Berkley Review doesn't explain concepts....

[efredman]

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I bought the Berkley Review series based on the recommendations here. However, I have been trying to study with it but found that it introduces many concepts without explaining them first. For example, in the first chapter of the Orgo book, it asks you a question on cis- trans-, without ever telling you what cis- and trans- are. Or sometimes it will say something like "this is the most substituted carbon" without telling you what a it means when something is substituted.

It has been a few years since I have taken some of these classes... so I am unfamiliar with a lot of these terms

 

[GemelloMD]

Just stick with it. It will get to those topics. Many times BR will use questions like that in the examples as a kind of spring board for the next topic. IMO doing so gives you questions to which you now actively read for in subsequent chapters. Active reading is better reading. Simply put, I don't know of any test prep as thorough/good as BR. Stick with it. Make a list of questions. Answer them. Kill the MCAT.

 

[muhali3]

Yeah, BR does that sometimes. It will have a question that tests on a concept that they go over in a later chapter.

 

[OccamsRazor]

I hear you. I remember thinking the same thing going through TBR chapters. However, I did most of my basic review with Kaplan and EK first, and used TBR for a more in-depth review and drilling concepts. This really helped me but I don't know if this is an option for you (given time and/or money constraints). It also helped because TBR can go way too in depth at times so I was able to weed out some things I felt were time better spent doing practice passages. One thing I felt lacking with TBR that Kaplan and EK had was that they rarely told you : ok, this will be on the MCAT, this won't but its FYI..

I still feel TBR blows other companies out of the water with their passages and some of their helpful hints, etc. so I'd still stick with it, if only for the passages.

 

[impact2d]

Can I recommend not doing BR O.Chem until after you've finished up to chapter 5 of G.Chem. It makes the first few chapters of O.Chem much easier (acid base chemistry is organic chemistry)