Goljan Biochem or ?

[caligold]

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Any advice on good biochem book - do you think Kaplan is enough for review or do you think Goljan Biochem is worth the investment?

thanks!

 

[Kashue]

Any advice on good biochem book - do you think Kaplan is enough for review or do you think Goljan Biochem is worth the investment?

thanks!

Kaplan Biochem I thought was excellent. It has extra stuff that you may need ie lac operon, transcription factors etc plus a very good overview of biochem. I liked it. It took me 6 days to get through it tho thoroughly so it takes time. it's 300 pages.

 

[caligold]

Kaplan Biochem I thought was excellent. It has extra stuff that you may need ie lac operon, transcription factors etc plus a very good overview of biochem. I liked it. It took me 6 days to get through it tho thoroughly so it takes time. it's 300 pages.

Kashue - thanks for the info. The Kaplan book you are referring to is the homestudy or webprep? The homestudy version I have for 2005 is about 100 pages of biochem (molecular etc is more). I think it will take me some time to get through this. I am going to pass on the Gj biochem.... thanks! 🙂

 

[OSUdoc08]

Any advice on good biochem book - do you think Kaplan is enough for review or do you think Goljan Biochem is worth the investment?

thanks!

Goljan book got me what I needed for the boards.

 

[Pox in a box]

Goljan book got me what I needed for the boards.

So did First Aid for the USMLE Step 1. To the original poster: Goljan is a pathology instructor.

 

[Psychopathology]

I really wanted to read Kaplan but had not enough time. I enjoy biochemistry and I think that Goljan's book is great for learning the basics and doing well on practice NBME and on QBANK. It is a time committment compared to high yield or first aid, but I was biochem naive when I began my studies.

THAT SAID, biochemistry proved to be the lowest yield subject on my exam and I am a bit disappointed because I prepared heavily for it. The questions I received were straight forward and picky, but pertained to some of the "lower yield" pathways and mechanisms of which I knew very little (so yeah, it panned out as satire... let's all point and laugh at me!). There was nothing on the exam that was not in Goljan, but it was not as fresh in memory as the "high yield" pathways that I spent more time on. There may have been a few things that were not in first aid. Are you gonna remember Goljan? Do you have a broad biochem background? Is it going to matter if you only receive ten biochemistry questions? Depending on how you answer those questions, you may want to supplement with Goljan or you may way to stick with first aid.

No matter what, read first aid. Seriously. It has give-mes all over the place.

Everyone told me to pay more attention to cell and molecular biology and I am glad that I did. I am spreading the gospel of HY Cell/Molec. Big Frank mentioned how it helped him get a 317 (or whatever he got) and I took his advice and read it. My exam was loaded with stuff from that book. Then again, that was just my experience.

 

[OSUdoc08]

So did First Aid for the USMLE Step 1. To the original poster: Goljan is a pathology instructor.

He could have surprised me when he did a biochemistry board review course for us, and then proceeded to give us high-yield biochemistry review notes.

P.S. Thanks for the helpful posts, as always. SDN is a much better website, thanks to you!

 

[DrMom]

So did First Aid for the USMLE Step 1. To the original poster: Goljan is a pathology instructor.

And he does an incredible job of integrating biochemistry into pathology...makes sense that he could do this since there is a clear biochemical basis to many pathological processes. His biochem review was tremendously better than anything I learned in my actual biochemistry classes.