How to Study Algae for NEET?

Do you get scared with scientific names in Biology? Do you find problems in remembering such names and identifying them for their features and groups? ’n’ number of species and how it is possible to keep their name in mind? — This question might be coming often in your mind.

The answer to all of these questions is a logical and co-relative study. NEET is certainly not looking for a taxonomist rather it is expecting a logical perceptive brain who can answer without mugging the names.

There are several such chapters where we need to go through such issues and Algae is one of them. Algae from the NEET perspective is mostly figured for its economic importance and life cycles of the sub-group. NEET, as we know, focuses on conceptual clarity and questions are mostly designed to understand the basic understanding. Let’s try to figure out the pragmatic way to learn Algae which will eventually address our issue of scientific names.

As we know algal divisions are based on photosynthetic pigments and as many as 11 different algal groups were recognized. However, for NEET we need to study only three of them — Green algae, Brown algae and Red Algae. Each algal group is known for certain unique features and questions are mostly asked from those features only.

Conceptual Key Note:

1. General characters of Algae with focus on photosynthetic pigmentation.
2. Structure of thallus and types of spores / gametes
3. Types of Reproduction — Vegetative, Asexual and Sexual Reproduction
4. Types of life cycles
5. Green Algae:

Green Algae — Chara

• Morphological structure of thallus of Chara, Ulothrix, Spirogyra and Chalmydomonas
• Types of chloroplast
• Sexual reproduction in Spirogyra and Chara
• Asexual reproduction in Ulothrix

1. Brown Algae:

• Alternation of generation — Isomorphic and Heteroporphic with examples
• Economic importance

1. Red Algae:

Red Algae — Batrechospermum (Green in color..NOT red)

• Life cycle (Haplodiplontic)
• Economic importance

Path for Conceptual build-up

1. The best strategy is to study the comparative account of the morphological structure of Chara, Ulothrix and Spirogyra
2. Conjugation in Spirogyra — Difference between scalariform and lateral conjugation.
3. Prepare a flow chart for heteromorphic and isomorphic alternation of generation in brown algae
4. Focus on the economic importance along with the name of the species associated with such product, e.g, Alginic acid etc
5. The life cycle of red algae with evolutionary angle. Reasons for red algae being the most advanced among all algal groups.
6. Economic importance of red algae along with the name of the species producing the product, e.g., Carrageenin, Agar, Funori etc

Do we need to mug up the scientific name of Algae?

Algal scientific names asked in NEET are mostly associated with their respective economic importance. It is suggested to stick to the NCERT textbook for all such questions. Mugging as such is not required and one need to study just one or two examples for each group.

Do’s:

1. Economic importance of brown and red algae.

2. Emphasize the life cycle of each algal group

3. Structural detail of thallus

5. Refer to Mind Maps — Biology — XI (Bestseller book on amazon for NEET)

Don’ts:

1. Never try to over-emphasize in learning/mugging the name of species

2. Do not study the specific species of any algal group. One needs to know the general features of the algal group instead of any specific species.