Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in Biology · 4BI1 · Free · no account needed
Topic 1 · The nature and variety of living organisms
What makes something alive, and the five kinds of living thing — plus viruses, which are not one. Short, but it supplies the vocabulary every later topic assumes.
Every lesson here ends the same way: learn it, teach it to an AI pupil who asks the awkward question, then defend it against the thinker with the strongest claim on it — free · no account needed.
3 lessons, covering 4 specification statements.
What you need to know — the 4 statements, and where each one is taught
Every statement this topic carries, in the specification's own numbering, with Incandio's restatement of what it asks and the lesson that discharges it. Tick them off against your own copy of the specification: this is the topic's revision checklist, not a summary of it. Incandio is aligned to this specification. It is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's wording — the statement numbers are given so you can check every lesson against your own copy.
| Statement | What it asks | Taught in |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | The eight characteristics shared by all living organisms | What Makes Something Alive |
| 1.2 | Common features of eukaryotic organisms: plants, animals, fungi and protoctists, with named examples | The Four Eukaryote Groups |
| 1.3 | Common features of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria, with named examples | Bacteria, Viruses and Pathogens |
| 1.4 | The term pathogen, and that pathogens may be fungi, bacteria, protoctists or viruses | Bacteria, Viruses and Pathogens |
The lessons
- What Makes Something Alive — The eight processes every living organism carries out — and why a fire, which seems to do several of them, is not alive. (1.1)
- The Four Eukaryote Groups — Plants, animals, fungi and protoctists — how to tell them apart from their features, and the named examples the specification expects. (1.2)
- Bacteria, Viruses and Pathogens — What a prokaryote is, why a virus is not classed as living at all, and what the word pathogen actually covers. (1.3, 1.4)