to do it. Not very enjoyable just because it's poorly designed. Take SCIE1106 instead if you can.

As someone who did Y11 and Y12 Bio and Human Bio, I found this to be a decent unit. There are readings and questions assigned each week that can take 2-5 hours depending on how you learn/if you take notes or not. There are 4 modules/topics, and the lecturers in the first 3 modules do not cover all the testable content in their lectures, so I recommend you to do the assigned readings/questions for those first 3 modules at least. The 4 exams throughout the semester weren't too bad, however the first 2 exams were considerably harder than the last 2, so don't get discouraged if you don't do too well on the first 2 exams. The labs are alright and they usually don't run the full 3 hours that the timetable says they would. The final report is a pain to write. Make sure you have confirmed the aim of the experiment and how many hypothesis you need with the unit coordinator or your lab instructor before you start writing.

Good unit, yes labour intensive, but not too difficult. But my biggest complaint is that the lecture slides for the research forums take sometimes a week to upload. And if you take notes like me, then you will suffer having to wait so long for them.