Hi Jarret! 

To keep things simple, enzyme inhibitors stop or slow natural process by blocking the actions of our enzymes! So if you have a condition in which a process is too active, causing an imbalance in the body’s homeostasis, enzyme inhibitors can be used to stop this process by inhibiting an enzyme involved in driving it. This will counteract the effects and maintain homeostasis. Hope this helped! 

Biology

How do enzyme inhibitors maintain homeostasis in your body?

Hi, Jonathon. Have a couple of options I recommend! 
1. Chromebook - on a budget these are unbeatable. They are portable, have good battery life and are good enough for secondary school. They only really run office/google docs for school work, the internet and then streaming apps. Really easy and simple to use. But if she’s interested in using software such as design, video editing, or basically anything other than documents/ office, this won’t work! 
2. Microsoft vs Mac. 
These are the only other real options. I would say perhaps check what the school uses, as a lot of secondary schools use one or the other and would be easier to transfer files etc if she uses the same company. They both have their advantages. Laptops that run Microsoft tend to be better value for money, but Macs are probably easier to use if she is already familiar with apple products, tend to be better built, have good speakers and are generally more portable with good battery lives. 
Overall really depends on what a) the school use b) what she prefers/ is used to and c) your budget, as macs tend to be far more expensive. 

Hope this helped! 

Career Advice

Looking to get my daughter a laptop for secondary school,does anyone know what operating system I should be looking at?

Wasteful? 
Being wasteful is the action of carelessly using something of some use or value. For example, buying too much food which you cannot eat all of is wasteful behaviour. 
Hope this helps! If you need it explained more simply please message me! 

English

Meaning of the word wastefu?

Hi! You click on their profile first and press contact. Let me know if you need more help. 

History

How can I message a tutor?

Hi Shlon, I’d love to if you are still looking! Message me for a free first lesson! 

Who can teach physics?

Hi Lauren, completely agree that should choose what you really want to do. To add, here’s a list of possible titles that you may be interested in! Should the NHS be privatised? Should patients who’s conditions could be described as “self-inflicted” have to pay for GP appointments? Should a small fee for seeing your GP be introduced? Should human embryos be used more extensively for research? Euthanasia/ abortion? 
I’ve seen many colleagues do ones about a specific disease and what it’s like to live with it, whether more funding is needed for it etc. The list could be endless....

hiya, anything that you find interesting! universities don’t mind what topic you do as long as you can demonstrate why you chose it and what skills you developed from it! 

I did my EPQ on Gene Therapy for Cystic Fibrosis :)

Applying for Medicine

What are interesting an unique topics for EPQ when I want to study medicine?

Hi Chris. 

This is a really important question! I know so many people at UCL who just applied because it’s in London and is known to be a good uni, but it’s about so much more than that! First of all, I’d recommend making a list of unis you want to visit based of things that are important to you such as location, campus/city, what the university specialises in (eg. Particular research speciality, sports, whatever you’re interested in!), teaching style etc. Then I would book to go to open days, and get a feel for the place! Then after that, I’d tailor your application to you. So for example, UCL are really keen on having students who have extra curricular interests, so maybe if you’re really good at a sport and mention it on your PS, then you might apply there. Also you should apply to your academic strengths, so if you did well or lower than what you wanted  in either the BMAT/UKCAT, then bade your application on. Apart from that, I would suggest just being open minded, visit as many as possible, and enjoy the process! Going to uni is one of the most exciting times of your life! If you need any help with the application process, just message me! Thanks, Ben. 

Undergraduate

How do I decide what unis to apply to for med?

Hey Chris! I think I could help! Message me for a free trial lesson! Thanks 

Maths

Any tutors can help me get into med school?

I would definitely recommend studying the relevant vocab, expressions, and grammar lessons within the topics of your speaking exam. Try to make a sentence (and practice out loud) for each vocab word included in the section. I would also read out loud all the lessons included in the section, so that you are comfortable and familiar with the topics. If there are any dialogues included in your exam topics, definitely practice those. Te deseo mucha suerte.

Conjugation gender and pronunciation are the three main things they test you on so try and study those three first 

PRONUNCIATION 
Practice your phonetics to improve confidence when speaking and clarity of your pronunciation. They will want to hear your pronunciation.

CONJUGATION 
Make sure you understand verbal tenses and use them accordingly. They usually ask plenty of questions in exams, to make sure your conjugation is on top. 

GENDER
Also, practice the gender of certain nouns and pronouns. You should be able to identify when a word is feminine and masculine (one of the biggest challenges in Spanish I’d say).



Try to ensure you're familiar with your topic(s) and structure it as clearly as you can. Revising tenses is always a good idea too. If you pic 3 to 4 main points for your topic you can go into depth with and then focus on getting it more and more coherent and more and more fluid, you can begin to add in little extras. Anecdotes will show off your use of past tenses and you can always use things like "en el futuro espero que/ creo que/ pienso que" to get the chance to use the subjunctive, conditional and immediate and simple future tenses :)
Hope this helps 

Using mobile apps that quiz you on language is really useful

It’s a good idea to make sure you’re familiar with the topics covered in your exam that could come up. Revise some key vocab that relates to each topic and have some key verbs stored in your memory for each one. To impress an examiner, always make sure you’re confident on your tenses. For some extra marks and to show the examiner you really know your stuff, try to use some complex structures and phrases (for example Creo que- I think that, Sí pudiera- if I could). Hope this helps! 

I would recommend making sure you use a variety of tenses because this will shoe your versatility and get you the higher marks. You can put together some sentences already and have those memorised. If it is a specific topic, then make a list of the key vocab associated with that topic and have those memorised. 

There are different ways to answer a question. You can ask them to repeat it if you don’t understand it. You can use sentence starters, for eg. pues, se puede, es importante, etc.



Hi, a lot of great advice has already been given!
I'd just like to add that you will most likely have a question testing each tense, so be prepared with answers that you can say in multiple tenses! Apart from that, I would advice you learn a couple of colloquial phrases! These are amazing if your answer was generally quite strong, and just want to put the icing on the cake to really aim for that high grade. If you need any help please just message me!

Hey Fatima! For a speaking exam, whatever language it is - it’s important to understand the structure. What questions do they ask? If there is not a set bank of questions it’s a little more difficult... but still getting the framework for how the exam will take place is important. 

Next, assuming you have a set question bank you should write some answers in English, making sure you use interesting sentence structures and vocabulary - so the examiner can see your range of knowledge. Translate the questions from English to Spanish, either with the help of just your books or also with the help of Google first, then make sure to check you correct all the mistakes Google will inevitably make ;) bring it to a tutor like myself and let’s get cracking!

So assuming you’re sitting AQA Spanish, there are 3 sections, first your roleplay, so before you go into the room with your teacher you will be handed a piece of paper. On the paper will be 5 bullet points and a scenario. For example it could be that you are in a hotel and you are talking to a receptionist. Three of the bullet points will be notes on what to say in Spanish, like where you can eat or how many people are in a room that sort of thing. Then one of the bullet points will be an exclamation mark and that means you’ll be asked an unknown question. This part can be scary because you have no idea what they’ll ask but just try to simplify it in your head. For example they could just ask how long are you staying and then you just say 2 weeks, your teacher will try their best to say it slowly and clearly. The last bullet point is a question mark and all this means is you have to ask the teacher a question. This could be anything relevant to the conversation. Make sure you use your preparation time wisely, you are allowed to bring in the piece of paper in with notes on, so you can write your sentences on the paper and just read it out. 

After the roleplay you have the photo card, you also must make notes on this during your preparation time. It is just a picture and 3 questions. The picture could be anything but the easy thing about this question is you only need to form a small sentence like, there are people. The next two questions are unpredictable but will be relevant to the picture for example, the picture could be of a wedding and the question could be do you ever want to get married in the future. Your teacher will also ask you 2 other questions which you can’t plan for. 

Finally the 3rd part of the exam is the conversation, which in my opinion is the best bit! The conversation will be based on one theme you’ve chosen and one that you haven’t. But this one is easier because you prepare them before hand so you already know your answers off by heart! You will also have to ask your teacher one question but they will prepare you for this. 

Overall, the speaking exam is difficult and can be stressful but once you’ve got the gist of how it all works it will be fine. 

Depending in the exam (gcse, del, ALevels) they would ask more difficult questions. Usually, there is general conversation, a photo card to describe and a role play. 

For a Spanish speaking test - from what I recall doing in GCSEs - the teacher should be able to provide you with a topic that the test would be focused on e.g. holidays. So you could think of questions beforehand that they may consider asking you e.g. what was your favourite place to visit and why? You could come up with readymade responses and ensure to include the different tenses, especially future tenses (I would like to....). Just keep practising and you could watch films/videos that are in Spanish that could possibly help you with the accent and pronunciation.  

Hope these suggestions help you! 

If this is GCSE you’ll be asked questions from you’re prepared conversational questions and it’ll tend to be quite structured one after the other in the target language. The best way to prepare for this is to learn long(ish) answers for each of the questions and try to use complex grammatical structures to show you know how to use them- although you do need to do this at least three times I think over the whole set of exams. 

For a speaking exam. I found the best way way was to practice as much as you can. At my old school we were sent video tapes of someone asking the questions, so we could practice at home. You can find these online if you search for your exam board.
It’s great as it also builds up your confidence, as nerves can really get the best of you in those exams. 
Also you’ll find by doing this, the questions become more and more similar, and you never know a question you revised may come up.

well it depends on how long you have been doing spanish it is different in most schools but the thing is that they won’t ask something you don’t know 

How to prepare for a Spanish speaking exam? What do they ask and how to answer? Please respon?

You can ask the tutor to send the money back by messaging them, and if they don’t, you can report them! Hope this helps! 

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Hey! Well being from the UK I’m certainly not qualified to answer specifically. But for me, normally I like to choose the topic, and layout the general points I want to talk about. Then I expand them slowly with evidence or examples for each. Then I try to find things that link between them and link them together. I find starting this way makes the essay much more clear, concise and reads a lot better. If you’d like some specific help, let me know! 

How should I go about writing my college essay

Hi Lina. 
This is quite a complex question to answer for a quick response like this, but is quite simple when you get your head around it! 
So firstly, a synapse is a connection between 2 neurones or nerves, between a muscle and a nerve, or between a nerve and the brain. They are a physical space between these things, and the signal down the nerves, known as an Action Potential, is carried on through this physical space/gaps by chemicals, known as Neurotransmitters. 
The neurotransmitters are released from the first neurone, diffuse across the synapse gap, and bind a receptor. These receptor trigger the signal to continue down the next nerve/muscle/brain tissue. To understand your question, you have to understand how an Action Potential is fired down a nerve in the first place. A normal neurone has a resting potential of -70mV. This means that overall, there is a relatively negative charge in the cell, and a positive one outside the cell. When an AP starts, a positive charge flows into the neurone. This triggers an action potential in the next segment, so that it is positively charged. This happens by the positively charged signal reaching the new section of neurone, causing its membrane potential to become positive, triggering Voltage Gated Sodium channels to open in This region. Complicated I know! It is not as complex as it sounds. These are channels that let sodium in, but they are only opened between membrane potential slightly more positive than -70mV and +30mV. Na+ flows in, causing the membrane voltage to increase as it is positively charged, to +30mV, and then the Na+ channels close so that no more + ions flow in. Now when this point is reached, another voltage gated channel is opened at +30mV. This is the potassium channel. Potassium is naturally found in the nerve, and is positively charged. So to balance charges, the potassium diffuse out of the nerve, to reduce charge in the neurone and make it negative again. By this point the signal has already started triggering action potentials further down. The reason the action potential cannot flow the other way is that these channels are completely blocked, or inactivated for a certain amount of time after they have been activated. They become active once the action potential has already travelled too far down the nerve to trigger that segment again. This is the refractory period. The same principal applies for a synapse. As the neurotransmitter is released from the first nerve to the second, the section a the tip of the first nerve is in the “refractory period”. This means that it’s voltage gated sodium channels are blocked, and so if the neurotransmitter binds here, the channels will not be open. 
Another more obvious reason is that the neurotransmitter receptors are only found on the second neurone/muscle/brain cells. I just wanted to clear up why an AP is unidirectional first! I hope this clears some things up. Don’t worry if you’re confused, I would certainly recommend looking at diagrams in a textbook/in Google! Please message me if you’re still confused I think I could teach in a far more clear way via diagrams and messages!!! Thanks, Ben 

Why is transmission at chemical synapses unidirectional?

Hi!

Well I am studying medicine because during college/sixth form I shadowed doctors at a GP surgery, hospital and a care home. I loved hearing the patient's stories, and was inspired by the doctors who have a huge impact on their patient's lives. This made me realise I would like the practical aspects of the career. I like science, specifically biology and researched the course topics which all sounded interesting, so I knew I would enjoy the learning aspect of it also. I also did work experience in pharmacies, and from that I knew that I specifically wanted to do medicine, and not another related course.
Some of the most important advice I can give is to really make sure medicine is for you. If you think for one second it is going to be easy, then you're in for a long ride! You need to be really passionate and committed to it. I know it's hard to chose what you want to do for the rest of your life at such a young age, but researching it early and getting experience in medicine and any other professions you think you may be interested in will make the decision easier. 

Hope this helps! Thanks, Ben

Why did you choose to study medicine above everything else and how did you know it was for you?

Good question!

To start, a stem cell is a cell with the ability to self-renew indefinitely. This means they can divide themselves unlimited amounts of times. This is unlike other normal cells which have a limited number of cell divisions. 

Stem cells are important to maintain ALL of our cell populations. For example, at the bottom of our skin's outer layer, the epidermis, are a one cell thick layer of skin stem cells. These divide, remain in their positions on the bottom whilst their daughter cells move forward towards the skin surface. Eventually they die when they reach the surface of our skin. They are also important for making the cells of our blood and immune system, as well as helping repair, regeneration and healing of tissue after injury. They form our nerves, bones, fat stores as well as sex cells, the sperm and ovum.

The rest of my answer is a little advance, so maybe only read if you are an A-Level or University student! Many people think that pluripotent cells, are always stem cells. But this isn't true! For example there are early embryo cells at the "morula stage" that can give rise to all adult (somatic) cells, meaning they are pluripotent, but they are not stem cells as they do not have the ability to self renew. It is important to mention also the difference between cancer cells and stem cells, as an important hallmark of cancer is gaining the ability of unlimited self renewal. the main difference is that stem cells also ALWAYS retain their normal phenotype, meaning they cellular biology does not change. Cancer cells show different phenotypes, meaning they look different under a microscope. They are different to the normal tissue at a cellular level. 

If you would like to learn about this in a more simple way, or hear about the fine complex details, message me! Happy to help.

Thanks,

Ben.

Describe the role of stem cells in multicellular organisms

What are the advantages and disadvantages of assessment in schools

Paymen

Yes we are a type of animal, and no it’s not because of that! Most animals have brains, except jelly fish and a few others! Human is the name of our species. We are also called Homo Sapiens. Hope this helped, if you need any further help please feel free to message me! Thanks 

Are we kind of animal? we call "human" becese we have brain

No matter what the specific situation is, it’s important to remember that water always moves from an area of low to high salt concentration, down the water potential gradient. So in this example, assuming the water has a higher concentration of salt than the chip, water in  the chip will move out and into the water bowl. This would cause the chip to shrink! 

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