I've seen many people here remark of their displeasure with Berkeley Review Biology and I'm beginning to see why. Having just completed reading the metabolic pathways section I'm finding the questions to be unnecessarily difficult or convoluted. Whereas with the other books I feel that the questions are tricky, but still impart good study tactics and conceptual thinking, the BR Bio just screams of a question writer espousing their big brain. Some of the questions don't seem remotely relevant or require very complex reasoning. Other parts contain explanations with incorrect or lazy answers, e.g.. referencing parts of a passage that don't exist or referencing metabolic pathways backwards. For those of you doing BR, did anyone else find the Calvin Cycle questions somewhat ridiculous?
I'm concerned about continuing with this book for biology review. I've heard others say it is not representative of the MCAT in content review, but that the questioning format is. I do like the passage based questioning, as I feel it keeps you on your toes. Occasionally it does lead to good review of concepts, but I guess I question if those concepts are even representative? Does the MCAT really expect you to have a biblical knowledge of the structure of every intermediate of glycolysis, the Kreb's Cycle, and the pentose phosphate pathway? Several of the questions so far have been very heavy on carbon bookkeeping and biochemistry (a subject I didn't take in undergrad). I'm confused because the beginning of the section says to know "general" details of the pathways but the questions are much more specific.
My main concern is as follows: So far, it appears that you can answer about 50% of any BR biology passage through careful reading of a passage. That is encouraging, but I feel like that's really only testing my VR reasoning skills. My concern is that the content side is crazy difficult and feels like it's out of far left field. I spend about 50% more time on each biology review passage than any of the other books. When I read the physical science books I go, "Yeah, I remember that." This is not the case for many parts of the biology book.
Thoughts from those in the know? Somewhere I read that the BR biology is good if you were a bio major, or if you have biology concepts down fairly solid. Would you suggest EK or another book in its place? Admittedly biology is my oldest subject (I last took a biology class three years ago).
I'm concerned about continuing with this book for biology review. I've heard others say it is not representative of the MCAT in content review, but that the questioning format is. I do like the passage based questioning, as I feel it keeps you on your toes. Occasionally it does lead to good review of concepts, but I guess I question if those concepts are even representative? Does the MCAT really expect you to have a biblical knowledge of the structure of every intermediate of glycolysis, the Kreb's Cycle, and the pentose phosphate pathway? Several of the questions so far have been very heavy on carbon bookkeeping and biochemistry (a subject I didn't take in undergrad). I'm confused because the beginning of the section says to know "general" details of the pathways but the questions are much more specific.
My main concern is as follows: So far, it appears that you can answer about 50% of any BR biology passage through careful reading of a passage. That is encouraging, but I feel like that's really only testing my VR reasoning skills. My concern is that the content side is crazy difficult and feels like it's out of far left field. I spend about 50% more time on each biology review passage than any of the other books. When I read the physical science books I go, "Yeah, I remember that." This is not the case for many parts of the biology book.
Thoughts from those in the know? Somewhere I read that the BR biology is good if you were a bio major, or if you have biology concepts down fairly solid. Would you suggest EK or another book in its place? Admittedly biology is my oldest subject (I last took a biology class three years ago).