HY Biochem Enough?

[JohnnyVegas]

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Can anyone give me the heads up on biochem? Thanks.

 

[Legion560]

I know a lot of people dont like HY biochem. If youre strapped for time though, use it. Its not too bad, but be aware that it is just like an extended version of FA. Not too in depth with explanations. I used HY biochem+FA+Kaplan (the home study kit, not the kaplan course notes). It seemed okay. Ill know in less than 24 hours whether or not it was a good time investment.

Legion

 

[trouta]

There isnt much in HY Biochem but it is what I used. In reality there arent many Biochem questions on the USMLE that dont have a clinical basis (duh... they are trying to make the test clinical). Thus you can get by just knowing the stuff in FA (you wont get 280 though). For me, the reason I turned to HY beyond FA is that I couldnt understand the Biochem as it was presented in FA, I needed more explanation. HY isnt meant to teach you FA, but I didnt really want to learn it, I just wanted to memorize and understand enough to answer the questions. If you want to learn the biochem get some other book (some of my classmates used Lippincott). But if you just want to get beyond this blasted subject and answer the questions reasonably well, FA and HY should be enough.

 

[Stinger86]

In reality there arent many Biochem questions on the USMLE that dont have a clinical basis (duh... they are trying to make the test clinical).

I found this to be true for the most part, with the exception being molecular genetics. Nearly all of those questions on my exam were not clincal whatsoever. It's like the Q writers decided "hey I wanna know what you know about... DNA. Wait, now I want to know what you know about translational proteins!!"

Again, I support BRS Biochem, because it doesn't simply assume you know every basic concept (which is nice because sometimes you need to learn the basic concept, just in a different light)... it covers things really well, and has a lot of detail.