The six excessive content modules relate to cells and organelles, key biochemical processes, genetics, plant and animal anatomy, key physiological systems, and adaptation and disease, all delivered in pre-recorded videos. Practicals and workshops are so massive (100+ students) that they are very unproductive as teachers can't adequately address people's concerns. The group assignment is frustrating if your teammates don't chip in. Online quizzes assess lecture content and practicals, but answers were withheld, making improvement very difficult. Additionally, practice questions were scarce and help sessions only occurred during the teaching period. The answers to the singular practice exam were only released in the face of immense student discontent. The exam was still time-pressured and difficult, but you are allowed to review it. Unfortunately, the teaching staff seem not equipped or not willing to improve the subject; it continues to needlessly dishearten first-year students, who deserve better.

Overall, I think this subject would definitely have been better if the lectures were in person, like they are for every other non-bio science subject I have done this year. I agree with previous reviews that the coordinating teaching staff were passive aggressive and seemed completely uninterested in helping us with resources, and I absolutely hated that they refused to give us any kind of specific feedback for the progress and practical quizzes. I think due to the feedback everyone gave this may change in the future. However, the content itself, though largely a review of high school Biology (I did the NSW HSC) was interesting and gave a good amount of depth, and the final exam was largely a good assessment of what we had learnt. The workshops and practicals, though covering interesting content, were awful. I think this was mainly due to the classes being so big (100+ students) that no one felt comfortable to contribute when the presenter asked questions, which contributed to us never seeming to get through content at a reasonable pace, making these 3hr classes feel insanely long. Don't do this subject if it's not a prerequisite for your major, though pretty much anything biology related requires it, so good luck, and I hope they change things for you!

AWFUL subject, if I could give this 0 stars, I would. Teaching staff are negligent and passive-aggressive, the subject coordinator gets angry if you ask for help or resources. Worst subject in uni, do not do it if you want to preserve your sanity. For those majoring in bio - good luck, you will need it.

The teaching staff barely provided any resources through out the semester, it made it very difficult studying for the exam, and for the progress tests. Their was also a few questions on the exam which weren't covered in the lectures and was assumed knowledge from VCE, it would had been great if they actually specified what we had to know from VCE biology units 1-4.

DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU DO NOT HAVE TO

pre recorded lectures dont give us any practice questions

A really bad subject and please only take it if it is a pre-requisite. I do not agree with some of the reviews that this is an 'easy' subject. I did very well in VCE biology and much of the content linked back to what was taught then, however, the main issue is how poorly coordinated this subject was. You do not get answers for quizzes you have done and when I raised this with the coordinator, she said that we did not need the answers and we can just go over the content. In-person did not make this subject better and I agree with most of the previous years' experiences and not the ones that were given in my year. The only positive thing about this subject was the effort the demonstrator of the workshop gave (Luke). I literally only learnt well from him and I would have increased my rating because of him, however the bad outweighs the good. The worst subject and I really wished that I had good things to say since it seems the rest of my cohort had a good experience.

I found the content of this subject to be a little bit boring and tedious at times. The quality of the lectures is varied. However, the offline practical and workshop classes were really well run. Most staff are also nice and will help you if you are confused. Getting an H1 in this subject is easy as long as you properly understand all the concepts taught and prepare a detailed set of notes for the exam.

Grade: H1 (89). Don’t let these bad reviews put you off!!! A lot of previous reviews had bad experiences with the subject's delivery being entirely online in the past. This subject has some really interesting content and fun pracs that both I and many others loved. All forms of assessment are incredibly fair and very doable. The group assignment was fun and easy to do well in as long as you have good communication. The practical quizzes were where most people lost marks (make sure to note down everything your practical demonstrator eludes to. Very likely it will be on the quiz). The exam was 50% multi choice which was incredibly breezy and 50% short answer which isn’t difficult but just very time constrained (I skipped the entire section on genetics). Overall, a very doable subject that can yield H1’s with decent effort.

It was a good subject! I found it to be extremely well-run, everything was to schedule and the staff knew exactly what they were doing. There is quite a lot of content (three lectures and a prac/workshop per week), but it was mostly knowledge learnt in VCE. In fact, you could probably pass the subject on VCE knowledge alone ahahah. The practicals were pretty chill and if you sit around the same people every time, it's a great place to make friends since many of the activities required groups. There was an incident that occurred in one of the pracs during the semester and I felt that we were really supported and cared for by the biology team, which I was really grateful for. The lectures were separated into two-week-long content blocks and there would be two lecturers during each block. Thus, there was obviously a large variety in the quality of lectures depending on the lecturer but most of them were decent. The group project was pretty chill and they explained everything very well to us. The exam was good, both multiple choice and short answer were straightforward and reasonable in my opinion. I managed an H1. Overall, it was good. The only setbacks would really be the large amount of content, the lack of practice exams (they only give you one) and the occasional bad lecturer. Tips: stay on top of your lectures, you don't need to do the readings (unless you want to), you also don't need to do the little activity questions during the lectures (unless you want to), take lots of notes.