The diploma exam
What is actually on the Biology 30 diploma, how the questions are built, and a full sample exam in the same format. The exam is worth 30% of your final mark, and it is one long machine-scored paper — there has been no written-response section since 2010.
- 1. The shape of the exam
- 2. What gets tested, and how much
- 3. Everything is a context
- 4. Numerical response, exactly
- 5. The data pages
- 6. Official practice material
The shape of the exam
The idea: 60 questions, each worth exactly one mark. Nothing is weighted more heavily than anything else, so a hard genetics question and a one-line recall question are worth the same.
| Part | Questions | Worth |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple choice | 48, four choices each | 1 mark each |
| Numerical response | 12, answers recorded in boxes | 1 mark each |
- Time: built for 3 hours, and every student may take up to 6. Biology is a reading-heavy exam, so the extra time is there for a reason.
- Calculator: one approved calculator — a scientific calculator without prohibited properties, or an approved graphing calculator — cleared of stored information.
- No written response. It was removed in January 2010, and the word count of the exam went up instead. Every mark now comes from a machine-scored question.
- Weighting: the diploma is 30% of your final mark; your school mark is the other 70%.
- Nothing is released. Biology 30 exams are kept secure, so there is no June paper to find. The 2019 released items below are the real thing.
What gets tested, and how much
The idea: six areas, published every year. Genetics and the nervous system together are about half the exam.
| Unit of study | Emphasis | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Nervous and Endocrine Systems | 20%–25% | about 13 of 60 questions |
| Reproductive Systems and Hormones | 10%–15% | about 8 of 60 questions |
| Differentiation and Development | 5%–10% | about 5 of 60 questions |
| Cell Division and Genetics | 25%–30% | about 16 of 60 questions |
| Molecular Biology | 10%–15% | about 8 of 60 questions |
| Population and Community Dynamics | 15%–20% | about 10 of 60 questions |
The units on this site line up with those areas: nervous and endocrine and the senses together cover the first, then reproduction, development, genetics, molecular genetics and populations. Questions usually appear in that order on the exam, although a question can sit in another unit if its context spans both.
Questions come at three cognitive levels: remembering and understanding, applying, and higher mental activities such as analyzing and evaluating. Most of the exam is at the applying level — you are given a situation and asked to use what you know, rather than to recite it.
Everything is a context
The idea: most questions come in sets built on a passage, a diagram or a set of data, and you cannot answer them properly without reading it.
- Expect unfamiliar biology. Contexts are deliberately new — an organism, a disorder or an experiment you have never met. The content you need is still Biology 30 content.
- Read the box first, the question second. A set may mix multiple-choice and numerical-response questions, and they are numbered separately.
- Underline what is being asked. Long contexts hide short questions: which structure, which hormone, which direction a value moves.
- Data in a context is evidence. If a graph or table is given, the answer is usually in it — not in something you memorized.
Watch out: a discrete question — one that stands alone with no context — still appears now and then. Do not go hunting for an information box that is not there.
Numerical response, exactly
The idea: twelve marks are decided by what you write in the boxes, and there are five different kinds. Read the instruction under each question — it tells you which one you are looking at.
| Type | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Calculation | A numerical value, rounded as the question says — population density, per capita growth rate, a percentage, an allele frequency. |
| Ratio | Three digits in the order the labels are given, reduced to lowest terms: 8 : 4 : 2 is recorded as 421. |
| Selection | Pick the items that fit from a numbered list. The instruction says in any order, so any arrangement of the right digits is correct. |
| Matching | Match items across columns and record one digit from each. There may be more than one correct answer. |
| Sequencing | Put events or structures in order. Here the order is the answer, so a reversed sequence earns nothing. |
- First digit on the left, and any boxes you do not need stay blank.
- Keep the leading zero: a per capita growth rate of 0.08 needs the 0 before the decimal point.
- Round once, at the end, to the tenth or hundredth the question names.
The data pages
The idea: Biology 30 comes with tear-out data pages. Knowing what is on them tells you exactly what you do not have to memorize — and what you do.
Given to you
- The mRNA codon table — every codon and its amino acid
- Pedigree symbols, and the allele symbols for the ABO blood types
- The Hardy–Weinberg equation p² + 2pq + q² = 1
- Population density Dp = N/A (or N/V), change in population size, growth rate gr = ∆N/∆t and per capita growth rate cgr = ∆N/N
- Abbreviations for the hormones: ACTH, ADH, FSH, GnRH, hCG, hGH, LH, PTH, PRL, TSH
- The symbols used in population questions: N, A, V, t, ∆, p, q, P, F₁, F₂
Not on the data pages
- What any hormone actually does, or which gland releases it
- The structures of the neuron, eye, ear, kidney nephron and reproductive systems
- The order of events in an action potential, a synapse or a reflex arc
- The stages of mitosis and meiosis, and where crossing over and nondisjunction happen
- How to build and read a Punnett square, including sex-linked and dihybrid crosses
- The steps of replication, transcription and translation, and what a mutation does to them
- The difference between density-dependent and density-independent factors, or the conditions Hardy–Weinberg assumes
The codon table being printed is the single most useful thing to know: a translation question is never about recall, only about reading the table in the right direction. The hormone abbreviations are given too — but what each hormone does is not, which is where most marks in the first two units are won or lost.
Official practice material
The idea: use Alberta Education's own documents for real exam questions — everything on this site is written to match their format, not copied from it.
- Biology 30 Information Bulletin 2025–2026 — The blueprint, the instructions pages, the data pages, and sample questions at each cognitive level.
- Biology 30 Released Items (2019) — Real exam questions Alberta Education has released, with answers — the closest thing to a past paper.
- Writing diploma exams — Where the Biology 30 data pages and the digital practice tests live.
- Diploma exams — overview — Exam dates, rules, accommodations and how results are reported.
Work the released items under exam conditions once the content is solid. Then come back here: every question on the sample exam is explained, and every unit has practice questions, quizzes, printable worksheets and a game or two if a topic needs more work.