Exam Weighting: About 6–8% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• Ecosystem structure — producers, consumers, decomposers, and the flow of energy through trophic levels.

• Food webs vs food chains — energy transfer efficiency (10% rule) and its ecological implications.

• Biogeochemical cycles — carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water cycles in detail.

• Primary productivity — net and gross primary productivity and what limits it.

• Ecosystem services — provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services.

• Aquatic biomes (freshwater and marine) and terrestrial biomes — characteristics and distribution.

Exam Weighting: About 6–8% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• Biodiversity — genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity and why each matters.

• Evolution, natural selection, and adaptation — the mechanisms that generate biodiversity.

• Species interactions — predation, competition, mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.

• Island biogeography — species richness, area, and immigration-extinction equilibrium.

• Ecosystem stability — keystone species, ecological niches, and resilience.

• Biodiversity hotspots — characteristics, locations, and threats.

Exam Weighting: About 10–12% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• Population ecology — biotic potential, carrying capacity, and logistic vs exponential growth.

• Survivorship curves — Type I, II, and III and what they reveal about a population's ecology.

• Age structure diagrams — reading, interpreting, and drawing inferences about growth trends.

• Population calculations — doubling time (Rule of 70), growth rate, and population size projections.

• Human population dynamics — fertility rates, demographic transition, and population policy.

• Species endangerment — threats, IUCN categories, and conservation strategies.

Exam Weighting: About 10–15% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• Earth's geological systems — plate tectonics, rock cycle, soil formation and composition.

• Soil science — soil horizons, texture, permeability, and soil degradation.

• The atmosphere — layers, composition, and the role of greenhouse gases.

• Atmospheric circulation — Hadley cells, trade winds, jet streams, and their effects on climate.

• The hydrological cycle — evaporation, precipitation, runoff, groundwater, and water scarcity.

• Ocean systems — ocean currents, El Niño/La Niña, and their climate impacts.

Exam Weighting: About 10–15% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• Agriculture — farming types, irrigation methods, the Green Revolution, and its consequences.

• Soil degradation — erosion, salinisation, desertification, and sustainable agricultural practices.

• Forestry — clear-cutting, selective cutting, fire ecology, and sustainable forest management.

• Fishing — overfishing, bycatch, aquaculture, and sustainable fisheries management.

• Urban land use — urban sprawl, smart growth, brownfields, and ecological footprint.

• Mining — surface and subsurface mining, environmental impacts, and remediation.

• Water use and water rights — freshwater scarcity, irrigation, and conservation strategies.

Exam Weighting: About 10–15% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• Fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas; extraction, combustion, and environmental consequences.

• Nuclear energy — fission, nuclear power plants, advantages, risks, and waste management.

• Renewable energy sources — solar (photovoltaic and thermal), wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass.

• Energy efficiency — calculating efficiency, CAFE standards, and conservation measures.

• Energy calculations — fuel efficiency, energy conversion, and per capita energy consumption.

• The transition to renewable energy — policy drivers, economic barriers, and future projections.

Exam Weighting: About 7–10% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• Air pollutants — primary and secondary pollutants; CO, CO₂, SO₂, NOₓ, particulate matter, ground-level ozone.

• Photochemical smog formation — the role of VOCs and NOₓ in urban air quality.

• Acid deposition — formation, pH chemistry, ecological and structural impacts.

• The ozone layer — stratospheric ozone, the role of CFCs, and the Montreal Protocol.

• Indoor air pollution — radon, lead, asbestos, VOCs, and their health effects.

• Clean Air Act — major provisions, amendments, and regulatory effectiveness.

Exam Weighting: About 7–10% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• Water pollution types — point source vs non-point source; thermal, biological, chemical.

• Eutrophication — nutrient loading, algal blooms, hypoxic zones, and dead zones.

• Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) — bioaccumulation and biomagnification in food webs.

• Solid and hazardous waste — municipal solid waste, composting, recycling, and landfill science.

• Superfund sites — CERCLA, contamination, and remediation strategies.

• The Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act — key provisions and effectiveness.

• Noise and light pollution — sources, ecological impacts, and mitigation approaches.

Exam Weighting: About 15–20% of the total exam.

What You’ll Learn:

• The greenhouse effect — natural vs enhanced; the role of CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, and water vapour.

• Climate change evidence — temperature records, ice cores, sea level rise, and ocean acidification.

• Climate change consequences — species range shifts, extreme weather, glacial retreat, and coral bleaching.

• Feedback mechanisms — ice-albedo feedback, methane clathrates, and tipping points.

• Mitigation strategies — carbon capture, international agreements (Paris Agreement, Kyoto Protocol).

• Adaptation strategies — sea walls, drought-resistant crops, early warning systems.

• Ozone depletion vs greenhouse effect — students must distinguish between these two frequently-confused issues.