Any biology student study guide worth its name must start by mentioning that the success of a student in any biological endeavor must be motivated by knowledge and not ignorant assumptions. You must reach out to develop yourself, to arm yourself with knowledge and to position yourself in such a place as will help you be somebody in our society today. If that is the objective of your study, that of curving your niche in an already competitive filed, then the challenge of mastering biology will become an honor instead of a bother.

Such organisms as swine flu virus, MRSA, bird flu virus, HIV, E.coli and the like, have wrecked havoc to human health in this age. Species are becoming extinct by the day. Cancer is killing thousands by the minute. Modern studies in biology are thus geared towards working for a solution in these and other challenges. Yet you must not limit your potential to the field of medicine. Your biology course can also venture into such application areas as industries (food processing and manufacture) water conservation, species profiling, brewing etc which are all fully-fledged industries on their own. This ought to be your guiding principle as you pursue any biology course.

Studying biology is most effective when a student employs an outline of the course and then structures all the pertinent subjects with their topics and subtopics. Important here is to help the student gain a comprehensive mastery of all the facets of knowledge in his or her area of specialization and then to interrelate this knowledge into one body. Once such a relation-based study is initiated without sacrificing on deep mastery of individual components, then a practical and innovative understanding accrues.

Such an outline will feature four pertinent areas of biology namely

* Cells and DNA

* Organization and Interaction of living things

* Classification of living things

* Evolution

For each of these, various relevant subjects must be mastered comprehensively as illustrated in the following table.

Cells and DNAOrganization & InteractionClassificationEvolution

Cell TheoryBiological Hierarchy (Multicellular & Unicellular Organisms)Grouping SpeciesThe Origin of Species Types of CellsBiological TiersDomainsDarwin historicalCell StructureOrganisms PropertiesKingdomsDescent with ModificationDNA placement within CellsReductionismNatural SelectionDNA Structure and Function (Genome, Inheritance etc)Structure-function analysis Diversity in Evolution

Ecosystem DynamicsEnergy ConversionRegulatory MechanismsBesides these major areas of biology, the student must also incorporate other areas study to make his or her subject mastery comprehensive. Such areas include the scientific method of enquiry into phenomena. This involves observations of data, inductive reasoning, hypothetical-deductive science, controlled experiments, theorizing etc.