A question for those who beat the mean

[shahroseamir]

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Hi.
I have a question. can anyone tell me if it is ok to study BRS for biochemistry. I have already gone through Kaplan biochemistry and i think that it is not sufficient and on the other hand Lippincott biochemistry is too much extensive and time consuming.
I was wondering if some one, has used this book or heard about it, can give me feed back.

thanks

shahrose

 

[doc05]

Yours is an excellent question and here's the answer: it depends. I beat the mean, and had little problem with biochemistry, but I had a strong background even before med school.

That said, Kaplan is very sufficient (the lecture notes -- I have no idea about the home study course); and I never even looked at BRS, so I can't tell you whether that is overkill. When studying biochemistry for step-1, I used Kaplan, along with selected sections out of Lipincott (which is too much). Just learn the basic priniciples of everything in Kaplan, and MEMORIZE the tables relevant to the genetic diseases. Do qbank and qbook and you should be ok. Just don't skimp on the more important areas (pathology, pharm, physio) because there are usually relatively fewer biochem questions on the exam.

best of luck

 

[shahroseamir]

Thank you very much DOC05. That really help. I think that i will do the same as this is what i was thinking about biochemistry.
thanks
Shahrose

 

[Idiopathic]

Mosby has a new 'Rapid Review' series out, that has a fantastic BioChem book in outline format, written by Ed Goljan. This book is a very easy read, and hits all the pertinent USMLE topics. I would read this twice before I even looked at Lippincott.

 

[jed2023]

Your post doesn't make it clear whether you are talking about the Kaplan Home Study Notes, which are sold on the Kaplan website, or the Kaplan Lecture Notes, which are only available through a Kaplan course (unless you pick them up off ebay). In either case, however, each is sufficient. I personally thought that both were better than Lippincott in getting straight to the point. But I guess it depends on your background. If you already know the basics, then Lippincott is overboard in my opinion and takes too long to get through when you only have 4 or 5 days to review Biochem in the month before your boards. (Actually this issue of being too much applies even if you don't know much biochem. It only fails to apply if you give yourself a few weeks to really work your way through the book. But that would be shooting yourself in the foot, if you did it at the expense of the more important step 1 subject areas.)

Every student I have spoken to has said that the majority of biochem that showed up on step 1 was woven into other subjects areas, particularly path. It's uncommon to get pure biochem problems which are not clinically relevant to medicine.

So, yeah, Kaplan's Q-book (not bank) says that biochem makes up 12 or 13% percent of the test but the percentage of pure biochem questions (the ones you couldn't answer from knowing related path, phys, or micro) is surprisingly small. Most people said that they got maybe a handful at most, as in fewer than 5. So, that's not something to sweat.

I should add in the customary caveat that everyone's test varies, but I'm sure you already knew that.

 

[shahroseamir]

Thanks jed, your detailed answer really helped me in making the final decision.
thanks again
shahrose

 

[scootad.]

I used First Aid in conjunction with HI-Yield biochem. Dont spend too much time on biochem! If you can understand the stuff in first aid w/ some assistance from hi yield you are good to go for biochem.