Is Living Environment the same as biology? Essentially, yes — and it has just been replaced.
Living Environment was the name New York State gave to its first high-school biology course and to the Regents examination that closed it. Same subject, state-specific name. It was last administered in June 2026, and the exam your child sits now is Life Science: Biology. Most tutoring sites still advertise preparation for the old paper. Below: what to do if you have an old score to read, if your child sat it and did not pass, and if your child is in biology this year.
Next biology Regents: Friday, January 29, 2027, 9:15 a.m.
Three different situations
Which one are you in?
Your child already sat it
The result stands, and it is worth reading properly. New York published a different conversion chart for every sitting, and the raw score that bought a 65 moved between 40 and 41 out of 85 across the 32 charts we hold. Put the raw score into the calculator with the correct sitting selected — not last June’s.
Read a Living Environment score →Your child is in biology this year
Then the exam ahead is Life Science: Biology, which New York has been administering since June 2025. It is scored on a much smaller raw total — 48 points on the August 2026 chart, against 85 on the old exam — so every rule of thumb you were given about “how many you need” is wrong now.
See the Life Science: Biology charts →Your child sat it and did not pass
There is no Living Environment sitting left: it is not on the State’s January 2027 schedule. A student who still needs to pass a biology Regents now sits Life Science: Biology, next on Friday, January 29, 2027, then Thursday, June 17, 2027.
Settle two things with the school before January. The State admits a student to that exam only after its required Investigations are done. And a Regents diploma asks for one science exam, of any science: one your child already passed may cover it.
Life Science: Biology Regents tutoring →Ask us about January ↓The end date is not our inference from a missing file — a conversion chart only ever exists after a sitting, so silence proves nothing. It comes from the State’s own implementation schedule for the new Regents examinations.
Not sure which biology exam your child sits?
January 2027 Regents · starts in 11 weeks
January 26–29, 2027: the day of each exam, and what to settle before it
New York gives the Regents three times a year. The next sitting is January 26–29, 2027; after it come June 15–25, 2027 and August 17–18, 2027. Below is the State’s own January grid, then the things a family has to sort out with the school before the exam, not on the morning of it.
Life Science: Biology (replaces Living Environment)
Friday, January 29, 9:15 a.m.
12 weeks from today
Next chance after that: Thursday, June 17, 9:15 a.m., in the June 2027 sitting.
* Physical Setting/Physics is offered in restricted form only in January: ask the school whether it is giving it. Living Environment is not on the grid; its last sitting was June 2026.
Between now and January: what to settle
By Friday, November 13, 2026: tell the school
Schools order their January exam papers from the State until that date, counted on the students they expect to sit. If your child is sitting in January, for a first try or a retake, the counsellor should hear it now. The same order covers translated papers: Algebra I, Life Science: Biology, Earth and Space Sciences and the two history exams exist in 8 languages (Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Spanish).
Make sure it is the right exam
Biology is now Life Science: Biology only: Living Environment is not given in 2027. In chemistry and physics the State gives both versions in January, the older Physical Setting exams and the new Physical Science ones, so that each student sits the one that matches the course they took; the older two end after June 2027. Ask the teacher which one your child is entered for.
Science: the Investigations come first
For the new science exams, the State admits a student only once the course’s required Investigations, the hands-on tasks done in class, are completed; the school decides what counts as completed. About about 15% of the Life Science: Biology questions draw on what those Investigations practise. A student retaking the exam should check this with the teacher well before January.
Know which calculator is allowed, and practise on it
Life Science: Biology: a four-function or scientific calculator; graphing calculators are not allowed. A student who practised on a different calculator loses time on the day.
Sit one full released paper before the winter break
Timed as on the day (3 hours for Algebra I and for Life Science: Biology), marked with the State’s own rating guide, then read on the conversion chart of a recent sitting with our Regents score calculator. That one paper shows whether the gap is content, written answers or time, and each needs different weeks.
On the day
The school gives the time to report. The State’s grid sets a uniform admission deadline of 10:00 a.m. for morning exams and 2:00 p.m. for afternoon ones.
A plan to January, or to January and June
Tell us which exams and which sitting. Two exams in two sittings, say biology in January and Algebra I in June, is one plan: the January exam takes the coming weeks and the June one gets the spring. It starts with a $150 diagnostic, then $125 a session, at 928 Broadway or online.
Sources, read November 6, 2026 on nysed.gov: Examination Schedule: January 2027; Procedures for Requesting and Storing the January 2027 Regents Examinations; the Algebra I and Life Science: Biology educator guides. Your school confirms the exact time to report.
The exam changed. The way students lose biology marks did not.
For twelve years of Living Environment papers, the same pattern held, and there is no reason to expect it to break: the vocabulary is the visible problem and the written response is the real one. A student who can define diffusion and cannot explain, in three sentences a marker can award points to, why a cell in that solution behaves as it does, will lose marks on every paper you put in front of them.
Reading an experiment is the second half. Biology exams in New York are heavy on charts, graphs and described investigations: what was the variable, what would you compare it against, what does this line actually show. Students who revise by memorising the textbook never practise this, because the textbook does not test it.
So we work from released papers and their official scoring keys, and the first thing we change is answer length. Most students write too little and think they wrote enough, and the key is the only honest referee for that argument.
Free, no sign-up
The Living Environment tools we built, before you talk to anyone
These two tools cover the exam as it existed — useful for reading a result your child already has, and for seeing how little the Living Environment curve actually moved over twelve years. We hold 32 published Living Environment charts, June 2014 to June 2026, read exactly as NYSED printed them — the June 2026 table included.
Straight answers about a retired exam
Is Living Environment the same as biology?
Essentially, yes. Living Environment is the name New York State used for its first high-school biology course and for the Regents examination at the end of it — the same subject other states simply call Biology. The name is a New York label, not a different discipline. Since June 2025 the State has been administering a replacement, Life Science: Biology, and June 2026 was the final administration of Living Environment.
Is the Living Environment Regents still given?
No. New York State’s implementation schedule for the new science Regents set June 2026 as its final administration, and June 2026 is the last conversion chart the State published for it. The replacement is Life Science: Biology, which has been administered alongside it since June 2025.
Is there a Living Environment Regents in 2027?
No. Living Environment is on none of the State's January, June or August 2027 schedules. The biology Regents in 2027 is Life Science: Biology: Friday, January 29, 2027 at 9:15 a.m., then Thursday, June 17, 2027 at 9:15 a.m.
My child passed Living Environment last year. Does that still count?
Yes. A Regents score already earned stays on the New York transcript and keeps whatever standing it had when it was earned. An exam ending does not retroactively unmake results. If you want to read the raw score properly, use the chart for the exact sitting your child took — the raw score needed for a 65 sat between 40 and 41 points out of 85 across the 32 charts we hold.
My child failed Living Environment. Can they retake it?
Not that exam. June 2026 was its last sitting, and it is not on the State's January 2027 schedule. A student who still needs to pass a biology Regents now sits Life Science: Biology, next given on Friday, January 29, 2027, then on Thursday, June 17, 2027. The State requires the Life Science: Biology Investigations, done in class, before a student is admitted to that exam, and it has warned schools that a student taught for the old exam who fails it may have to repeat the course in its new form. So the first conversation is with the school counsellor, this fall rather than in January. We will not sell you preparation for a paper that will not be set; we will prepare your child for the one that will.
Do you still tutor high-school biology?
Yes, and it is the same work. The organising ideas of a first biology course — cells, genetics and inheritance, evolution, ecology, human systems, and reading an experiment — did not change because the exam’s name did. What changes is which released papers we practise on, and we use the current exam’s.
How much does biology tutoring cost?
A $150 diagnostic, then $125 per one-on-one session, at 928 Broadway in the Flatiron or online. Pay per session — no packages, no contracts, no minimum.
The two Physical Setting sciences are on the same path — still administered, with a last date already announced: see Chemistry and Physics. The Preparation for the exam that replaced it is on Life Science: Biology, and what the new charts demand against the old is measured across all three sciences. The newest science exam already running is Earth and Space Sciences. Everything else is on the Regents tutoring page.
Take the next step
Tell us the grade and the school
Those two facts settle which biology exam is ahead. We will tell you straight if the answer is that no tutoring is needed yet.