Am I tripping, EK 1001 Bio question

[ARSdogma]

Is this even the right book? I bought a EK 1001 Biology questions today from Borders and I briefly looked through it and tried to answer some of their non-passage based questions and I really am wondering if I even got the right book. Ive been studying strictly from EK Bio latest edition and know the book very well. I even went through and did an open book type situation for a few of the questions and EK biology does NOT cover any of this stuff and it makes me wonder, is the Ek1001 bio just THAT much harder or is the EK biology review that much barebones and lacking too much material?

I did a search and found that many said the Ek1001 is good for content but not very similar to the MCAT which is fine but even content wise, EK1001 questions are extremely difficult to the point where im asking how are you even supposed to know that if the EK Bio review doesn't cover it? Kind of weird that the two EK books don't even correspond.

Here's a few questions from Lecture 1 which is "Molecular Biology and Cell Respiration":

(I just chose the nonpassage types)




51) which of the following molecules is capable of generating the greatest osmotic pressure? a) 300 mM glucose b) 300mM urea c) 300mM NaCl D) 300mM CaCl2

WTF? Once again no where in lecture 1 does any of this or anything remotely reassembling this material show up.


48) Enterokinase is composed of 80,000 residues and is derived from a single chain precursor. Disulfide bond disruption and liquid chromatography reveal 2 different effusion rates? Which of the following must be true regarding enterokinase?
a) It is composed of a heavy chain unimonomer with intra disulfide bonds.
b) it is composed of a heavy chain and light chain homodimer.
c) It is composed of a heavy chain and a 235-amino acid light chain heterodimer.
D) it is composed of a heavy chain dimonomer with inter disulfide bonds.


once again, no clue what any of that means. Disulfide, I recognize from when they mention proteins and the 4 levels of protein structures but aside from that, this makes no sense.


Anyone want to show me the light on this one?

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[Cinclus]

51) which of the following molecules is capable of generating the greatest osmotic pressure? a) 300 mM glucose b) 300mM urea c) 300mM NaCl D) 300mM CaCl2

WTF? Once again no where in lecture 1 does any of this or anything remotely reassembling this material show up.


Anyone want to show me the light on this one?

Osmotic pressure = iMRT, with i = van't Hoff factor, M = molarity, R = ideal gas constant, and T = temperature; the only difference between the answers given is in "i", the van't Hoff factor (a.k.a., the number of particles each of the compounds dissociates into upon dissolution). So, whichever dissociates into the greatest number of particles should be able to generate the greatest osmotic pressure (I believe the answer is calcium chloride).

I don't think this is discussed in EK biology, but it most definitely is in EK general chemistry. I guess it's a combo question. That's kind of weird that it shows up in that bio section, though.

 

[ARSdogma]

Osmotic pressure = iMRT, with i = van't Hoff factor, M = molarity, R = ideal gas constant, and T = temperature; the only difference between the answers given is in "i", the van't Hoff factor (a.k.a., the number of particles each of the compounds dissociates into upon dissolution). So, whichever dissociates into the greatest number of particles should be able to generate the greatest osmotic pressure (I believe the answer is calcium chloride).

I don't think this is discussed in EK biology, but it most definitely is in EK general chemistry. I guess it's a combo question.

Thanks for the explanation. Yeah I guess the EK1001 bio asks a whole lot more than what their bio review book covers. Which makes it harder (the questions) but not sure how that relates to the MCATs. It would be nice to have really difficult questions only on the subject matter they cover, divided into topics so I know how well I have the contents of that topic covered. But I guess this is okay too.

 

[Silverfalcon]

First, say MCAT, not MCATS.

Second, EK 1001 is known to have things you didn't learn in EK Bio book. But at the same time, that's good because you are going to encounter topics that you haven't heard before. Just because you "know" EK Bio book well doesn't mean you are all set for MCAT Bio passages.

 

[Swagster]

First, say MCAT, not MCATS.

Second, EK 1001 is known to have things you didn't learn in EK Bio book. But at the same time, that's good because you are going to encounter topics that you haven't heard before. Just because you "know" EK Bio book well doesn't mean you are all set for MCAT Bio passages.

How is it in any way good to use a book that doesn't cover everything that will be on the MCAT (or the vast majority of it)? What good does it do you to train for dealing with stuff that is unfamiliar when you could actually review the material and become familiar with it? Your comment that knowing EK bio well doesn't mean you're set for the MCAT bio passages doesn't bode well. I guess that's why people look elsewhere than EK for passages.

 

[Silverfalcon]

How is it in any way good to use a book that doesn't cover everything that will be on the MCAT (or the vast majority of it)? What good does it do you to train for dealing with stuff that is unfamiliar when you could actually review the material and become familiar with it? Your comment that knowing EK bio well doesn't mean you're set for the MCAT bio passages doesn't bode well. I guess that's why people look elsewhere than EK for passages.

MCAT isn't like taking your final exam for your Cell Bio course. There will be things that you don't know, some things you may have heard of, and others that you have firm grasp on. The point of MCAT isn't to test how much knowledge you have memorized, but to present you a situation that tests your critical reasoning skills.

Have you taken a real MCAT or studied for it? That's pretty a common knowledge about what MCAT tests. If you want to find an exam that tests pure knowledge, take GRE instead.

 

[Swagster]

MCAT isn't like taking your final exam for your Cell Bio course. There will be things that you don't know, some things you may have heard of, and others that you have firm grasp on. The point of MCAT isn't to test how much knowledge you have memorized, but to present you a situation that tests your critical reasoning skills.

Have you taken a real MCAT or studied for it? That's pretty a common knowledge about what MCAT tests. If you want to find an exam that tests pure knowledge, take GRE instead.

I get what you are saying about the exam, but that's not my point. My point is that if I have two books to choose from, one that does a cursory review and the other that goes in depth, I'll take the indepth one. Why put yourself behind the eight ball?

When it comes to preparing for passages on things I've never seen before, I'll count on practice passages to do that. But I'd sure like to get as much MCAT info down as I can, so I can minimize the number of unfamiliar passages. Why put yourself at a further disadvantage when you have resources that will expose you to more topics?

 

[ARSdogma]

First, say MCAT, not MCATS.

Second, EK 1001 is known to have things you didn't learn in EK Bio book. But at the same time, that's good because you are going to encounter topics that you haven't heard before. Just because you "know" EK Bio book well doesn't mean you are all set for MCAT Bio passages.

Well I think you missed the point of my post slightly. Part of it was just me complaining lol about how EK Bio review and their Ek1001 questions do not go together. I mean, one would expect the biology review book to cover at least certain things in their other biology Q&A book but I guess that's not the case.

I know that knowing the EK bio book well doesn't mean ill do well on the MCAT bio portion but after all I've heard of people claiming EK to be the best thing ever since slice bread, I would've at least thought that it'd prepare me for the EK 1001 questions, which clearly it did not. But it does ask some WTF questions. Sometimes I find questions that have NOTHING to do with biology and is a purely chemistry question and other times i'll find questions that don't relate (topic wise) to the passage whatsoever.


How does the EK biology passages from the Ek1001 compare to the MCAT biology passages?

 

[Silverfalcon]

I get what you are saying about the exam, but that's not my point. My point is that if I have two books to choose from, one that does a cursory review and the other that goes in depth, I'll take the indepth one. Why put yourself behind the eight ball?

When it comes to preparing for passages on things I've never seen before, I'll count on practice passages to do that. But I'd sure like to get as much MCAT info down as I can, so I can minimize the number of unfamiliar passages. Why put yourself at a further disadvantage when you have resources that will expose you to more topics?

See the thing is, you are expecting a prep book to do most of familiarizing the obscure topics during the content review. The difficulty with that is you will most likely not retain it (in other words, if I gave you a book with all the gram(+) and gram(-) bascteria that were tested in previous MCAT, would you memorize every single bacteria in that list and its size, etc..? No, you wouldn't). Doing passages about various topics is the best way to familiarize the topics, but if you have ever picked up a journal article from Science or Nature, you should see that there are always topics that even textbooks have not covered.

While I do understand your point, the purpose of EK Bio is to teach you the reasoning skills, which are far more important than just a list of information. It highly depends on the individual. If you are a CMB major, for instance, who has taken a lot of biology courses and worked in an immunology lab, then you would be better off with EK Bio since you have firm grasp on background and outside knowledge that can help you to reason things. If you are say, English major with only Bio I & II, then you may need more bulkier book to help you reason things out.

People score well on Bio with just introductory biology and EK Bio. It has happened in past, and it will. Your point is well-taken, but it's rather off in reality. I know personally in real life and in SDN about people doing very well (12+) with minimum biology knowledge, so if you disagree, just remember that what I say is more accurate than what you "think" to believe.

Well I think you missed the point of my post slightly. Part of it was just me complaining lol about how EK Bio review and their Ek1001 questions do not go together. I mean, one would expect the biology review book to cover at least certain things in their other biology Q&A book but I guess that's not the case.

I know that knowing the EK bio book well doesn't mean ill do well on the MCAT bio portion but after all I've heard of people claiming EK to be the best thing ever since slice bread, I would've at least thought that it'd prepare me for the EK 1001 questions, which clearly it did not. But it does ask some WTF questions. Sometimes I find questions that have NOTHING to do with biology and is a purely chemistry question and other times i'll find questions that don't relate (topic wise) to the passage whatsoever.


How does the EK biology passages from the Ek1001 compare to the MCAT biology passages?

EK does ask questions that are out-of-nowhere. MCAT is less random in that way, but it still has its own unique randomness that will make you struggle. That's necessary to generate a bell curve in any standardized test. You can't expect an exam to have questions that you always feel strong about. If you did, it is most likely that you did not do well.

I think you are missing the whole point of MCAT by complaining about questions involving chemistry. A lot of topics in metabolisms deals with equilibrium, which is a chemistry topic. The passage writers can also integrate organic chemistry (ex. Aldol Condensation) with biological pathways, and physics/general chemistry can provide the background knowledge in the passage about topics like electrophoresis.

For some students, EK Bio is very good at teaching reasoning skills. If that's the case for you, that's great. If not, then seek different sources. I'm not going to answer the question about "EK Bio vs MCAT Bio" because that's something you should find on your own since it has been asked thousands of times.

To both of you: I don't know how far you guys are in MCAT prep, or maybe you have taken it once, but regardless of what you believe, I am right, and you are wrong. I'm not being arrogant, but simply being brutally honest. MCAT is different from what you guys think - background information is there, yes, and every question can come down to knowledge from intro courses, but what has been significant is that the way they present questions in passages are much more complex and require more reasoning skills. It also heavily integrates skills from other topics, and is a very interdisciplinary exam. That's why it's so tough.

 

[shffl]

Have you tried TBR Bio passages? EK1001 bio is a joke compared to it. I didn't use the EK series for material prep and instead used TBR. IMO (again IMO) EK content review is not great at all. EK1001 is a good resource to find your weakness. The topics covered in the EK1001 books are abundant and it's great to find what you know and don't know (prepare to be frustrated by their solutions to problems you don't understand though). I studied off TBR and practiced on their passages along with EK1001 and for the most part the questions were easy. There were some that I did not understand but I was able to realize that and improve upon it. I think that's how Ek1001's should be used.

 

[fullset]

MCAT definitely integrates a whole lot of science topics on some passages. Questions don't always fall into set categories like physics 2, chem 1 etc.

 

[ARSdogma]

Have you tried TBR Bio passages? EK1001 bio is a joke compared to it. I didn't use the EK series for material prep and instead used TBR. IMO (again IMO) EK content review is not great at all. EK1001 is a good resource to find your weakness. The topics covered in the EK1001 books are abundant and it's great to find what you know and don't know (prepare to be frustrated by their solutions to problems you don't understand though). I studied off TBR and practiced on their passages along with EK1001 and for the most part the questions were easy. There were some that I did not understand but I was able to realize that and improve upon it. I think that's how Ek1001's should be used.

I went through and finished Lecture 1 of Ek1001 bio and got a feel for it and definitely I can see what people mean by saying it is content heavy. They try to cater passages into different topics that they discuss but oftentimes you need more information than what their EKbio review book gives you to answer the questions. On the run first i'm getting like 60% right which isn't great but I know I can improve that.

It's hard to gauge because I haven't started on a full biology passage yet because I'm still going through and reviewing and memorizing content before I do that.

 

[apumic]

MCAT isn't like taking your final exam for your Cell Bio course. There will be things that you don't know, some things you may have heard of, and others that you have firm grasp on. The point of MCAT isn't to test how much knowledge you have memorized, but to present you a situation that tests your critical reasoning skills.

Have you taken a real MCAT or studied for it? That's pretty a common knowledge about what MCAT tests. If you want to find an exam that tests pure knowledge, take GRE instead.

You do realize that the GRE (General) has no content right? Not even the math section is truly math content (most of it is problem solving). The various subject GREs are similar in content to the MCAT science sections (i.e., you need background but the focus is definitely on applying that background). The GRE General is a fairly pure aptitude tests. What it tests is akin to what the MCAT VR tests.

 

[Silverfalcon]

You do realize that the GRE (General) has no content right? Not even the math section is truly math content (most of it is problem solving). The various subject GREs are similar in content to the MCAT science sections (i.e., you need background but the focus is definitely on applying that background). The GRE General is a fairly pure aptitude tests. What it tests is akin to what the MCAT VR tests.

My apologies for not being more specific - I meant GRE Subject Test.

I only took a look at GRE Chemistry and Biochemistry, and those questions seemed to require little to no integration of materials. I can't say completely for Biochemistry since I didn't go through a lot of them, but GRE Chemistry was pretty straightforward I thought, especially for p-chem.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

I personally don't think EK biology is very good at presenting content in the way the MCAT passages present them. The TPR books are way better, in my opinion. I went through EK Bio twice and it didn't help my bio score at all. I'm sure it's helped a great deal of people but I really don't think it helped me understand biology from the mcat perspective.

 

[ARSdogma]

I personally don't think EK biology is very good at presenting content in the way the MCAT passages present them. The TPR books are way better, in my opinion. I went through EK Bio twice and it didn't help my bio score at all. I'm sure it's helped a great deal of people but I really don't think it helped me understand biology from the mcat perspective.

I looked through TPR Science workbook and I think i'll complete that once i finish the Ek 1001 books. I'm still in the learning phase of bio. 1/2 way through it.

 

[MightyMoose]

The EK Biology review book covers all of that material.

You just need to learn how to apply it. Not all subjects are independent. There is definitely and overlap between bio, physics, and chemistry.