JAMB Syllabus for Biology 2024/2025 | PDF Download

The JAMB syllabus for Biology for the academic year 2024/2025 has been recently released. This initiative by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board aims to assist students in adequately preparing for their upcoming Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

Objectives of JAMB Syllabus for Biology

The primary goal of the JAMB Biology syllabus is to equip candidates with the necessary preparation for the Board’s examination, assessing their comprehension, knowledge, and acquisition of essential concepts. The key objectives include:

• Demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of the concepts related to life’s diversity, interdependence, and unity.
• Accounting for the continuity of life by exploring reorganization, inheritance, and evolution.
• Applying biological principles and concepts to everyday life, focusing on issues impacting living things, individuals, society, environment, community health, and the economy.

Topics Under JAMB Biology Syllabus

Topics covered in JAMB Syllabus for Biology are divided into five sections.

Variety of Organisms

For the Variety of Organisms, the JAMB syllabus covers the following topics:

Living Organisms

• Characteristics.
•  Cell structure and functions of cell Components.
•  Level of the organization (Cell, e.g., euglena and paramecium; tissue, e.g., epithelial tissues and hydra; organ, e.g., onion bulb; systems, e.g., reproductive, digestive, and excretory; organisms, e.g., Chlamydomonas).

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Distinguish between animate and inanimate features.
• Determine the plant and animal cell structure.
• Analyze the components and functions of plant and animal cells.
• Contrast the plant and animal cell structures.
• Trace the levels of organization between organisms in their logical sequence concerning the five levels of organization of living organisms.

Evolution Among These

• Monera (prokaryotes), e.g., bacteria.
•  Blue-green algae.
•  Protista (protozoans and protophyta), such as Amoeba, Euglena, and Paramecium.
•  Fungi, e.g., mushrooms and Rhizopus.
•  Plantae (plants) – Thallophyta (e.g., Spirogyra), Bryophytes [liverworts and mosses] (e.g. Brachmenium and Merchantia), Pteridophyta [ferns] (e.g., Dryopteris) Spermatophyta (Gymnospermae and Angiospermae)
•  Gymnosperms, e.g., cycads and conifers; Angiosperms (monocots [e.g., maize], dicots); Invertebrates (coelenterate (e.g., Hydra), Animalia (animals), Platyhelminthes [flatworms] (e.g., Taenia), Annelida (e.g., earthworm), Nematoda (roundworms), Arthropoda (e.g., mosquito, cockroach, housefly, Molsillus, bee, butterfly)
•  Multicellular animals (vertebrates): Fish (cartilaginous and bony fish), Amphibia (e.g., toads and frogs), Reptilia (e.g., snakes, lizards, and turtles), Aves (birds), Mammalia (mammals)

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Trace the advancement of invertebrate animals.
• Decide the economic importance of the insects studied.
• Asses their values to the environment.
• Trace the advancement of multicellular animals.
• Determine their economic importance.
• Analyze the external characteristics and features of the organisms listed.
• Apply the knowledge from above to demonstrate an increased structural complexity.
• Follow the stages in the life histories of the organisms listed.
• Apply the knowledge of life history to demonstrate the gradual transition from life in water to life on land.
• Trace the Evolution of the listed plants.

Structural/Functional Behavioural Adaptations of Organisms

• Adaptive coloration and its functions.
• Behavioral adaptations in social animals.
• Structural adaptations in organisms.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Describe how the various structures, functions, and behavior adapt the organisms to their environment and way of life.
• Categorize countershading in toads, fish, and snakes and warning coloration in mushrooms.
• To separate the various castes in social insects and their functions in their colony hive.
• Account for basking in lizards and territorial behavior of other animals under unfavorable conditions ( aestivation and hibernation).

Candidates should be able to record for adaptation in organisms for the following:

• Foraging, especially the beak and legs of birds and the mouthparts of insects, Mosquitoes, butterflies, and moths.
• Protection and defense (stick insects, praying mantis, and toads).
• Securing mates (red-headed male and female Agama lizards, demonstration of fathers by birds).
• Regulation of body temperature (skin, feathers, and hair).
• Water conservation (spines in plants and scales in mammals).

Form and Functions

For Form and Functions, the JAMB syllabus covers the following topics:

Internal Structure of a Flowering Plant

• Root.
• Stem.
• Leaf.
• The internal structure of a mammal.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Identify the cross-sections of the organs.
• Relate the structure of the organs to their functions.
• Identify the supporting tissues in plants (collenchyma, sclerenchyma, xylem, and phloem fibers).
• Describe the distribution of supporting tissues in roots, stems, and leaves.
• Examine the arrangement of the internal organs of mammals.
• Describe the appearance and location of the digestive, reproductive, and excretory organs.

Nutrition

• Modes of nutrition: Autotrophic and Heterotrophic.
• Types of Nutrition.
• Plant nutrition – Photosynthesis, Mineral requirements (macro and micro-nutrients).
• Animal nutrition – Classes of food substances (fats and oils, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, mineral salts, and many others), a mammalian tooth (structures, types, and functions), the digestive tract of mammals, nutrition process (digestion, ingestion, assimilation and absorption of digested food).

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Contrast the photosynthetic and chemosynthetic modes of nutrition.
• Give examples from both flowering and non-flowering plants.
• To compare autotrophic and heterotrophic modes of nutrition.
• Determine the necessity of light, carbon dioxide (IV), and chlorophyll in photosynthesis.
• Detect the presence of starch in the leaf as evidence of photosynthesis.
• Identify the macro and micronutrients required by plants.
• Recognize the symptoms of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium deficiency.

Differentiate between:

• Holozoic (sheep and man).
• Parasitic (roundworm, tapeworm, and Loranthus).
• Saprophytic (Rhizopus and mushroom).
• Carnivorous plants (sundew and bladderwort).
• Determine their nutritional value.
• Distinguish between light and dark reactions and the state conditions necessary for photosynthesis.

Transport

• The need for transportation.
• Materials for transportation.
• Excretory products, gases, produced food, digested food, nutrients, water, and hormones).
• Channels for transportation – Mammalian circulatory system (heart, arteries, veins, and capillaries) and Plant vascular system (phloem and xylem).
• Media and processes of Mechanism for transportation.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• List sources of different food classes.
• Describe the importance and deficiency, e.g., scurvy, rickets, kwashiorkor, etc., of each class.
• Determine the importance of a balanced diet: from the result of the given experiment, determine the presence of the listed foods.
• Explain the structure of a typical mammalian tooth.
• Distinguish the types of mammalian teeth and relate their structure to their functions.
• Compare human, sheep, and dog dental formulas.
• Relate the structure of the various parts of the digestive tract and its accessory organs (liver, pancreas, and gall bladder) to their functions.
• Identify general characteristics of digestive enzymes; associate enzymes with the digestion of fats, carbohydrates, and protein.
• Determine the end products of the classes of foods.
• Determine the relationship between the increase in size and complexity and the need to develop a transport system for plants and animals.
• Determine material sources and modes of transportation.
• Describes the general circulatory system.
• Comparison of specific functions of the portal vein, pulmonary vein, and artery the aorta, the renal artery, and the vein.
• Identify the organs of the plant’s vascular systems.
• Determine the specific functions of the phloem and xylem.
• Identify media of transportation (e.g., cytoplasm, the cell sap, blood, body fluid, and lymph).
• Explain the composition and functions of blood and lymph.
• Describe diffusion, osmosis, plasmolysis, and turgidity as transportation mechanisms in organisms.
• Contrast the various mechanisms of open circulatory systems in animal transpiration pull, root pressure, including active transport as mechanisms of transportation in plants.

Excretion

• Types of excretory structures (Malpighian tubule, contractile vacuole, flame cell, nephridium, kidney, stoma, and lenticel).
• Excretory mechanisms: Kidneys, lungs, and skin.
• Excretory products of plants.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• State the meaning and significance of excretion.
• Relate the features of each structure with functions.
• Relate the kidneys’ structure to the excretory and osmoregulatory functions.
• List lung and skin functions and excretions.
• Derivation of the economic importance of excreta from plants (carbon (IV) oxides, oxygen, tannins, resins, gums, slimes, alkaloids, etc).

Support and Movement

• Tropic, tactic, nastic, and sleep.
• Movements in plants.
• Supporting tissues in animals.
• Types and functions of the skeleton (exoskeleton, endoskeleton, and functions of the skeleton in animals).

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Determine the need for movement and support in organisms.
• Identify the supporting tissues in plants (collenchyma, sclerenchyma, xylem, and phloem fibers).
• Describe the dissemination of supporting tissues in roots, stems, and leaves.
• Determine the response of plants to the stimuli of water, light, touch, and gravity.
• Identify the regions of growth in shoots and roots and the role of auxins in tropism.
• Relate chitin, cartilage, and bone to their supporting function.
• Relate the structure and overall arrangement of the mammalian skeleton to their supporting, locomotor, and respiratory functions.
• Differentiate the types of joints with suitable examples.
• Apply the skeleton’s protective, supportive, locomotor, and respiratory functions to the animal’s well-being.

Reproduction

• Asexual reproduction (Fission as in Paramecium, Budding as in yeast, Natural vegetative propagation, and Artificial vegetative propagation).
• Sexual reproduction in flowering plants (Floral parts and their functions, Pollination and fertilization, products of sexual reproduction).
• Reproduction in mammals (structures and functions of the male and female reproductive organs, fertilization, and development).
• Fusion of gametes.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Differentiate between asexual and sexual reproduction and apply natural vegetative propagation in plant production and propagation.
• Apply budding, grafting, and layering in agricultural practices.
• Relate parts of flowers to their functions and reproductive process and deduce the advantages of cross-pollination.
• Conclude the different types of placentation that develop into simple, aggregate, multiple, and succulent fruits.
• Differentiate between male and female reproductive organs, and they link their structure and function to the production of offspring.
• Describe the fusion of gametes as the process of fertilization.
• Relate the influence of maternal health, nutrition, and use of drugs in the developmental stages of the embryo until birth.
•  Modern methods of regulating reproduction, e.g., invitro fertilization and birth control.

Growth

• Meaning of growth.
• Germination of seeds and conditions necessary for germination of seeds.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Apply the knowledge of the conditions needed for germination on plant growth.
• Differentiate between epigeal and hypogeal germination.

Co-ordination and Control

• Nervous coordination: the components, structure, and functions of the central nervous system; the functions and components of the peripheral nervous systems; the mechanism of transmission of impulses; and reflex action.
• The sense organs are the skin (tactile), nose (olfactory), tongue (taste), eye (sight), and ear (auditory).
• Hormonal control: animal hormonal system (Pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal gland, pancreas, and gonads).
• Plant hormones (phytohormones).
• Homeostasis (Body temperature regulation, water, and salt regulation).

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Apply knowledge about the central nervous system’s function and structure in regulating an organism’s bodily functions.
• Demonstrate reflex actions such as blinking the eyes, jerking the knee, etc.
• Distinguish between reflexive and voluntary actions and conditioned reflexes such as salivation, bicycle riding, and swimming.
• Match the listed sense organs with their functions.
• We apply our knowledge of the structure and function of these sensory organs to identify and correct deficiencies. 
• Find the endocrine glands listed in animals.
• Associate the hormones produced by each of these glands with their function.
• Explore the effects of various phytohormones (eg, auxins, cytokinin, gibberellin, and ethylene) on growth, tropism, flowering, fruit ripening, and leaf fall.
•  Relate the function of hormones to regulating substance levels in the body.

Ecology

For Ecology, the JAMB syllabus covers the following topics:

Factors affecting the Distribution of Organisms

• Abiotic
• Biotic

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Infer the effects of temperature, precipitation, and Edafic (soil) conditions for relative humidity, wind speed and direction, altitude, salinity, turbidity, pH, and dispersal of organisms.
• Use Appropriate Equipment to measure abiotic factors (e.g., Secchi disk, thermometer, rain gauge, etc.).
•  Describe how plants/animals work (esp-humans) and affect the distribution of organisms.

Symbiotic Interactions of Plants and Animals

• Energy Flows in Ecosystems: food chains, food webs, and trophic stages.
• Nutrient cycling in nature (carbon cycle, water cycle, and nitrogen cycle).

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Identify the appropriate examples of symbiosis, parasitism, saprophytic, commensalism, mutualism, symbiosis, competition, predation, and cooperation between organisms.
• Distribute the organisms in specific habitats, food chains, and webs and their association with food chains and webs.
• Discusses the cycle and balance of atmospheric oxygen and carbon oxides (IV) and their importance to global warming.
• Evaluate the effects of the water cycle on other nutrient cycles.
• Describe the role of bacteria and legumes in the nitrogen cycle.

Natural Habitats

• Aquatic (e.g., streams, ponds, lakes, seashores, and mangrove swamps)
• Terrestrial/Arboreal (e.g., oil palm tree crowns, abandoned agricultural land, or dry grass (savanna) field and burrow or hole).

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Relate plants and animals with each of these habitats.
• Relates fitness traits to habitats in which organisms live.

Local (Nigerian) Biomes

• Tropical rainforest
• Guinea savanna (southern and northern)
• Sudanese savannah
• Desert
• Highlands of montane forests and grasslands on the Obudu, Jos, and Mambilla Plateaus.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Find biomes in regions.
• Apply knowledge of the characteristics of the given local biomes by determining the characteristics of different regions of Nigeria.

The Ecology of Population

• Population density and overcrowding.
• Adaptation for survival (factors that bring about competition, Intra and inter-specific competition, and the relationship between competition and succession).
• Factors affecting population sizes: Biotic (e.g., food, pest, disease, predation, competition, reproductive ability) and Abiotic (e.g., temperature, light, rainfall, topography, pressure, etc.)
• Ecological succession (primary succession and secondary succession)

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Determine the reasons for rapid changes in the results of population and overpopulation.
• Calculate/calculate the density as the number of organisms per unit area.
• Links population growth, disease, food scarcity, and lack of space to intra- and interspecific competition.
• Determining niche differentiation as a means of reducing intraspecific completion.
• Inheritance competition.
• Deduce these factors’ effect on the population’s size.
• Decide the interactions between biotic and abiotic factors, e.g., scarcity of water or drought, that leads to the shortage of food and lack of space that causes an increase in disease rates.
• Follow the sequence in succession to the climax stage of stability in the plant population.

Soil

• Characteristics of the types of soil (sandy, loamy, clay)
• Soil structure, porosity, capillarity, and humus content.
• Components of the soil (inorganic, organic, soil organisms, soil air, soil water).
• Soil fertility: loss of soil fertility, maintenance and renewal of soil fertility.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Point out the physical properties of soil types based on simple particle size, porosity, and water-holding capacity measurements.
• Experimentally determine the amounts of air, water, humus, and capillarity in different soil types.
• Link soil properties, types, and ingredients to healthy plant growth.
• Combine inorganic matter loss, compaction, leaching, topsoil erosion, and repeated cultivation with one variety.
• Apply practical knowledge of contour ridges, terracing, mulching, strip-cropping, poly-cropping, use of organic and inorganic fertilizers, crop rotation, shifting cultivation, and so on to enhance soil conservation.

Humans and Environment

• Diseases: Common and endemic diseases, Easily transmissible diseases, and disease syndromes such as poliomyelitis, cholera, tuberculosis, and sexually transmitted disease/syndrome (gonorrhea, syphilis, AIDS, etc.).
• Pollution and its control (sources, types, effects, and control methods), sanitation, and sewage.
• Conservation of Natural Resources.
• Game reserves and National parks.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Identify ecological conditions that favor the spread of general endemic and potentially epidemic diseases, like malaria, meningitis, dracunculiasis, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis, typhoid, cholera, etc.
• Associate the biology of the vector or agent of each disease to its spread and control.
• Use knowledge of the causative agents, mode of transmission, and symptoms of the mentioned diseases for their prevention/treatment/control.
• Apply the principles of immunization and vaccination to disease prevention.
• Pollution is classified into air, water, and soil pollution.
• Describe the effects of common pollutants on human health and environmental degradation.
• Identify methods that can control each contaminant.
• Examine the importance of hygiene, emphasizing public health, community health, and personal hygiene.
• Determine the roles and functions of international and national health authorities (e.g., World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), International Red Cross Society (IRCS), and Ministry of Health and Environment).
• Apply the various conservation methods of renewable and non-renewable natural resources to protect our environment for present and future generations.
• Outline the benefits of conserving natural resources and preventing desertification.
• Identify institutions responsible for the conservation of resources at national and international levels (e.g., Nigerian Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nigerian National Parks, World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and its activities.
• Assess their activities.
• Know the location and significance of Nigeria’s game reserves and national parks.

Heredity and Variations

For Heredity and Variations, the JAMB syllabus covers the following topics:

Variation in Population

• Morphological variations in the appearance of individuals physically, such as size (height, weight), Colour (skin, eye, hair, coat of animals, scales, feathers, and Fingerprints.
• Physiological variation: Ability to roll tongue, Ability to taste, phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), Blood groups.
• Applying discontinuous variation in crime detection, blood transfusion, and paternity determination.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Use examples to distinguish between continuous and discontinuous variations.
• State the role of environmental conditions, habitat, and genetic constitution in variation.
• Measure the height and weight of students in the same age group. Plot graphs of the frequency distribution of the heights and weights.
• Observe and record various color patterns in some plants and mammals.
• Apply the classification of fingerprints in identity detection.
• Identify specific examples of physiological variation among the human population.
• Categorize people according to their physiological variation.
• Apply knowledge of blood type to blood transfusion and paternity test. Use discontinuous variation in crime detection.

Heredity

• Inheritance of characters in organisms (Heritable and non-heritable characters).
• Chromosomes – the basis of heredity (Structure, process of transmission of genetic traits from parents to offspring).
• Probability in Genetics and Sex Determination.
• Sex–linked characters, e.g., baldness, hemophilia, color blindness, etc.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Determine heritable and non-heritable characters with examples.
• Illustrate the simple structure of DNA.
• To illustrate this, diagram the segregation of genes during meiosis and the recombination of genes during fertilization. Transmission of characters from parents to offspring.
• Deduce that the segregation of genes occurs during gamete formation and that the recombination of genes at fertilization is random.
• Analyze data on cross-breeding experiments.
• Apply heredity principles in producing new varieties of crops and livestock through cross-breeding.
• Deduce the advantages and disadvantages of out-breeding and in-breeding.
• Analyze the contentious issues of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), gene therapy, and biosafety.
• Apply the knowledge of heredity in marriage counseling regarding blood grouping, sickle-cell anemia, and the Rhesus factors.
• Examine the significance of recombinant DNA materials in producing important medical products such as insulin, interferon, and enzymes.
• Identify sex-linked characters.

Evolution

For Evolution, the JAMB syllabus covers the following topics:

Theories of Evolution

• Lamarck’s theory.
• Darwin’s theory.
• Organic theory.

Objectives

Candidates should be able to:

• Relate organic Evolution to all adaptive changes that have taken place over long periods and have led to different morphologies, structures, and functions of organisms.
• Examine the contributions of Lamarck and Darwin to the theory of evolution.

Evidence of Evolution

Objectives

• Provide evidence about evolution, fossil discoveries, comparative anatomy, physiology, and embryology.
• Follow the evolutionary trends of plants and animals.
• Provide evidence for modern evolutionary theory, including genetic studies and the role of mutation.

PDF Download of JAMB Syllabus for Biology 2024/2025

You can now download the JAMB Biology syllabus as you prepare for your exams.

Conclusion

The significance of the JAMB Biology syllabus lies in its ability to guide candidates in focusing on specific topics during their preparation for the upcoming JAMB exams.

It is noteworthy that a substantial 99% of the questions featured in the examinations are sourced directly from the syllabus.

To facilitate your preparation, we recommend downloading the syllabus PDF file available in the post. Additionally, feel free to share this post with your friends to support them in achieving outstanding success in their exams.