New EK 101 Bio books? Anyone hear anything good?

[NeuroPA]

I just saw that these have been recently released. That being said, has anyone heard any realistic reviews of difficulty and or comparison to the actual MCAT/Section Bank?

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[madojo]

I liked it, had good experimental passages, alot harder than AAMC but good practice, dm me if you want to see a copy

 

[DaAlienist]

I just saw that these have been recently released. That being said, has anyone heard any realistic reviews of difficulty and or comparison to the actual MCAT/Section Bank?

+1, would love to know more as well

 

[NeuroPA]

The BIO book is pretty hard. I think they overshot the difficulty. VERY DATA HEAVY. Definitely wont hurt your score.

 

[the Mannis]

The BIO book is pretty hard. I think they overshot the difficulty. VERY DATA HEAVY. Definitely wont hurt your score.

are you talking about the molecules book or physiology book? or both in general?

 

[NeuroPA]

Molecules

 

[Doctor or bust]

Molecules

I got the EK 101 molecules book as well and just did my first "test". It was pretty brutal in my opinion. Out of curiosity, how much harder do you think that this book is compared to the actual MCAT? How well did you fare on the real B/B as compared to the scores you were getting on this book if you don't mind me asking

 

[blackroses]

I've used all of their released "101" books (with the exception of the psych one since it just came out). I agree that both their passages and questions are brutal compared to the AAMC practice tests I've taken. Having said that, in the span of one month I went from an estimated 127 (barely) from the sample test to a 129 on FL 1 in B/B (and ~125->129 in C/P). Their passages are very heavily experimental based. I will say that occasionally (maybe 1-2 per FL section) I come across one of their explanations that I just wholeheartedly disagree with. That said, the overwhelming majority of the time I find their explanations quite helpful.

 

[Doctor or bust]

I've used all of their released "101" books (with the exception of the psych one since it just came out). I agree that both their passages and questions are brutal compared to the AAMC practice tests I've taken. Having said that, in the span of one month I went from an estimated 127 (barely) from the sample test to a 129 on FL 1 in B/B (and ~125->129 in C/P). Their passages are very heavily experimental based. I will say that occasionally (maybe 1-2 per FL section) I come across one of their explanations that I just wholeheartedly disagree with. That said, the overwhelming majority of the time I find their explanations quite helpful.

I got a 124 on the C/P and a 125 B/B on an AAMC FL and really want to do better. I plan on finishing up the rest of the EK 101 biomolecules, but my worst subject seems to be gen chem. Do you think that there is a EK 101 book that is good for that since those books are hard and will be good practice?

 

[blackroses]

I got a 124 on the C/P and a 125 B/B on an AAMC FL and really want to do better. I plan on finishing up the rest of the EK 101 biomolecules, but my worst subject seems to be gen chem. Do you think that there is a EK 101 book that is good for that since those books are hard and will be good practice?

The EK 101 chemistry book would be great for that. The catch is that because they're so difficult they can be very demoralizing - make sure you're prepared for that going in!

 

[Doctor or bust]

I think they are, the catch is that they are VERY demoralizing - you need to be prepared for that going in.

I figured that out once I calculated my score on it lol I think that'll be a good thing though. I plan on going through all of the full length sections on it and then a bit through the CARS book (CARS seems to be my best section across FLs). The less prepared I feel the harder I'll study so I'd rather have a deflated score and be pleasantly surprised come test day.

 

[MoDiddy]

the books are experimental heavy and pretty hard. Great practice it looks like, just completed the CARS book

 

[Doctor or bust]

the books are experimental heavy and pretty hard. Great practice it looks like, just completed the CARS book

Due to time constraints I likely won't be able to finish the EK 101 CARS book but plan to do at least a few of their sections. Did you find any of the individual tests in that book to be particularly well done or representative?

 

[Doctor or bust]

The EK 101 chemistry book would be great for that. The catch is that because they're so difficult they can be very demoralizing - make sure you're prepared for that going in!

Have you used the EK 101 chemistry book? It seems brand new and I've only read one review on it which was less than great. What are your thoughts on it assuming that you've tried it.

 

[blackroses]

Have you used the EK 101 chemistry book? It seems brand new and I've only read one review on it which was less than great. What are your thoughts on it assuming that you've tried it.

Yes, and personally I loved it. Again, over-the-top difficult and very demoralizing, but excellent practice (again, note my improvement from 125 --> 129 on AAMC tests in the span of a month on C/P using the chem 101 and physics 101 EK books). For me personally, I think buying the entire set of EK 101 books was the best investment I made for the MCAT.

One thing I forgot to note earlier, occasionally the wrong answer will be recorded on their answer sheet and/or in their explanations. You'll catch these though if you read through the explanations (which you should be doing anyway). For example, you'll go through the answer sheet, note that the answer to question 13 was C, go to the explanation, which will say "C is the best answer" right off the bat, then start reading the explanation, where it will say something along the lines of "A and C completely fail to address the question, D is the opposite of what would happen, B is the correct answer". It's annoying when this happens, but I don't really consider it a dealbreaker.

 

[Doctor or bust]

Yes, and personally I loved it. Again, over-the-top difficult and very demoralizing, but excellent practice (again, note my improvement from 125 --> 129 on AAMC tests in the span of a month on C/P using the chem 101 and physics 101 EK books). For me personally, I think buying the entire set of EK 101 books was the best investment I made for the MCAT.

One thing I forgot to note earlier, occasionally the wrong answer will be recorded on their answer sheet and/or in their explanations. You'll catch these though if you read through the explanations (which you should be doing anyway). For example, you'll go through the answer sheet, note that the answer to question 13 was C, go to the explanation, which will say "C is the best answer" right off the bat, then start reading the explanation, where it will say something along the lines of "A and C completely fail to address the question, D is the opposite of what would happen, B is the correct answer". It's annoying when this happens, but I don't really consider it a dealbreaker.

What was your percentage correct on these questions by the time you were just about done with them if you don't mind me asking. Just curious as my percentage correct on these right now feels abysmal. I'm definitely thinking about getting the chemistry EK 101 book, I'm just working on a tight schedule with trying to fit everything in at this point.

 

[the Mannis]

to give some data, I have done from EK 101 molecules tests 1A, 1C, 2A, 2C, 3A, 3C, 4A, 4B, 4C so far. these tests add up to 419 questions. Overall I have gotten 296 correct, which is 70.6%. I just completed the B/B section bank today and got 83% correct. It seems the 101 books are more difficult than the section bank, however they are probably not nearly as representative to the kinds of questions you will see on test day as compared to the section bank.

 

[Doctor or bust]

to give some data, I have done from EK 101 molecules tests 1A, 1C, 2A, 2C, 3A, 3C, 4A, 4B, 4C so far. these tests add up to 419 questions. Overall I have gotten 296 correct, which is 70.6%. I just completed the B/B section bank today and got 83% correct. It seems the 101 books are more difficult than the section bank, however they are probably not nearly as representative to the kinds of questions you will see on test day as compared to the section bank.

I'm glad to hear that they are harder than the SB questions. I got a 61% on 1A and a 49% on 2A so far from that book and it definitely hits the ego. In what ways do you perceive these questions being different from section bank?

 

[the Mannis]

I'm glad to hear that they are harder than the SB questions. I got a 61% on 1A and a 49% on 2A so far from that book and it definitely hits the ego. In what ways do you perceive these questions being different from section bank?

since the EK tests are each on an individual section (genetics, enzyme kinetics, or metabolism), they tend to have more difficult questions when it comes to content questions. for example, i got almost all of the enzyme kinetics questions correct on the SB, but a few in the EK books are very very tricky so i got a few wrong. the SB actually does have a decent number of easier questions in it, whereas the EK tests really don't have any easy questions. i think that is the biggest difference between the two. the one aspect of EK molecules that is easier than the SB are the discrete questions. the Ek discretes are almost never insanely difficult, where a few of the SB discretes are absolutely ridiculous.

 

[blackroses]

What was your percentage correct on these questions by the time you were just about done with them if you don't mind me asking. Just curious as my percentage correct on these right now feels abysmal. I'm definitely thinking about getting the chemistry EK 101 book, I'm just working on a tight schedule with trying to fit everything in at this point.

I was typically averaging around 50-60%, with a few outliers for subjects I'm very good/very bad at.