Kaplan Blue Book Falls Short?

[REH]

Hello Everyone,

After reading many of the posts here on SDN, it seems that quite a few of you feel that Kaplan's bio section provides inadequate coverage and should be supplemented with an additional text. My question is, how does it fall short? Is it the depth of the coverage provided, subject matter that is missing, or something else? What areas would you look to improve in this book if you could? What else have you added to your arsenal? Any thoughts/comments are greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

REH

P.S. Good luck to all taking the DAT this summer!!

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[nir1009]

Kaplan only provides basic coverage of all topics. The real DAT often asks some questions asking for greater detail. You might be okay for a 18-19 or even a 20+ with just Kaplan but it all depends on how good you are at making educated guesses and remembering those details from your bio classes.

I used Schaum's for most of the topics that were not adequately covered on Kaplan. Especially plants, ecology, and taxonomy (which Kaplan is VERY basic about).

 

[Yeyyy]

i took the achiever bio section and ended up with a 16. when i went back to check the answers + read up on it, most of the questions i got wrong werent even answered in the kaplan book. so it'll probably be a good idea to supplement your bio...

 

[Notoriousjae]

not only is the kaplan bio book inadequate, but it also has some errors in it so you would have to be careful. I came across an error in the bio section, in the genetics chapter, where it talks about the structure of RNA:more specifically mRNA and it says and i quote, "mRNA is assembled from ribonucleotides that are complementary to the "sense" strand of the DNA." This statement is false and i wouldnt have known it if i hadnt taken my genetics and biochemistry courses so be wary of what you read.

 

[DonExodus]

not only is the kaplan bio book inadequate, but it also has some errors in it so you would have to be careful. I came across an error in the bio section, in the genetics chapter, where it talks about the structure of RNA:more specifically mRNA and it says and i quote, "mRNA is assembled from ribonucleotides that are complementary to the "sense" strand of the DNA." This statement is false and i wouldnt have known it if i hadnt taken my genetics and biochemistry courses so be wary of what you read.

mRNA is complementary to the sense strand of DNA

Sense= 3' --> 5'
Antisense= 5' --> 3'

 

[Notoriousjae]

mRNA is complementary to the sense strand of DNA

Sense= 3' --> 5'
Antisense= 5' --> 3'

actually no mRNA is complementary to the anti sense strand.
you cant have mRNA complementary to the strand that is not a template to the RNA strand for example,
Sense Strand 5'CGA3'
Anti sense 3'GCT5'
mRNA 5'CGU3'

and not Sense strand 5'CGA3'
mRNA 3'GCU5' <--- wrong

 

[yorkiepoo]

Antisense Phenomena

A DNA segment encoding a protein usually has a "sense" strand and a complementary "antisense" strand which acts as a template for RNA polymerase. Conventionally, the sense strand is considered to encode the protein since it has the same sequence as the mRNA. Attention has been drawn to the possibility of long open reading frames in the antisense strand which might encode "antisense" proteins (Meckler 1969; Biro 1981a,b; Blalock and Smith 1984; Merino et al. 1994). Codons for hydrophilic and hydrophobic amino acids on the sense strand may sometimes be complemented, in frame, by codons for hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acids on the antisense strand. Furthermore, antisense proteins may sometimes interact with high specificity with the corresponding sense proteins (Blalock and Bost 1986; Blalock 1990; Clarke and Blalock 1991). The interactions involve multiple contacts along the lengths of the polypeptide chains (Tropsha et al. 1992). from :http://post.queensu.ca/~forsdyke/antisens.htm

 

[allstardentist]

For BIO, if you get lucky, all you need to know is included in the Kaplan book. However, most people find questions that were not covered in the kaplan book. So to be safe, you want to have shaums or a college intro bio textbook as a supplement.

 

[Notoriousjae]

dont believe don exodus he is giving out false imformation because he is just too damn competitive

 

[REH]

Thanks to all,

Your comments are appreciated. They, unfortunately, affirm what I had feared, but I guess it's better to know now than to know then. Good luck everybody.

REH.

 

[joonkimdds]

dont believe don exodus he is giving out false imformation because he is just too damn competitive

don't believe me either, i am super damn competitive!!

 

[blankguy]

How does the practice test in the bluebook compare to the real one? Aside from the fact that it is paper test and the real one is computerized.