Most time consuming BR chapters?

[Rhino1000]

Man. I just got done with the first Berkeley Review general chemistry chapter; it took me about 8 hours just to get through the chapter + do three passages (well, I also did three from the first physics chapter, which I read yesterday). I was surprised. In general, in your experience what are the most time consuming chapters in the TBR books (in any subject, besides biology)? If you have experience with it, how does the TPR biology book compare?

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[GodComplex]

Were you taking notes or just reading? I don't remember which ones took the longest but I do believe that for Gchem number one was above average. For physics there are a few that are really short so I was always happy to open the book for that study day and see that. They got a lot faster for me but I didn't take notes and only worte down things like equations or concepts that were not intuitive or easy to remember.

 

[Rhino1000]

Were you taking notes or just reading? I don't remember which ones took the longest but I do believe that for Gchem number one was above average. For physics there are a few that are really short so I was always happy to open the book for that study day and see that. They got a lot faster for me but I didn't take notes and only worte down things like equations or concepts that were not intuitive or easy to remember.

I was taking notes while reading. I expect that I will be writing down even more in later chapters. So far, I can agree about the speed of some of the physics chapters. I covered the first chapter yesterday in about an hour; it covered easy material such as the relationship between accelerations and velocities. What were your perceptions about the time commitment required to cover the organic chemistry chapters, etc.? Were they lengthy?

 

[GodComplex]

The organic chemistry chapters were not usually lengthy for me but Ochem was one of my strongest subjects and I was in my third quarter of taking it while studying for the MCAT so my opinion on that should be taken lightly. Overall, Ochem shouldn't be too bad unless it is your weakness, plus there are only 8 chapters for it. Are you timing your passages?

 

[John2448]

Gchem chapter 2 is really long!!!

 

[Rhino1000]

The organic chemistry chapters were not usually lengthy for me but Ochem was one of my strongest subjects and I was in my third quarter of taking it while studying for the MCAT so my opinion on that should be taken lightly. Overall, Ochem shouldn't be too bad unless it is your weakness, plus there are only 8 chapters for it. Are you timing your passages?

Ought I to be timing my passages? I know for the end of the first chapter in the physics book, Berkeley Review explicitly recommends taking the first few passages untimed. It doesn't say any such thing at the end of the Gen. Chem chapter, but I went ahead untimed anyways. I was planning on doing my first set of passages untimed and then progress to timing myself on my second and third exposures, what do you think?

Also, I am pretty good at Organic Chemistry, but, as a quiz one time, my prof. assigned a few OChem passages from the MCAT, and I scored like 70 % on that sucker. It was surprisingly challenging. So perhaps you might have to conclude that I am, in fact, not as great as I like to think! Hopefully this isn't the case, and she assigned particularly challenging passages. For reference, I scored like 80-85th percentile on the ACS exam (nothing amazing).

 

[Rhino1000]

Gchem chapter 2 is really long!!!

Yikes.

 

[pepocho]

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[Rhino1000]

That's exactly what I am going to do. I tried timing the first couple of times, and I did horrific. In fact, some of TBR's passages are seriously impossible to do under 8 minutes. Some of those questions require a lot of time. So don't freak out if there are some questions that aren't crazy long. However, I am making it a habit to use a stopwatch to see how long it takes me.
- Also I think just starting the sn2ed schedule, most intro chapters take longer than usual because you aren't really sure how you will modify the schedule for your choosing. Every time I had a question I would get on here and then sometimes I would surf for certain clarifications and so on. So far, for me, it has been taking around the 6-8 hours for each chapters even the ones I think I know well. What takes me longest is the verbal passages and reviewing them along with reviewing the previous TBR passages. I never realized how long reviewing takes.

You've already started verbal? Dang, I wasn't planning on even doing a passage for another few weeks.

 

[pepocho]

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[Rhino1000]

Sn2ed recommended doing some verbal passages every day (except break days ) I swear every time I read his post I always find something I missed before

Good to know.

Any thoughts on the relative time consumption of the various BR chapters are welcome!

 

[pepocho]

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[Rhino1000]

glad to know i m not the only one taking 8+ hours to do a chapter... i finished 3 orgo chapters in two days n my brain is fried... i started w tpr but midway switched to tbr bcos tpr wasnt detailed enough... idk if i shud regret this decision

I don't think you have anything to worry about. TBR has a great reputation. Nice work on the 3 orgo chapters in 2 days!

 

[whip]

I'm doing the same thing for content review. Takes about 8 hours to go through a BR chapter and questions. I'm at ch6 for almost all sections (orgo ch4 today- is it just me or is orgo the worst thing on this planet to study). I also try to do 2 verbal passages in the morning from TPR Verbal workbook.

My question is how are you guys reviewing? I do the passage and immediately after mark the ones I get wrong and quickly look at the explanation. I think this might be my downfall. I really have a hard time mustering up the mental energy to do a thorough review and log everything systematically in a notebook.

I Plan to take a FL tomorrow but not sure which one.


Also... Does anyone have a list of physics equations they are using? I have seen a few but I haven't found one that I have stuck with yet. Still have a bunch that I need to memorize.

 

[derrick rose]

I'm doing the same thing for content review. Takes about 8 hours to go through a BR chapter and questions. I'm at ch6 for almost all sections (orgo ch4 today- is it just me or is orgo the worst thing on this planet to study). I also try to do 2 verbal passages in the morning from TPR Verbal workbook.

My question is how are you guys reviewing? I do the passage and immediately after mark the ones I get wrong and quickly look at the explanation. I think this might be my downfall. I really have a hard time mustering up the mental energy to do a thorough review and log everything systematically in a notebook.

I Plan to take a FL tomorrow but not sure which one.


Also... Does anyone have a list of physics equations they are using? I have seen a few but I haven't found one that I have stuck with yet. Still have a bunch that I need to memorize.

If you are having a tough time recording review, I recently found a method that works well! Just get a whole bunch of those small square sticky notes and post them on/near the question you got wrong. Write whatever ya need and thats it! That way it does not take too much effort and is coordinated with the material.

For physics equations, wikipremed has a ton and TBR has lists of them in the beginning of each chapter.

 

[swolebrah]

Seem's about right haha. It usually takes that long if you read the chapter + make flashcards/anki + do passages + post game analysis.

My post-passage analysis usually takes 3x as long to do the BR.

Also I am timing myself to give 7minutes/TBR passage. It's harsh, however if I reach 7 minutes and I still have questions left, I guess and then on a separate peice of paper finish the rest of the questions in no time limit. (That way I get to do all the questions, but also have a accurate score at 7minutes/passage)