Product Description

This edition of the A-Level textbook is designed to support students throughout their Advanced Biology studies. The volume contains: fully revised and updated chapters to reflect both specification changes and scientific advances; a completely new section on plant biology and a new chapter on biotechnology; feature boxes containing cutting edge applications of biology; key skills assignments at the end of each chapter; extension material to challenge the most able students; and examination questions from all of the major awarding bodies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28481 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 720 pages

Synopsis
This edition of the A-Level textbook is designed to support students throughout their Advanced Biology studies. The volume contains: fully revised and updated chapters to reflect both specification changes and scientific advances; a completely new section on plant biology and a new chapter on biotechnology; feature boxes containing cutting edge applications of biology; key skills assignments at the end of each chapter; extension material to challenge the most able students; and examination questions from all of the major awarding bodies.

About the Author
Mike Boyle is a lecturer in a Sixth Form College in Cheshire and a widley published Biology author Kath Senior is a professional Science writer and editor

Customer Reviews

Excellent for A level!
This textbook gives you a really good overview of all units required for various biology a-level courses. The presentation is great with colour images on every page. Highly recommended.

Easy to digest, pretty pictures, diagrams; not much else.
I bought this book when i chanced upon it at my local Waterstones. It has lots of illustrations, colour photographs, and simple diagrams - but in terms of the detail and depth of information contained in the text it's quite lacking. I would recommend this book to those who struggle with new concepts, or horrible complex areas of the syllabus, such as respiration and photosynthesis; the book explains these areas in a simple straightforward manner, without too much biological jargon or useless information. The page layout is very clear and easy-to-follow, with blocks of text sectioned off under brightly coloured headers. On the other hand, this book just doesn't go into enough scientific detail for my liking. Many of the units and concepts covered lack the fine detail that would be needed to get an A grade. I have even spotted a mistake in the text (of the 2nd, and latest, Edition) - in the unit covering meiosis it says that during Early Prophase I the /centromeres/ move to opposite poles, when it should say that the micro-tubule organising centres (aka centrioles) move to opposite poles. Another annoying thing is that although they've wrongly mentioned the centromeres in their description of meiosis I, they also fail to mention the behaviour or function of the centromeres at all anywhere else in the unit - eg. under 'Metaphase I' they fail to mention that the centromeres do not replicate, for which reason the sister chromatids remain as a single unit and aren’t separated in the proceeding Anaphase. Furthermore, under 'Metaphase II' they don't mention at all that the centromeres divide, thus allowing each sister chromatid to form a daughter chromosome in the each of the gametes made - they simply say that each chromatid migrates to opposite poles, without saying how or why. The most annoying thing however, is that they do not provide answers to the past examination questions that are at the end of each chapter - and the CD-Rom which supposedly has those answers is apparently supplied by neither any of the major book retailers nor Collins themselves! If you want an in-depth A-grade book then i'd recommend 'Advanced Biology' by Oxford University Press - it's more detailed, has better exam questions (to which answers are provided in the back of the book!), and it also costs less!

biology
this book is really great and makes complex matters really simple. It uses diagrams to explain things and has questions and the end of each section that you can test yourself with