Are we really expected to read the entire TBR orgo chapter in under 3 hours???

[SSLiebstandarte]

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I was looking through S2ned's 3 month schedule and realized - WTF! I am suppose to read the ENTIRE chapter in under 3 hours?!?!?!

TBR orgo chapter 1 took me 2 days (full days of 6 hour reading) to get it down. TBR gen chem chapter 2 is another very long chapter that takes at least 6-10 hours to complete reading.


Does anyone else share my problem with this 3 month schedule?

 

[typicalindian]

yup I have the same problem, dont worry so much about time everyone reads at different rates so just read at a pace that you can comprehend everything. if you just speed through the stuff you're gonna waste your time

 

[SN2ed]

It's not without reason that I made an entry on almost every break day, except for one, during the reading phase entitled, in caps, "READING TIMES MAY VARY GREATLY DEPENDING ON THE PERSON."

 

[SSLiebstandarte]

It's not without reason that I made an entry on almost every break day, except for one, during your reading phase entitled, in caps, "READING TIMES MAY VARY GREATLY DEPENDING ON THE PERSON."

How did you come up with the 2.5 hours/chapter to begin with? I study with a group of friends (all of us biochem majors) and on long chapters we took at least 2 days of 6 hours each day to just read it. Even on the SHORT chapters, we still took around 4-5 hours to comprehend everything.

Your 3 month schedule, could easily mean a 6 month schedule to most of the pre-meds here because there is no way someone can "blaze through" a chapter in a 2.5 hour session. Especially with orgo, where there is alot of mechanisms to write down and memorize.

 

[SN2ed]

There's literally no way I could please everyone which is why I wrote down so frequently, in caps, that reading times vary greatly. Don't treat the 2.5 hours as a, "I must finish this chapter in that time." It's more about you knowing that for that day, you're supposed to read a chapter. If I put it down for 5-6 hours, then I'd have people saying that's too much time, how do I expect them to have a life outside of studying, that's a unrealistic amount of time, etc, etc. Heck, I've had people tell me, when I told them that others take multiple hours to read a chapter, that they thought I was exaggerating and that there was no way. They said stuff similar to what you've said, "well my friends and I aren't the fastest readers or the smartest, but we still finish in about an hour."

There's no way for me to predict for every single person how much time they will take to read a chapter. Hence, I'm saying this again, I put down for almost every single break day a big warning in caps that reading times vary greatly. This is actually the main reason I don't like giving estimated time per day for my schedule. In fact, I didn't give an estimated time per day in my old thread. I was tempted to just make it an all day event, but people have repeatedly asked me what order they should complete everything. I've been asked that numerous times since I created my schedule. Additionally, all day events are placed kind of out of the way. So to repeat myself, the message, "reading times vary greatly" is there every week for a very good reason.

 

[SSLiebstandarte]

There's literally no way I could please everyone which is why I wrote down so frequently, in caps, that reading times vary greatly. Don't treat the 2.5 hours as a, "I must finish this chapter in that time." It's more about you knowing that for that day, you're supposed to read a chapter. If I put it down for 5-6 hours, then I'd have people saying that's too much time, how do I expect them to have a life outside of studying, that's a unrealistic amount of time, etc, etc. Heck, I've had people tell me, when I told them that others take multiple hours to read a chapter, that they thought I was exaggerating and that there was no way. They said stuff similar to what you've said, "well my friends and I aren't the fastest readers or the smartest, but we still finish in about an hour."

There's no way for me to predict for every single person how much time they will take to read a chapter. Hence, I'm saying this again, I put down for almost every single break day a big warning in caps that reading times vary greatly. This is actually the main reason I don't like giving estimated time per day for my schedule. In fact, I didn't give an estimated time per day in my old thread. I was tempted to just make it an all day event, but people have repeatedly asked me what order they should complete everything. I've been asked that numerous times since I created my schedule. Additionally, all day events are placed kind of out of the way. So to repeat myself, the message, "reading times vary greatly" is there every week for a very good reason.

Let me give you an analogy -

I'm writing a fitness advice column for obese people. In real life, 90% of the obese people could not run 5 miles in under 1 hour. Yet, in my advice column, I tell them that they should run 5 miles in under 20 minutes, and that TIME WILL GREATLY VARY!

Do you see what is wrong here? It is called deceptive advertising!!

 

[SN2ed]

Let me give you an analogy -

I'm writing a fitness advice column for obese people. In real life, 90% of the obese people could not run 5 miles in under 1 hour. Yet, in my advice column, I tell them that they should run 5 miles in under 20 minutes, and that TIME WILL GREATLY VARY!

Do you see what is wrong here? It is called deceptive advertising!!

Except if I made it an all day event, then I'd have other people complaining that I didn't lay out the day properly. Yes, I've had several people say I must be lazy because I didn't say when one should read a chapter. If I made it longer, then I get people complaining about that and giving me similar analogies to your example. You really would be surprised how many times throughout the years I've heard almost the same analogy you wrote except from people that read the chapter quickly. If it takes you longer, that's fine. If it takes you shorter, that's fine too. Adjust the schedule to meet your needs.

 

[MedPR]

Let me give you an analogy -

I'm writing a fitness advice column for obese people. In real life, 90% of the obese people could not run 5 miles in under 1 hour. Yet, in my advice column, I tell them that they should run 5 miles in under 20 minutes, and that TIME WILL GREATLY VARY!

Do you see what is wrong here? It is called deceptive advertising!!

That's a poor analogy. SN2ed did not write a MCAT guide for intellectually inept people (the equivalent to an obese person in your fitness analogy). Anyone who realistically has a good chance at doing well on the MCAT is at least halfway intelligent. In other words, in real life, 90% of the people taking the MCAT are not "obese" intellectually. 90% of the people preparing the MCAT have taken the pre-reqs and therefore have already begun learning what will be on the MCAT. Obese people probably don't exercise at all, which is equivalent to a high school senior starting to study for the MCAT.


I haven't spent more than 3 hours reading any of the first 8-10 chapters on the schedule, and I really don't think anyone else on these forums has taken 12 hours to read a single chapter.

 

[MedPR]

How did you come up with the 2.5 hours/chapter to begin with? I study with a group of friends (all of us biochem majors) and on long chapters we took at least 2 days of 6 hours each day to just read it. Even on the SHORT chapters, we still took around 4-5 hours to comprehend everything.

Your 3 month schedule, could easily mean a 6 month schedule to most of the pre-meds here because there is no way someone can "blaze through" a chapter in a 2.5 hour session. Especially with orgo, where there is alot of mechanisms to write down and memorize.

There are no mechanisms in the first part of TBR organic. And you should already know, or at least be familiar with all of the mechanisms from your undergrad organic class. Also, mechanisms take <30 seconds to write down. They aren't long, and if you know your functional groups and have a simple understanding of the flow of electrons, they aren't hard to memorize or understand either. All of the hard stuff from organic isn't even on the MCAT.

There are quite a few people following SN2ed's schedule right now who are basically serving as a support group for each other and I haven't encountered anyone who has fallen so far behind that this 3 month schedule has or will become a 6 month schedule.

 

[Danlee07]

There's a disclaimer. Don't limit your thinking; not everything needs to be completely drawn up. Use your brain... you don't have to match the schedule day by day, hour by hour. Adjust it to yourself as it's a general guideline. Maybe some people need a schedule that gives exact minute to minute detail so they don't have to think and just follow it. That just wouldn't be fun now, would it?

Many non-obese people also can't run 5 miles in 1 hour... try to steer from analogies when we're talking about a schedule...that was made...for free...no, actually for anything. It doesn't serve any purpose.

If you're getting hung up over mechanism, then try to think conditionally to aim at a more conceptual thought process rather than detail oriented (there's not really that much to memorize for MCAT orgo...).

 

[typicalindian]

How did you come up with the 2.5 hours/chapter to begin with? I study with a group of friends (all of us biochem majors) and on long chapters we took at least 2 days of 6 hours each day to just read it. Even on the SHORT chapters, we still took around 4-5 hours to comprehend everything.

Your 3 month schedule, could easily mean a 6 month schedule to most of the pre-meds here because there is no way someone can "blaze through" a chapter in a 2.5 hour session. Especially with orgo, where there is alot of mechanisms to write down and memorize.

you didn't pay for his schedule nor is anyone making you do it, he provided this fantastic schedule for FREE and you are complaining about it? Why don't you make your own schedule then, tons of people do it there is not reason that you can't. God forbid you actually have to do a little planning yourself

 

[MedPR]

there's a disclaimer. Don't limit your thinking; not everything needs to be completely drawn up. Use your brain... You don't have to match the schedule day by day, hour by hour. Adjust it to yourself as it's a general guideline. Maybe some people need a schedule that gives exact minute to minute detail so they don't have to think and just follow it. That just wouldn't be fun now, would it?

Many non-obese people also can't run 5 miles in 1 hour... Try to steer from analogies when we're talking about a schedule...that was made...for free...no, actually for anything. It doesn't serve any purpose.

If you're getting hung up over mechanism, then try to think conditionally to aim at a more conceptual thought process rather than detail oriented (there's not really that much to memorize for mcat orgo...).

you didn't pay for his schedule nor is anyone making you do it, he provided this fantastic schedule for free and you are complaining about it? Why don't you make your own schedule then, tons of people do it there is not reason that you can't. God forbid you actually have to do a little planning yourself

+1.

 

[411309]

Why argue about how much time it takes to do a chapter? Clearly that all depends on the person..saying it can't be done in 2.5 hours is bs because I can do it in that time and I don't consider myself a genius by any means. Some of the GC chapters can be long and annoying but the bio chapters are the terrible ones, but i gave up on TBR's bio content once I got to book 2, lol.

Honestly keep this in mind, all of this stuff is stuff you should have seen before at least once in your life. It's not like you're learning new material, you're REVIEWING.

 

[Erythropoietin]

It depends on how familiar you are with the topic/s. One topic on TBR Orgo took me ~4 hours to just finish the content only, while another one only took me no longer than 20 minutes because I already knew the topic like my phone #.
So it's always good to have some background info first, which means focus on your prereqs a lot.

 

[YouNeverKnow22]

ditch BR orgo, problem solved.

 

[AlabamaPop]

I don't even know Sn2ed why you're even wasting your time with petty nonsense. He obviously knows he is acting crazy, and trying to push your buttons on purpose. Don't feed into it.

People like that aren't normal.

 

[411309]

It depends on how familiar you are with the topic/s. One topic on TBR Orgo took me ~4 hours to just finish the content only, while another one only took me no longer than 20 minutes because I already knew the topic like my phone #.
So it's always good to have some background info first, which means focus on your prereqs a lot.

WoRd.