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.

Quite labour intensive. 3 hours of readings per week, 2 hours of lectures and 3 hour labs on select weeks. Good aspect is that there is no final exam. Bad part is that 40% of your grade comes from ONE lab report assignment, which is marked relatively harshly. Good unit for people going into broader biology, but the plant biology is nearly useless for any other biomed student.

The worst. They've changed this unit from previous semesters. Tips: ask unit coordinators on what to focus on for the exams. Unless you've had experience writing reports before, read some journals on Journal of Experimental Biology. Make a friend, do this unit with said friend. Unless you have no background in biology, don't even bother touching textbook quizzes. A waste of 2-3 hours and your brain cells. Make detailed research forum notes, because you'll want to maximise your exam scores as much as possible. Keep up with the textbook readings, and try doing this before lectures. They're not a lot and would take 15 minutes to complete. Take the report writing seriously, it's a big chunk of your unit grade. Pay attention during the lab and take notes on what the demonstrator says. Do not leave it to the last minute. Don't bother with the marking past papers practices, they're not useful. Communication is poor in this unit and you will most definitely feel frustrated. Good luck.

not good

Absolute torture of a unit! I tried to explain several times why this is, but instead I will provide a survival guide as to how to do well: read lots of reports on onesearch, learn how to use endnote, talk to your unit coordinators in person as to what they want you to memorise out of each lecture, take full notes on research forums (I mean everything, give yourself 3 hours to do this), read the text book readings as often as possible, take this unit very seriously (very easy to fall behind), ask someone who is doing the unit ahead of you to give you weekly reports and tips of what's going on so you don't make the same mistakes. Good luck. I really hope you make it.