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Questions on first year biology


Guest joonboy

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Guest joonboy

Hi, I'm going to be a first year U of T student this fall and I had some questions on the biology course.(BIO150Y1 at U of T--is this course going to fulfill the requirement of the med schools?)

 

What do you do for the lab section? And Approximately how many lab reports do you have to write and are they hard to get good marks on and stressful?

 

Would it be easier for me to get good marks if I take first year biology course in the summer? I thought there would be less labs and maybe easier??

 

Finally, when do we have a summer school? Is it from July to August?

 

Many thanks in advance!!!:D

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Guest wab8611

hey.. i also will be starting first yr at uoft in the fall.. first from what i heard (mainly from my gf who just finished first year) bio labs are pretty easy. but the lectures seem to be pretty intense. mainy because of the size of the class 1300+.

 

anyways hope to see you in the fall

 

 

wab8611

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Guest joonboy

Hey there wab8611!

 

I just checked anti-calendar and the enrolment for the first year bio is 2000+ per class (there are two classes).

 

But I'm not sure if this course can be used to fulfill the life science requirement of med schools. And also how hard it will be.

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Guest Kirsteen

Hi there,

 

Generally, BIO150Y will fulfill the biology requirement of Canadian medical schools. It's a broad-based biology course, i.e., covering all aspects of the subject from evolution to botany and so doing well requires a decent bit of knowledge on a large number of subjects within biology.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

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I'm pretty sure the course will fulfill the requirement. If not, you will likely take BIO250Y and that will definitely get the job done.

 

In the labs, you do various experiments. You'll be buying a manual that will outline EVERYTHING for you, so don't worry about the details yet.

 

I don't recall ever writing a lab report in BIO150, mainly because they do it for you (in the manual I mentioned above), while all you have to do it fill-in-the-blanks.

 

I don't believe it's too difficult to get a good mark. I think they realize that lab reports can be marked very subjectively, so they tend to be rather generous. Just work hard and come prepared and I don't those labs should be any problem.

 

I wouldn't base my decision on taking this course in the summer on the labs. Those should be the least of your worries.

 

Summer school is May to August (a full year course, at least)/

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Guest Steve U of T

It's been a few years since I've taken the course, but BIO150 focused on evolution, ecology, and behaviour. It had little relevance to medicine, but I'm fairly sure it counts as a life science/biology credit for medical schools. Don't worry about the labs, they're intended to boost your mark, as long as you show up and do your work. I seem to remember a quiz at the start of class, and then a fill-in-the-blanks report handed in at the end, and at least my TA was a pretty easy marker. While the test averages were around 65%, I think the average lab mark was around 80% (across all sections, not just mine). With regards to class size, I seriously doubt there are 2 sections of 2000 students each. The class generally does have 2 sections, although I suspect there are 2000 students between the two (probably 1500 in the con hall section, 500 in the other). There's no way the class size doubled since a few years ago.

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Guest joonboy

Thanks everybody for your replies!

 

I have one more question though.

Would taking biology over the summer be easier than taking it in regular school year?

 

Thanks a lot!!

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Guest PanjabiMD

After looking through those tests and the answer key, I found that some of the questions had 2 correct answers. I just want to know if that is common in University, or is it just UofT Biology that allows for 2 correct answers for multiple choice.

Thanks,

 

PMD

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