getting my ***** kicked on TBR Bio Passages

Started by Parthenon89
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Parthenon89

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I've read through the nervous & muscle system (Section1) in TBR Bio, understood it pretty well and was able to think very clearly in terms of physiology while I was reading it, but when I do the passages, I only get half the questions right. The questions are insanely difficult.

Any tips or suggestions?
 
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Yes this is happening to me too. I tried their Physics passages, and got >12 on almost all of them. Bio I'm getting 7 for all of them.

The questions ask about stuff never mentioned in their review, beyond the difficulty and detail to be expected on the real MCAT, or otherwise just ridiculous. For example the "PNS response... penile erection" question. Only previous knowledge could lead you to the right answer. I honestly think the author just thought he was being funny by making a pun on 'PeeNiS response' and a boner. It's almost like I'm in 3rd grade again! 😀
 
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Le Boudin said:
Yes this is happening to me too. I tried their Physics passages, and got >12 on almost all of them. Bio I'm getting 7 for all of them.

The questions ask about stuff never mentioned in their review, beyond the difficulty and detail to be expected on the real MCAT, or otherwise just ridiculous. For example the "PNS response... penile erection" question. Only previous knowledge could lead you to the right answer. I honestly think the author just thought he was being funny by making a pun on 'PeeNiS response' and a boner. It's almost like I'm in 3rd grade again! 😀
Click to expand...

Oh thank god! I was sooo freaking out doing these passages right now! Like they are seriously MESSED - thanks OP for making the thread 🙂
 
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lmao its so funny that you guys mentioned the PNS-Penis question because i just did that passage over the weekend. The answer seemed somewhat counterintuitive to what the definition of a parasympathetic system was (lower blood pressure, heart rate, etc). But when i went back to the section, i saw that that the only correlation between penis and PNS was found in a diagram and nowhere else. I also opened up my EK Bio book and they said it was superfluous to know the effects of PNS and SNS. What are your opinions on that?
 
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Bio Section II Test
Q1 answer: "The total cross-sectional area of all the capillaries is very large, the largest of all types of vessels seen in the cardiovascular system."
Q24 answer: "The total area of the veins and venules will be the largest"
Q28 answer explanation shows they missed the word "NOT" in their own question.

Also, it seems they often give you an explanation in the text section which the passage questions will contradict. To get the right answer, you need to know the details of material not even mentioned by the review book, and probably not on the MCAT. i.e. Reynolds Number formula, Bio Test II Q31 answer literally contradicts what the accompanying passage says, etc.

I'm seriously questioning the BR series, at least their Bio. An admin here pastes a heavily-TBR booklist to every query, and the TBR order form had a checkbox for if you heard about TBR thru SDN. I hope these are legit books and we are not merely victims of viral marketing.
 
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I actually just started studying for the Mcat. I'm doing pretty horribly on the BR passages for all subjects. Its pretty discouraging. But the Bio ones were definitely toughest for me.
 
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Well I think the TBR gen chem/orgo/physics books are all pretty good so far...but the biology book is INSANE. My scores in gen chem/orgo have been encouraging so far (my best subjects)...physics i've been improving on so far (it's been four years since I took it...), but biology....has been so weird...my scores have been all over the place! I've been roughly following Sn2's schedule and the first time I took biology passages out of TBR, I got around a 12 or 13 (by the estimates at the front of the passages)...then I got around a 8 or 9 the other two times (which is very discouraging!). I got an 11 on the first EK Bio 30 minute exam...so my biology scores have ranged from an 8 to a 13 depending on the passages for that day....hmmmmm

I've heard the average passage from TBR bio is approximately equal in difficulty to the hardest passage you'll see on an AAMC exam...so I guess it's like training to lift a 300 lb weight when you really only need to lift a 200 lb weight?

As a caveat though: I've only been studying around a week and a half so far....so take my comments with a grain of salt.
 
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Parthenon89 said:
I've read through the nervous & muscle system (Section1) in TBR Bio, understood it pretty well and was able to think very clearly in terms of physiology while I was reading it, but when I do the passages, I only get half the questions right. The questions are insanely difficult.

Any tips or suggestions?
Click to expand...


I went ahead and dropped $20 for an EK bio book... I'm not sure how to attack BR myself.
 
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Yep I am also getting completely destroyed on the BR bio. I outline every chapter as I go through them and *feel* I have a good grasp of it and I'm about up to section IX and so far I've been 55-65/100 (I would usually do all 100 in one sitting at about min/question)..pretty horrible. Although alot of those I got wrong were within my capability to get right but I keep doing poorly so Im like 'effff'. Although I don' think I'm stupid either.....=/
 
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Section 1 contains questions that require you to name organic compounds and some physics (pressure and force) questions.

If you haven't covered these topics yet, then these types of questions can be difficult.
 
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the organic compound naming (i think it was the amino acid one) that one you can sort of figure out using common sense, but the physics thing you were saying...thats probably true that its difficult if haven't covered that yet, but if you're doing berkeley with ps chem and bs, all topics coincide.

for example, i was able to relate force, motion and gravitation to atomic orbital theory and nuclear energy and effective nuclear charge.
 
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What gets me are the questions that require knowledge outside the review content--I could care less about getting the Q wrong, but I wanna learn all the other stuff that they didn't put in the content review.

Feels like, well if they didn't tell me this in the content review, what ELSE didn't they put in that I should know?
 
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Le Boudin said:
What gets me are the questions that require knowledge outside the review content--I could care less about getting the Q wrong, but I wanna learn all the other stuff that they didn't put in the content review.

Feels like, well if they didn't tell me this in the content review, what ELSE didn't they put in that I should know?
Click to expand...

i completely agree, i got *****raped (again) on the CV-Resp system, and then did the EK section on cv and resp..and i did awesome...i think some questions are just unfair...as petty as that sounds.
 
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Just work on your passage comprehension skills and POE skills and not the "you needed to know a random, obscure outside fact questions." Don't get that confused with reasoning though, for the most parts TBR is solid when it comes to reasoning for their passages and how they eliminate answers.

Hope this helps,

-LIS
 
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There's no point complaining about unfairness. TBR bio is definitely hard, but I think it does a good job in simulating what will happen on the real deal. As others said also, it may just be you haven't done some of the other topics, and therefore can't answer some of the questions yet.

You will likely get 1 or 2 questions that you aren't familiar with on the real thing also, so just think of this as practice.

But yes, TBR bio is definitely difficult. But very illuminating as well. Good luck!
 
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Super bump

I just did the first 1/3 of Bio (12 passages)

There were a few I literally had no clue what was going on with the questions. Hopefully the review tomorrow will give me some insight.
 
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Use the bio section as a way to prepare for difficult passages, but also a way to learn new material too. When I was doing the bio passages, I would sometimes get the 4/7 questions wrong on a passage, but going back and reviewing the questions and answers really helped. And dont be discouraged if you are doing poorly like I was. These passages helped be get a 13 on the BS section.
 
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rika13 said:
Use the bio section as a way to prepare for difficult passages, but also a way to learn new material too. When I was doing the bio passages, I would sometimes get the 4/7 questions wrong on a passage, but going back and reviewing the questions and answers really helped. And dont be discouraged if you are doing poorly like I was. These passages helped be get a 13 on the BS section.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's really encouraging. I seriously thought of just giving up a few times.

Were you confused at where you should start your line of reasoning for some of the questions? Some of them felt to come out of nowhere.
 
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TBR prepares you for the crazy passages on BS on the real deal. I didn't do great on my MCAT but I know TBR prevented me from completely bombing BS, because it was pretty ridiculous. Oh and the tough orgo passages could show up on a real test too(not the same ones of course).
 
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TBR can kick ur ass sometimes...especially all that metabolic stuff in book two. I wouldn't worry too much about it though. I was only averaging like 10s on their bio questions but ended up with a 12 on the real thing. TBR definitely prepares you well.
 
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I do TBR and TPRH...I do like TBR's Gen Chem and Orgo...not so much the Bio and Physics. I read a charper from TBR bio, take notes and then I try to find the same topic in the TPRH Bio section. When I do the Bio passages I get soooo upset for doing bad on the TBR passages. I am glad that there are other people like me missing question.🙄But I think TBR/TPRH is much much much much much better than EK! The salty cracker pissed me off when I was going thru the EK! 😡
 
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Same here. Metabolic Pathways (2nd ch) was a crazy chapter, so many tricks. I just finished the first chapter of book 2 and did 5 passages in 45 mins and got a 71% 🙁
 
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To be honest, I feel that TBR Bio was way too much for the exam. EK 101 is also skimpy, so definitely use it in conjunction with TPRH Bio to study. A solid course in animal physiology can make your life SO much easier, as will a class in genetics! That is what helped me the most on my August exam!
 
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