Regents FAQs

What is the Regents?

The Regents Living Environment Exam is a New York State required exam that addresses key units in biology covered throughout the year. It is taken at the culmination of a full year of biology, usually taken in 9^th or 10^th grade. Suffern H.S. considers this exam and class as a graduation requirement. You must complete 1200 minutes of laboratory time to take this test! These units are assigned standards that all classes are required to cover throughout the year. Below is a list of site links to Regents Exam review, including the New York States official Regents link.

What are the Key Unit Areas?

1. Unity and Diversity
2. Maintenance in Living things
3. Human Physiology
4. Reproduction and Development
5. Transfer of traits from generation to generation
6. Evolution
7. Ecology

For mini description of these the major topics, scroll down to " What topics are covered in the key units?" section.

How is the Regents Setup?

The Living environment test has 4 sections, A-D.

Questions

Part A : 35 Multiple Choice

Part B: Multiple Choice and Free Response

Part C: Free Response

Part D: *Laboratory Practical Exam (written)

* The lab practical will be based on lab techniques used in class, as well as four state required labs taught throughout the state.

The Regents is scored by using the Raw score, and converting it to a Scaled score.

How much does the Regents count towards my grade?

The Regents exam is treated as a "fifth" semester, or 20% of your total grade, with 80% including the four quarters of the year.

Repeat after me.... You must complete 1200 minutes of laboratory time to take this test!

What are the four required State Labs?

The four labs we must do are:

1. Diffusion and Osmosis - this lab has two major parts:

a. Chemical testing and learning about indicators

b. Testing an onion cells responses to changes in the solution its placed in

2. Making Connections - this lab also has two parts:

a. Testing for class averages of pulse rate and exercise

b. Designing your own experiment on pulse rate

3. Beaks of Finches - a class favorite!

a. Test your survival and adaptation skills as you compete for food

b. Apply the concepts of natural selection to this activity

4. Relationships and Biodiversity

a. Test the physical and chemical characteristics of several plant species.

b. Identify the plant that is most closely related to “Botana Curus” a hypothetical species that produces “Curol” a treatment for cancer.