1Introduction to BiologyWhat biology studies and how it is divided — the branches a question names when it asks which specialist would explain a particular living thing.Board exam — Introduction to Biology, 1 marksView topicsHide topics
Biology, botany and zoology
Branches of biology and their scope
Relationship of biology with other sciences
3 topics
2BiomoleculesThe four families of molecule life is built from — carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids — and the enzymes that let their reactions happen at body temperature.Board exam — Biomolecules and Cell Biology, 9 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Carbohydrates, lipids and proteins
Nucleic acids — DNA and RNA structure
Enzymes: properties, mechanism and factors affecting activity
3 topics
3The CellThe cell as the unit of life: the prokaryote/eukaryote divide, and what each organelle is actually for rather than merely what it is called.Board exam — Biomolecules and Cell Biology, 9 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Cell theory; prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells
Plant and animal cell structure
Cell organelles and their functions
3 topics
4Cell DivisionMitosis, meiosis and the cell cycle — how chromosome number is held constant through growth and halved for gametes, stage by nameable stage.Board exam — Biomolecules and Cell Biology, 9 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Cell cycle and its phases
Mitosis — stages and significance
Meiosis — stages, crossing over and significance
3 topics
5Introduction to Floral DiversityWhy living things are classified at all, and the systems that do it — binomial nomenclature and the five-kingdom scheme the rest of this area is arranged by.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Need and basis of classification
Binomial nomenclature
Five-kingdom classification and its merits
3 topics
6AlgaeThe simplest plant bodies and their classes, worked through Spirogyra — structure, reproduction and the economic uses that make algae worth a question.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
General characteristics and classification of algae
Chlorophyceae — characteristics
Spirogyra — structure and reproduction
Economic importance of algae
4 topics
7FungiPlants that cannot photosynthesise: how a fungus feeds, and Mucor and yeast as the two the board actually asks to be drawn and described.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
General characteristics and classification of fungi
Mucor — structure and reproduction
Yeast — structure, asexual and sexual reproduction
Economic importance of fungi
4 topics
8LichenTwo organisms living as one — the alga and the fungus, what each contributes, and why lichens colonise bare rock and signal clean air.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Structure and types of lichen
Symbiotic relationship of alga and fungus
Economic and ecological importance
3 topics
9BryophytaThe amphibians of the plant kingdom, taken through Marchantia — a body with no vascular tissue, and reproduction that still needs water.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
General characteristics of bryophytes
Marchantia — structure and reproduction
Alternation of generations in bryophytes
3 topics
10PteridophytaThe first plants with vascular tissue, taken through Dryopteris — and the clear advances over the bryophytes that a comparison question is really asking for.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
General characteristics of pteridophytes
Dryopteris — structure and reproduction
Alternation of generations; heterospory
3 topics
11GymnospermsNaked seeds: Pinus as the worked example, and the advances over pteridophytes — seed habit, pollen tube, no water needed for fertilisation.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
General characteristics of gymnosperms
Pinus — structure and reproduction
Comparison with pteridophytes and angiosperms
3 topics
12Angiosperms: MorphologyThe parts of a flowering plant and their modifications — root, stem, leaf, inflorescence, flower, fruit and seed, which is where most of this area's marks sit.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Root, stem and leaf and their modifications
Inflorescence — types
Flower, fruit and seed; types of fruit
3 topics
13Angiosperms: FamiliesThree families described the way the board wants them — diagnostic characters, floral formula, floral diagram, and named plants of economic value.Board exam — Floral Diversity, 18 marks across 9 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Cruciferae (Brassicaceae)
Solanaceae
Leguminosae (Fabaceae)
3 topics
14VirusLiving or not: the structure of a virus, how a bacteriophage multiplies, and the diseases that make the question a practical one.Board exam — Introduction to Microbiology, 3 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Structure and types of virus
Lytic and lysogenic cycles
Viral diseases in plants, animals and humans
3 topics
15BacteriaThe prokaryote in detail — shape, structure, nutrition and reproduction — and the bacterial diseases and uses asked about alongside.Board exam — Introduction to Microbiology, 3 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Structure, shape and types of bacteria
Nutrition and reproduction in bacteria
Bacterial diseases
3 topics
16Impacts of MicroorganismsWhat microorganisms are for: medicine, agriculture and industry on one side, spoilage and disease on the other.Board exam — Introduction to Microbiology, 3 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Role of microorganisms in medicine
Role in agriculture and industry
Harmful effects of microorganisms
3 topics
17Ecosystem EcologyAn ecosystem as parts that act on each other — the pond and the forest worked through structurally and functionally, with food chains and energy flow.Board exam — Ecology, 6 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Ecosystem — structure and components
Pond and forest ecosystems
Food chain, food web and energy flow; ecological pyramids
3 topics
18Ecological AdaptationHow plants are shaped by the water available to them — hydrophytes, mesophytes and xerophytes, and the structures each is named for.Board exam — Ecology, 6 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Hydrophytes — adaptations
Xerophytes — adaptations
Mesophytes and epiphytes
3 topics
19Ecological ImbalanceWhat goes wrong and why it matters locally — pollution, deforestation, greenhouse effect and ozone depletion, with the consequences a Nepali example makes concrete.Board exam — Ecology, 6 marks across 3 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Pollution — air, water, land
Deforestation and its consequences
Greenhouse effect, global warming and ozone depletion
3 topics
20Vegetation of NepalNepal read from the plains to the snowline — the vegetation zones, what grows in each, and why altitude decides it.Board exam — Vegetation, 2 marksView topicsHide topics
Tropical, subtropical and temperate vegetation
Subalpine and alpine vegetation
Factors affecting the vegetation of Nepal
3 topics
21Organism and Its EnvironmentThe environment as a set of factors acting on a living thing — climatic, edaphic, topographic and biotic — and the ways organisms live alongside each other.Board exam — Biota and Environment, 6 marks across 2 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Abiotic factors — light, temperature, water, soil
Biotic factors and interspecific relationships
Ecological niche and habitat
3 topics
22Animal AdaptationAnimals shaped by where they live — aquatic, terrestrial, volant and desert forms, and the structures that follow from each.Board exam — Biota and Environment, 6 marks across 2 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Aquatic and terrestrial adaptations
Volant, cursorial and fossorial adaptations
Desert and cold-climate adaptations
3 topics
23Conservation BiologyBiodiversity and how it is kept — in-situ against ex-situ, the IUCN risk categories, and Nepal's own protected areas and endangered species.Board exam — Conservation Biology, 2 marksView topicsHide topics
Biodiversity and its value
In-situ and ex-situ conservation
IUCN categories; national parks and wildlife reserves of Nepal
3 topics
24Animal Kingdom and ClassificationHow animals are sorted — the basis of classification and the diagnostic characters of the major phyla, from Porifera to Chordata, with examples.Board exam — Faunal Diversity, 19 marks across 5 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Basis of animal classification
Characteristics of major invertebrate phyla
Phylum Chordata and its classes
3 topics
25Protozoa — ParameciumA whole animal in one cell: Paramecium's structure, locomotion, nutrition, osmoregulation and its two quite different kinds of reproduction.Board exam — Faunal Diversity, 19 marks across 5 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Structure and locomotion of Paramecium
Nutrition, osmoregulation and trichocysts
Transverse binary fission and conjugation
3 topics
26Animal TissuesThe four tissue types and what each is built to do — epithelial, connective, muscular and nervous — with the locations that make them recognisable.Board exam — Faunal Diversity, 19 marks across 5 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Epithelial tissue — types and locations
Connective tissue — types
Muscular and nervous tissue
3 topics
27EarthwormPheretima system by system — digestion, circulation, the septal nephridia that do its excreting, and the copulation and cocoon a diagram question asks for.Board exam — Faunal Diversity, 19 marks across 5 chaptersView topicsHide topics
External features and body wall
Digestive and circulatory systems
Excretion — nephridia; nervous system
Reproduction — copulation and cocoon formation
4 topics
28FrogRana tigrina system by system — digestion and the pancreas' part in it, respiration on land and in water, circulation, and the life cycle through metamorphosis.Board exam — Faunal Diversity, 19 marks across 5 chaptersView topicsHide topics
External features and skin
Digestive system and physiology of digestion
Respiratory and circulatory systems
Reproduction, development and metamorphosis
4 topics
29Life and Its OriginWhere life came from — the discarded theories, the biochemical account, and the Miller-Urey experiment that put it on an experimental footing.Board exam — Evolutionary Biology, 9 marks across 4 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Theories of the origin of life
Biochemical origin of life (Oparin-Haldane)
Miller and Urey's experiment
3 topics
30Evidences of EvolutionThe separate lines of evidence that agree — morphological, embryological, palaeontological — and the homologous/analogous distinction they turn on.Board exam — Evolutionary Biology, 9 marks across 4 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Morphological and anatomical evidence; homologous, analogous and vestigial organs
Embryological and palaeontological evidence
Connecting links and fossils
3 topics
31Theories of EvolutionLamarck, Darwin and the modern synthesis — what each actually claimed, the objections to each, and why natural selection survived them.Board exam — Evolutionary Biology, 9 marks across 4 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Lamarckism and its criticism
Darwinism — natural selection
Neo-Darwinism and the modern synthesis
3 topics
32Human EvolutionThe line from the early ancestors to modern man, stage by named stage, and the characters that changed along it.Board exam — Evolutionary Biology, 9 marks across 4 chaptersView topicsHide topics
Ancestors of man — Dryopithecus, Australopithecus
Homo erectus and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens sapiens and the trends of human evolution
