There are one or two words which you should never use in your answers to IGCSE Biology papers.

•  The boys I teach know that amount is a banned word.  If you find yourself writing amount, please cross it out immediately and think which of the following terms is actually the word you should be using:  concentration, volume, mass, number .

[Amount has a specific meaning in science:  it means the number of moles of a substance and seeing as you don’t need to know about the dreaded mole for Biology, it should never be used.]

 (this is a good photo of the dreaded mole)

• Be wary of using the word nutrient without giving an example of what molecule you mean.  A nutrient is food molecule like glucose, amino acid or lipid.  When you are describing the things in soil that are absorbed into the roots and are transported in xylem, it is better to refer to them as minerals.

• Level does not mean the same as concentration.  Don’t write about the level of oxygen when you mean concentration.