I'm thinking of:

CHEM 1A03
CHEM 1AA3
BIO 1A03
BIO 1M03


To the survivors: Are there any steps you recommend taking before starting these?

Any readings, or any practices, or do they help guide you along as you go?


What if you weren't as intensively prepared in high school for Biology?
What would you recommend then?

I suppose, in one thought, my question really is:

How much of your previous knowledge are you required to rely on and to what extent? (I.e. Let's take cellular respiration ...how much are you required to recollect? Is there any review? Is there any review I can/should do beforehand?)

I didn't do any reviews or learned anything new before my classes. You can do well in all the courses if you just have confidence and determination.

I thought I was overprepared in chemistry in highschool, so I'm not going to say much about it. The only thing I would like to say is don't dismiss it just because you are doing well in the course. I was doing VERY well after the first midterm and thought to myself, "Oh, this is so easy I already learned most of it including the labs." And I probably had rights to say it at the time because I was pretty much acing the course. But then I decided not to pay as much attention to it and before I knew it I did really bad on the second midterm. Like a 30% drop. Luckily they are lenient and had the "If you do better on your exam than on one of your midterms it'll count for an exam and a midterm." So yeah, don't even put down your guard!

As for bio, I thought I wasn't prepared that well in highschool. Not sure if we covered cellular respiration though. All I remember right now from biology is human evolution and Darwin related information (first term) and mitosis, meiosis, and DNA stuff (second term). You may have seen the LAC operon and TRYP operon in grade 11 or 12, I remember brushing very briefly on the material back in highschool, but you do go over it again in university so no worries there.

well for chem 1a03 you need to know moles and a few things but they will assign questions as "assumed knowledge". if you've done gr 12, you would be fine as long as you do the assigned work. Chem 1aa3 is based on 1a03 so it doesn't start from scratch and i would say the bios all start from scratch. I don't recall doing anything about cellular respiration in first year bio (lol we spent half a semester on it in gr 12). I guess you could review but it wouldn't be necessary. There is meiosis/mitosis but i learned that in university and never understood it from gr 9.

I found that Bios all started off assuming you had no knowledge apart from like grade 10 science, if even that. They went over everything like it was being taught for the first time.
As for chem, at the beginning of the year we had 5 chapters which were "Assumed Knowledge" but they were quite basic, maybe up to grade 11 Chem such as PV=nRT (the assumed gas law) and things like that.

Honestly, I didn't prepare at all for these courses beforehand and ended up with decent-to-really good marks in all 4 courses. As long as you go to class, do the readings and such you'll be just fine.
I found for Bio if you do the readings before the lecture I got a lot out of it, but for Chem I found it was really confusing and the professor would explain concepts better so I did the readings right after going to class (like literally the few hours following class) so things were still fresh in my mind and sticking.

Our biology was pretty difficult in highschool, but the material that we learned & spent a lot of time on wasn't covered as much (no cell respiration, Krebs Cycle and all that which we extensively covered).
If you're feeling keen, and you can get a hold of your old bio text book I'd recommend going over genetics, evolution (Darwin, Altruism, briefly the stages that humans have gone through to evolve ie. Austrolapiticus [sorry about terrible spelling]) and cell division (meiosis & mitosis).
I don't recommend buying the textbook from Mac as much (unless you can borrow it) because editions change and you don't want to be left with a book that isn't useful anymore and have to spend AN EXTRA 70-100$ + on a textbook.

Good Luck!

Also, don't forget about the Professors Office Hours! If you don't understand something then you should definitively go talk to the professors. They set up office hours to help you!

As long as you've done grade 12 biology you should be fine. We don't cover cellular respiration in first year bio extensively (unless the course has changed since then). I didn't bother reviewing, but i found high school classes more difficult than university ones. Pretty much everything you need to know is covered in lectures or in the textbook.

As for chemistry, I can recommend doing as many problems as you can from the textbook. If you have a solid chemistry background you should do fine as long as you're willing to put in the work.

I honestly didn't have a solid chemistry background. I did not very much in highschool, (the bare minimum) and got away with it. My chemistry teacher in highschool guited me into writing the Chem AP exam and I ended up getting a 2 (I think that's a failing grade for AP exams) and I tried to practice a bit before the exam (possibly more than I did for highschool tests) , but I DID work in Univeristy. I did textbook questions, went to tutorials, read along with class etc etc. and actually did really well, as long as you do what you're expected you'll do just fine.

Even though you have plenty of helpful replies here, I'd like to give my two cents as well.

I just had Chem 1A03 last year, just a warning: the first SIX chapters (excluding chapter 5) of the textbook are assumed knowledge. I'm telling you, I did very well in grade 12 Chemistry (highest mark in my class) but wow those first chapters took me by surprise (and I know many other first years felt the same way) in fact we complained the entire year to the Prof about it and how we wish we knew before hand to study those chapters (otherwise you'll fall behind already in the first week). I strongly recommend reviewing your entire grade 12 year before the class starts (except orgo (which is in Chem 1AA3) and equilibrium which was the last unit last year so I didn't worry about that til later in the term).

I found Chem 1AA3 to be easier that Chem 1A03, I got a better mark too. However, like before I strongly recommend reviewing your grade 12 organic chemistry before hand.

For Bio 1M03, I was way over prepared for that class. In my grade 12 bio, we didn't even do evolution except me and my friend who had chose to do a project on it so I was waaay overprepared. That class was so easy, don't even worry about.

Didn't take Bio 1A03 but I hope that helps.