For people who used TBR books

[PlsLetMeIn21]

Any input from people that used TBR books for the sciences would be greatly appreciated.

My plan is to review using KA videos for biology, organic, and selected topics in physics and chemistry. I plan to read the TBR chapters for subjects I'm weak in. Can you say electrochemistry? I plan to do all of the TBR questions, but not all of the reading. Here is my question. Do you have to read the sections to get the tricks or can you pick them up doing the passages?

I have skimmed the physics books and fell in love with their shortcuts. They seriously saved my butt on my midterms and finals. I'm worried that if I only do passages that I'll miss out on their tricks. Is there a master list of their tricks anywhere?

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[Skiiiiiing]

Generally TBR is overkill. For BB, yes. For CP, while it adds value, it is low yield.

If you have time for 1k hours of prep, by all means, otherwise probably best to look elsewhere.

 

[Deleted member 737595]

Any input from people that used TBR books for the sciences would be greatly appreciated.

My plan is to review using KA videos for biology, organic, and selected topics in physics and chemistry. I plan to read the TBR chapters for subjects I'm weak in. Can you say electrochemistry? I plan to do all of the TBR questions, but not all of the reading. Here is my question. Do you have to read the sections to get the tricks or can you pick them up doing the passages?

I have skimmed the physics books and fell in love with their shortcuts. They seriously saved my butt on my midterms and finals. I'm worried that if I only do passages that I'll miss out on their tricks. Is there a master list of their tricks anywhere?

A common misconception is that the BR books are more 'detailed' and comprehensive and can be used if you are more rusty with the material. I have all the books and I completely disagree.

The Berkeley Review is not known for their chapters on content. In fact, many of their Biology content chapters as well as psychology are pretty boring and cover lots of irrelevant material that you won't need. If you need lots of help

However, where TBR shines is in the practice problem sets. They will drill your chemistry and physics skills and your biology knowledge to the absolute ground, and they will explain each answer choice in absolute completeness. A third of their books are answer explanations, another third practice tests and questions, and another third the content. The books are for practice and are the best books for this purpose.

To answer your question, the tricks are throughout the chapters in the physics and chemistry books. Read those chapters because they aren't even that long. But if you don't have a ton of time don't even bother reading the Bio chapters; just start practicing and seeing what you need to review.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

@Skiiiiing: That is not my question. I'm talking about the shortcuts being covered in the passages as well as in the reading section. It sounds like you didn't use them and can't answer my question. I know biology is verbose, which is why I'm going to use Khan for review. The other books I've found to be very to the point and focused on how to answer questions, which is what I need. I should finish them in about 200 hours. They are easier to work through than anything else I've checked out, although I'm just a few chapters in so far.

 

[PlsLetMeIn21]

A common misconception is that the BR books are more 'detailed' and comprehensive and can be used if you are more rusty with the material. I have all the books and I completely disagree.

The Berkeley Review is not known for their chapters on content. In fact, many of their Biology content chapters as well as psychology are pretty boring and cover lots of irrelevant material that you won't need. If you need lots of help

However, where TBR shines is in the practice problem sets. They will drill your chemistry and physics skills and your biology knowledge to the absolute ground, and they will explain each answer choice in absolute completeness. A third of their books are answer explanations, another third practice tests and questions, and another third the content. The books are for practice and are the best books for this purpose.

To answer your question, the tricks are throughout the chapters in the physics and chemistry books. Read those chapters because they aren't even that long. But if you don't have a ton of time don't even bother reading the Bio chapters; just start practicing and seeing what you need to review.

Thank you SO MUCH!!! This is exactly what I needed to hear. The physics is mainly what I've used so far and I LOVE the way they approach questions. It seriously makes so much more sense after I complete a phase. I will take your advice and read the general chemistry and the physics books.

 

[Deleted member 737595]

Thank you SO MUCH!!! This is exactly what I needed to hear. The physics is mainly what I've used so far and I LOVE the way they approach questions. It seriously makes so much more sense after I complete a phase. I will take your advice and read the general chemistry and the physics books.

No prob, for a second I thought that post towards Skiiiing was towards me haha I was so confused. And BTW, you don't need 1k hours of prep with TBR, that is complete bulldung. TBR in my opinion is more efficient even because they get questions which are challenging on purpose to see where your holes lie

Yeah, let me know if you would like any help on TBR stuff, I just started and am taking the test in September. TBR states in their preface more than once to try out some problems first and see how they go VS. reading the chapter thoroughly first. The content part of their Bio and Psych books ESPECIALLY are for me just quick reference if I want to read up on their content during passage work.

Honestly, TBR aside, the most efficient thing to do would be to go through the entire AAMC list of topics and check off the topics you know you will need work on. You will find there is actually not that much and it will relieve A LOT of stress. I haven't taken Biochemistry OR Organic 2 and went through the whole list the other day and it took a weight off my shoulders to realize there is actually not that much I will need to really study in depth during review.

Cheers!

 

[Skiiiiiing]

@Skiiiiing: That is not my question. I'm talking about the shortcuts being covered in the passages as well as in the reading section. It sounds like you didn't use them and can't answer my question. I know biology is verbose, which is why I'm going to use Khan for review. The other books I've found to be very to the point and focused on how to answer questions, which is what I need. I should finish them in about 200 hours. They are easier to work through than anything else I've checked out, although I'm just a few chapters in so far.

Thank you SO MUCH!!! This is exactly what I needed to hear. The physics is mainly what I've used so far and I LOVE the way they approach questions. It seriously makes so much more sense after I complete a phase. I will take your advice and read the general chemistry and the physics books.

Your habits are perfect and you have a very succinct and lucid writing style.

 

[pretty_positron]

I am using the TBR books and I generally start with the passages first. If I can't answer a lot of the questions, then I review by skimming through the chapter rather than reading it all. The fact that you have, at least for bio, 110 questions (10 discrete and 15 passages) for each chapter is the best thing about it. I learn a lot just from the passages alone.

I also am tackling the chapters on a need-to-know basis. For instance, right now I am going over Metabolic Pathways in Bio because it is basically Biochem. I'm also going to go over some chapters in the Orgo books because that is also basically biochem and I see these types of questions being asked on FL's all the time.

I wouldn't recommend doing the entire book or reading the chapters because it just will take too long. Go by what you need to know. I never took Psych before, so the Psych book was the first thing I did.

 

[arc5005]

I have read all the content from the Bio, Chem, Ochem, Physics, and Psych books from TBR. I have not used the CARs book at all. I think you can get away from picking up the tricks from doing both the questions in the content section & the passages. There are so many passages, and they provide good explanations and generally remind you of the tricks when you review the answers. However, whether or not you'll have actually learned the trick or not from just reviewing a wrong answer is debatable.

I'm a non-trad and some of the classes I took were 5-7 years ago, so i've spent the last ~8 months studying from TBR, KA, AAMC practice materials, and my own ANKI decks. I work full-time, so I can only utilize my weeknights and weekdays for studying. I relied on KA for my Psych review, and dabbled in other KA videos for some of the more complicated concepts from the other sections. Overall I thought that TBR provided me with a better understanding of the topics and the shortcuts in the Chem, Ochem, and Physics sections. A lot of the Physics & Chem content sections are filled with questions and examples, which I thought were extremely helpful.