Choose a statement on the right, and the key draws itself here.
The tree of lifeEvery group the syllabus names, on one tree
Opening the lab… the first station will appear here.
Click anywhere to close
Your work
Glossary
Every word the labs use, with the definition it is examined on. The short list at the foot of each station is only the words that are new there.
Classification Lab
Cambridge IGCSE Biology 0610 · Topic 1, Characteristics and classification of living organisms
In one minute
Click any branch of the tree, or any step on the bar along the bottom. The tree lights the groups a station is about, and a group you click opens the station that teaches it.
Each station has two tabs: Learn — what you must know, with something to click, press or try in every section — and Practise, the questions.
Check as often as you like. You are told which parts are wrong, never the answer — you have to work it out. Keep going until it is all right. Signed in, your work is saved for Dr Mompel on its own — there is nothing to press at the end.
An underlined word can be clicked: 🔍 opens a picture there and then, ↗ jumps to the station that explains it and brings you back.
Your work is kept in this browser and, once you sign in with your school account, sent to Dr Mompel’s records on its own as you go — there is nothing to hand in. Signed in, it follows you to another computer.
The answers are never shown. Sign in with your school Google account so Dr Mompel knows whose work it is; it is then sent to his records as you go. Anyone else is welcome to use the lab — their work simply stays in their own browser.
What the colours mean
The seven characteristics each wear a lettered chip — M movement, R respiration, S sensitivity, G growth, R reproduction, E excretion, N nutrition — the letters of MRS GREN, so the colour is never the only signal.
A group name is coloured by its kingdom, in the same colour the tree uses to light it: animals, plants, fungi, prokaryotes, protoctists. Viruses stay grey, because they are in no kingdom.
Words about naming — species, genus, binomial — are purple.
A green-bordered box is the mistake students most often make there. A small S badge means Supplement (Extended papers 2 and 4 only). “Beyond the syllabus” is not named in 0610: it helps the rest make sense, and an exam question can still use it. What you need to know holds only what the syllabus for exams in 2026–2029 asks: Cambridge’s syllabus for 2029 is word for word the same as the one for 2026–2028, so the list serves every student sitting the exams from 2026 to 2029. Press the IGCSE 0610 badge and choose your year: it shows the year of your exams and your syllabus. Everything else is in the card right below the list, “Not in the syllabus for 2026–2029”: first what an older 0610 syllabus had, with a badge such as “old syllabus · until 2015” — past papers may ask it, so tap the badge to read the old statement and whether recent papers still give marks for it — then what is beyond the syllabus, there to help the rest make sense. Do not skip it: an exam question can still use these ideas, and knowing them can be what earns you full marks.
The colour key sits at the top of every Learn tab, so you never have to remember.
What is simplified here
The tree shows only the groups the syllabus names. Real trees of life have millions of branches, and mosses, conifers, snails and worms are all missing here on purpose.
The DNA sequences are short stretches of one gene, simplified so the differences can be counted on a screen. Real comparisons use thousands of bases and a computer.
The five kingdoms are the classification 0610 examines. Modern biology uses three domains and a great many more groups; the kingdoms are still the right answer in the exam.
The drawings are of specimens drawn from the photographs on the tree, not of a specimen in front of you. The rules are the same.
Where the content and the pictures come from
The definitions are the wording of the syllabus for 2026–2029. Where his slides use an older wording it is given in brackets.
The stations follow Dr Mompel's own Topic 1 lessons: the seven characteristics, the classification systems, the dichotomous keys and the drawing assessment, the five kingdoms, the arthropods, the plants and the viruses.
Every photograph is from Wikimedia Commons and is public domain, CC0 or CC BY, credited under the picture and listed in full below and in assets/photos/CREDITS.md. The silhouettes on the tree are from PhyloPic, CC0 or public domain.
All questions, keys, drawings, animations and the page design are original to this lab.