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Topic 10: Diseases and Immunity

5 subtopics · Pathogens, the body’s defences, how vaccination works, and the cholera toxin

📖 Open Full Study Guide → 🏆 Challenge Prep Guide — Master the tricky questions
Heads up — every Biology exam here is Challenge level. There are no standard mocks for Biology: all six papers for this topic are deliberately harder than a normal Cambridge paper. So read your scores in that light — a mark that looks low here would usually be higher on a real paper.
10.1
Pathogens and Transmission
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What a pathogen is, transmissible disease, and the direct and indirect routes
10.2
Body Defences and Controlling the Spread of Disease
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The five defences Cambridge limits you to, and the five public-health measures
10.3
Active Immunity and Vaccination
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Antigens, antibodies, complementary shapes, and why memory cells are the whole point
10.4
Passive Immunity
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Placenta and breast milk, why it is fast, and why it does not last
10.5
Cholera
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The bacterium, the toxin, chloride ions, and water following by osmosis
10.6
Exam Technique & the Vocabulary That Scores
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Antigen vs antibody — the single most swapped pair in the syllabus
📝 Topic 10 Challenge Exams
3 × Paper 2 (MCQ) · 3 × Paper 4 (Theory) · all Challenge level
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