Topics:

Biology Chemistry Physics

● Variation and classification ● Understanding Chemical ● Heating and cooling
● Health reactions ● More on waves (up to,
● Earth and atmosphere and including,
Mechanical waves)

Biology - Variation and Classification

Variation - The preferences of differences between living things of the same species
Intraspecific variation - Variation between species
Interspecific variation - Variation within species
- Inherited variation is from genetic information from the parents
- Examples of Inherited variation:
- Eye colour
- Hair colour
- Skin colour
- lobed/lobeless ears
- Ability to roll your tongue
Environmental Variation - Variations caused by their surroundings
- Examples of Environmental Variation:
- Climate
- Diet
- Accidents
- Culture
- Lifestyle
- Language
- Religion
- Twins inherit the exact same features from their parents, but their environmental
variations may be different
Continuous Variation - Variation that shows a wide range of intermediate values between
two extremes. They can be measured.
- Examples of Continuous Variation:
- Height
- weight
Discontinuous Variation - Differences between individuals in a characteristic that can only be
put into different categories.
- Examples of Discontinuous Variation
- Blood type (A,B,AB,O)
- Eye colour
Classification - Living organisms that are classified into groups depending on their structure
& characteristics.
- 5 Types: animals, plants, fungi, protists, & prokaryotes
- Can be further classified to: phylum, class, order, family, genus, & species
- Phylum sub divides to: Mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, and reptiles
- Mammals can be subdivided into carnivores and primates
- Carnivores can be divided into canidae (dogs) and felidae (cats)
 - Felidae can be subdivided into: acinonyx (cheetah), panthera (lion & tiger), neofelis
(clouded leopard), and felis (domestic cats)
- Panthera can be subdivided into panthera leo (lion), and panthera tigris (tiger)
- Order system of classification: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, then
Species
- When animals are born, they can be born with traits. These traits let them live longer,
and they mate, and the genes get passed down.
- evolution - animals gradually evolve over long times. They adapt and evolve to
predators and living conditions.
- Equation for photosynthesis: water + carbon dioxide = glucose + oxygen (H2O +
CO2 = c6hl2o6 + O2 in chemistry terms)

Biology - Health
- Recreational drugs have serious effects on behaviour & health
- Recreational drugs are often classified as depressants or stimulants
- Some drugs are illegal and others are legal
Drug - A substance that has an effect on the body
- Depressants suppress and slows down messages in the brain and along the nerves
- Stimulants excite/speed up messages in the brain and along the nerves
Medicines are drugs that help people suffering from pain/disease
Recreational drugs are taken by people who enjoy the effects they have on their body
- Illegal drugs are classified from Class A to Class C with Class A being the most
dangerous and serious penalties to Class C being the least dangerous and lightest
penalties.
- Most recreational drugs can be addictive
- Misused drugs could damage the body as bank well as personal & social problems
Depressants
- Short term effects
- Often makes you feel less alert
- Lengthens reaction times
- Slows down messages in the nervous system
- Causes hallucinations
- Long term effects
- Damage to liver, brain, heart
- Solvent abuses → rash around nose, mouth
- Result to harm to people around them
- Loss of memory, concentration
- Increase risks of mental health issues
Stimulants
- Speeds up messages in nervous system
- Makes you feel more alert + shortens reaction time
- Nicotine, tobacco and caffeine are legal stimulants
- Illegal stimulants: Cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamine
- Can cause damage to liver and heart
- Can cause loss of memory and concentration

Smoking
 - Nicotine found in tobacco
- Also found in cigarettes, sometimes e-cigars/vapes
- Causes person to want more
- Increases heart rate
- Narrows blood vessels
- Can lead to heart disease
- Also contains tar and other chemicals
- Tar → cancer of lungs, heart, throat
- Coats inside of lungs + alveoli
- Makes it difficult for gas exchange to happen
- Gas exchange system
- Produces sticky mucus
- Traps dirt and microbes
- Cilia moves mucus out of lungs
- Tar and smoke damages cilia
- Smokers cough to move mucus
- Most likely to get bronchitis
Painkillers - Chemicals that relieve symptoms but doesn’t kill pathogen (e.g. paracetamol,
aspirin)

Chemistry - Understanding Chemical Reactions

Chemical reactions
- Atoms are rearranged during chemical reactions
- No atoms are created/destroyed in a chemical reaction
- Substances that react together = reactants
- Substances that are formed in the reaction = products
- Total mass of reactants = total mass of products
- Mass is conserved in chemical reactions (conservation of mass
- Atoms in a compound are chemically joined together by chemical bonds (force)
- Can only separate its elements w chemical reaction (separation methods do not
work)
- Example of unbalanced chemical equation:
 Cu + O2 → CuO
- Example of balanced chemical equation:
2Cu + O2 → 2CuO

Combustion
Combustion - Another name for burning
- In a combustion reaction: fuel is burned and reacts w oxygen to release energy
- Examples of fuels:
- Petrol
- Natural Gas
- Wood
- Coal
- 3 Things needed for combustion:
1. Fuel
2. Heat
3. Oxygen
- The fire goes out if one of these things are removed
- Fuel releases thermal energy during combustion reactions
- Used to heat homes, power cars and generate electricity
- Examples of combustion equations:
- Combustion of butane = butane + oxygen → carbon dioxide + water
(C₄H₁₀ + O₂ → CO₂ + H₂O)
- Combustion of butane → used in barbeques
- Oxygen will always be one of the reactants + on the left of all combustion equations
- Most combustion reactions produce carbon dioxide and water
Oxidation
Oxidation - When something reacts with oxygen; produces oxide
- Combustion is an example of an oxidation reaction
- Examples of oxidation reactions:
- Carbon dioxide
- Dihydrogen monoxide
Thermal decomposition
Thermal = heat
Decomposition = process of breaking down
Thermal decomposition = A chemical reaction that occurs when a compound is
broken down when heated
- Happens at high temperatures
- Reactants absorb lots of energy before breaking down into products
 - Starting compound = reactant
- Example of an endothermic reaction
- Equation examples:
- copper carbonate → copper oxide + carbon dioxide
(CuCO₃(s) → CuO(s) + CO₂(g))
- magnesium carbonate → magnesium oxide + carbon dioxide
(MgCO₃(s) → MgO(s) + CO₂(g))
Exothermic and Endothermic Reactions
Exothermic reaction → When energy is transferred to the surroundings (hot)
- An example of an exothermic reaction: hand warmers
- They do not always release heat, sometimes light (e.g. glow sticks)
Endothermic reaction → When energy is taken in from the surroundings (cold)
- Absorbs energy from surroundings
- Usually absorbed as heat, making it colder
- Examples of endothermic reactions:
- Photosynthesis
- Thermal decomposition

Chemistry - Earth and atmosphere

←Diagram
- The crust is relatively thin compared to the other layers
- Is also rocky
- Igneous rocks form through the crystallisation of magma
- There is a considerable range of melting temperatures for different compositions of
magma
- Most molten at abt 1200-1500 and all are solid when cooled at about 600
- There are 3 layers of the Earth called the crust, mantle and the inner core.
- Furnace above 1000 can melt rock
- Earth's atmosphere is composed of a mixture of gases (air)
- Air in atmosphere mainly mixture of:
- Nitrogen 78%
- Oxygen 21%
- Argon 0.9%
- Water vapour, carbon dioxide, and other gases 0.1%
- Vater vapour & carbon dioxide caused earth to be very hot (greenhouse effect)
- Earth was covered in volcanoes releasing large amounts of these gases
 Pollutants
- Examples of pollutants:
- Carbon dioxide
- Sulphur dioxide
- Nitrogen dioxide
- Methane
- A pollutant is a substance that has harmful/poisonous effects on the
environment
- Air pollutants have a variety of different sources:
- Volcanoes
- Burning coal
- Cars
- Cattle

Ingenious rocks:
- Formed from magma and pushed up through the crust often out through
volcanoes
- They contain various materials arranged randomly in interlocking crystals
- Large crystals mean that the rock is cooled slowly

Sedimentary rocks:
- These are formed from layers of sedimentary rocks laid down in lakes over
millions of years
- The layers are cemented together by other materials
- Fossils can be forms of sedimentary rocks

Metamorphic Rocks:
- These are a result of heat and pressure acting on the existing rocks over a
long period of time
- They may have really tiny crystals and some have layers

Physics - Heating and Cooling

Temperature is a measure of how hot/cold something is
Energy is a measure associated with changes in temperature/with work (measured in J
(joules))
Internal energy is the energy in store associated with the temperature of an object
- Energy = mass x specific heat capacity x increase in temperature

Thermal Equilibrium - When objects are at the same temperature

- Energy is transferred by:
- Radiation
- Conduction
- Convection

Radiation
 - Objects transfer energy to surroundings by infrared radiation
- The hotter the object the more it emits
- A type of electromagnetic wave
- No particles involved (like vacuum of space)
- Why we feel warmth of sun
Conduction
- When energy is transferred by the vibrating particles in a substance
- Energy transferred from hot region → colder region
- Happens fastest in solids
- Materials that transfer heat easily = conductors
- Metal is an example of a conductor
- Conduction cannot occur if there are no particles
- Opposite of conduction = insulation

Insulation
- Used to reduce unwanted thermal energy
- Transfers & maintains the temperature of an object
- Can keep objects colder/hotter for longer periods
- Air, plastic, wood, and vacuums are examples of insulators
Convection
- When heat is transferred by movement of a heated fluid (e.g. air, water)
- Liquids and gases are fluids
- Particles of fluids can move from one place to another

Physics - More on waves

- Two types of waves: transverse and longitudinal waves
- Waves transfer energy
- Does not transfer matterWords to keep in mind:
- Amplitude
- Longitudinal
- Transverse
- Displacement
- Wavelength
- Equilibrium
- Compression
- Refractions
- Particles
Transverse waves:
They are the longer, more wayvier waves that look like this:

As the diagram shows,

these words are labelled
as written

←
 - Are when the displacement is at a right angle to the direction of the wave
- Light waves, microwaves, x-rays are transverse waves
- Are also:
- Ripples on the surface of water
- Vibrations on guitar strings
- S type earthquakes
- Particles do not move along the wave
- Moves a short distance up and down as wave moves from left to right
- Light travels 300,000,000 m/s (to keep it short, you can say 3 x 10⁸ m/s)
- Transparent means the object is see through & lets light go through
- Opaque means it’s not see through at all and blocks light
- An example of a transparent object is water or glass
- An example of an opaque object is a block of wood or a rock

Longitudinal waves:
They are more close together and they look like this
This is an example of a soundwave:

- Sound waves, ultrasound waves, p type earthquake waves are longitudinal waves
- A wavelength is how long a wave is
- A refraction is the spread out parts of the wave
- A compression is essentially the more compressed parts of a wave
- Refractions occurs when particles are close
- Compressions occurs when particles are far apart
- Displacement is parallel to the direction of the wave
- Sound travels faster in solids than in any other matter.
- Molecules are more packed together, therefore making it easier to transmit vibrations
- In air sound travels 340 m/s
- Sound waves can travel through solids
- Sound waves transfer energy from particle to particle
- Sound waves travel in different speeds in different material
- Sound travels faster in solids but slower in gas.