The A Level Biology Maths Skills You MUST Know for 2026

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:01]Why is there so much maths in A A-level biology exam? Is there not just some way to simplify this? It's so hard. I know, I know. You did not sign up for a maths exam. You signed up for A-level biology.

[00:00:15]So, why on earth are there so many questions? Well, there are a lot because 10% of your A-level will be on maths skills, but there are certain maths skills that are repeatedly coming up at the moment and I'm going to be sharing with you the key maths skills that you absolutely should make sure you can do because I'm pretty confident that at least one, if not all, are going to come up on the A-level this year. Oh, and before we dive in, don't forget to hit subscribe because I'm going live every Thursday to help you, plus releasing two videos per week to boost your grade during exam period. And look out for when I actually sit the GCSE maths exam, coming very soon with Tom Rocks Maths.

[00:00:54]Everyone, and welcome to Miss Estridge Biology. I've been a biology teacher since 2009 and I know the question papers and mark schemes inside out. I've also analyzed every single past paper and what I'm going to be focusing on today is the maths. Love it or hate it, let me know in the comments. I personally find the maths the hardest bit of biology. But, what that means is I have learned that it might be the hardest bit for me, but if you can practice, repeatedly practice these skills, you can conquer them, which I actually did last year when I got full marks on all of the maths elements of the A-level biology paper that I did.

[00:01:31]And if you want to know how I managed to do that when I'm someone that struggles at the maths, then scan this QR code here to check out my maths booklets, which covers every single skill you could possibly be asked for AQA A-level biology linked to maths. Going through how to answer it with common questions, with exam-style questions, and the answers. That's how I conquered the maths. Well, for now, let's get into why you're all here. Which maths skills are most likely to come up? So, based on my past paper analysis, skill number one is serial dilutions. These math questions come up more than students might realize because it links to the practical, but also the maths. So, you could get some questions where you're asked to describe how you would do a serial dilution to go from concentration X to concentration Y.

[00:02:19]Or more commonly, the questions I think you really don't like to do with the serial dilutions are these kinds of tables. You know the ones where they give you the concentration they want you to make. They tell you sneakily in the heading what the original concentration was. You then have to say the volume of that concentration that you would move over, plus the volume of distilled water that you dilute in. Only they don't tell you that cuz they leave the heading blank and you've got to work that out.

[00:02:45]So, a dilution series is when you take a solution and you dilute it step by step.

[00:02:50]And here's the key calculation that I use for this. And it's not specified on the spec that you have to use this cuz it is ratio, so you can use simple ratios. But for me, I need some guidelines to help me. So, take a look.

[00:03:03]C1V1 C2V2 where C is the concentration and V is the volume. So, C1 is your starting concentration. C2 is the concentration of the solution you're making. V2 is the final volume of the solution that you are making. And V1 is the volume of the initial concentration that you are transferring over. So, then if you need to know how much water you're going to dilute your V1 in to create your C2, so to work it out you'd need to do V2 equals volume of water added plus V1. Or in other words, rearrange the equation to make the volume of water your subject. So, you'd be doing V2 minus V1. Now, I actually do have a full video on serial dilution.

[00:03:47]So, if you heard that and thought, "I've no idea what you're on about." It's because I said it quite quickly, but check out my serial dilutions video. It goes through it step-by-step, the two different ways that you could be asked maths questions on this. So, one, linked to that table, linked to that equation.

[00:04:02]And number two is this bit here, understanding the fold dilution. So, if you add 1 cm³ of solution to 9 cm³ of water, that's a 1 in 10 dilution. So, you're multiplying the concentration by 1 over 10. And each step multiplies again, but you do have to say mix in between all of those. And finally, don't forget to give units. So, you need to give your unit for volume, unit for concentration, matching whatever you've been given somewhere else in the question or the data table. And I've got questions linked to that in my Maths Skills workbook. Next then, number two is logarithm graphs and calculations.

[00:04:36]This is one that has made a lot of students panic in recent years because it wasn't on the old spec. They didn't really assess it much at all initially.

[00:04:45]And since 2021, it seems to be a big one, a big focus where you either have normal squared graph paper where you're just told that on the Y axis the values are log and you then have to read it off, convert the log number back into the raw value to do some calculation.

[00:05:00]But again, even more recently, you've got questions where it's actually logarithmic graph paper, meaning that the lines don't actually increase by the same amount. And that's because each line is representing 1 * 10 to the whatever power it is, 2 * 10 to whatever the power is, and so on. But again, I've got full video on logs. Definitely check it out if you're not sure because this video, I'm not going through the maths.

[00:05:24]I'm just telling you the maths you need to know. So, the key things then, as I said, is reading off your log scale, knowing what the value actually means when you're reading off a log graph versus just a log scale. And then the other key thing is converting your log value back into the original raw value.

[00:05:40]So, converting between log and actual values, if log 10 equals 3, then that means your X equals 10 to the 3 or 1,000. And if you're given a value of, let's say, 500 and asked to plot it on a log scale, you'll then put on your calculator log 10 500 and your log value is 2.7. So, those are the different ways to convert either into log or back into your actual value. And then, why do I actually even bother using log in the first place? So, we use a log scale if you've got values where there's a huge range. So, it's often things like number of tumor cells or number of bacterial cells because you might start with just five cells, whether it's tumor or bacteria. And then, over a short enough period of time, because the replication is so rapid, you could end up with millions of cells. And if you had to plot that on a graph ranging from five to a million, you're not going to get a y scale that's going to actually show you that distribution. So, you need to convert it to log so you then can see the pattern clearly. And again, you know what I'm going to say. Scan that QR code if you're stuck. I've got this all in the A-level workbook. Plus, I've got the whole YouTube video on it as well.

[00:06:42]Number three is one of my favorite math skills. It's one that I actually didn't really know there was a formula for until more recently, which is embarrassing to say, but it's true. And now I know it, I can smash so many math questions. And so will you if you follow this formula. And it is 2 to the power of n. This is a cell division formula.

[00:07:01]So, when a cell divides by mitosis or it could be DNA replicating in DNA replication or bacteria dividing by binary fission or tumor cells. If you're asked to work out how many cells you have after a certain number of divisions or a certain amount of time, you're told how many divisions you get in that time, you use the formula 2 to the power of n.

[00:07:20]Two because every division, you divide and get double the number of cells you had. To the power of n is the number of divisions there were. So, let's have a look at this example. The number of cells, as we said, equals 2 to the power of n. After one division, 2 to the one, that equals two cells. After three divisions, 2 to 3, eight cells. After 10 divisions, 2 to the 10, we'd have 1,024 cells. But, if you don't start with one cell, and in fact you start with, let's say, 100 cells, all 100 of those cells go through that two to the power of n.

[00:07:53]So, you would have to do two to the power of n multiplied by the number of cells you started with. This has come up multiple times in past papers recently, so I wouldn't be surprised if it did again. So, I could say it could link to binary fission for bacteria, cell division, mitosis, or meiosis, DNA replication, tumors, and so many other things where it's dividing every time it doubles. Bear in mind, meiosis, it would actually be four to the power of n, because every division you get four cells. Bear that in mind, that also came up in a question recently. And then the last one, statistics. You are guaranteed statistics is coming up on A-level biology this year. That's a fact, it comes up every year. And the most common way it's assessed is with P values. So, you need to know what a P value is. And yes, you've guessed it, I've got a whole video on this. I've even got a whole playlist on statistics going through chi-squared, Spearman's rank, T-test, and what a P value means. But, in short, a P value is the probability that a difference or correlation is due to chance. And we have to have a P value of less than 5% or 0.05 to be able to conclude we have a significant difference or correlation. That comes up in your critical analysis or coming to a conclusion every single time. So, make sure you understand P values. But, with statistics, in more recent years, they have actually got you to calculate sections of the statistic as well. So, they've always said that you would never be asked to calculate the entire statistics, it would take too much time on maths in a biology exam. However, they've been giving elements. Last year, you had to do a little bit of Spearman's rank. Chi-squared came up either the year before the year before that. So, I would recommend that you watch my videos that go through how you do the calculation, just in case an element of that came up, so you wouldn't be thrown by it. And potentially this year, maybe we're going to see the return of chi squared linked to inheritance. If you want to know how that works, I've got it right here. So, those are the math skills that I think are most likely, at least one of, to come up. And as I said, statistics, 100% that is coming up.

[00:10:00]You're probably going to get something linked to the idea of two to the power of n. You're going to get maybe log, serial dilutions as well. So, make sure you are really confident and familiar, either by watching the whole range of videos I've got in my math skills playlist, all the ones I pointed out, or you can use my ready-made guide and workbook that has it all for you here.

[00:10:20]So, I hope that gives you a bit of an insight into what could be coming up this year for the maths. If you've got any opinions on what you think's going to come up, drop it in the comments, share it with everyone, and don't forget to hit subscribe so that you don't miss out on my weekly lives and more of these videos. Plus, you do not want to miss me sitting GCSE maths with Tom Rocks Maths.

[00:10:39]But that is it for this episode. I will see you on Wednesday, because I'm now doing two videos a week for exam season.

[00:10:47]Bye, everyone.