Nova physics passage

[Bgd736k2]

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Its pretty much popular consensus that the Nova physics book is one of the best books for mcat physics. I just wanted to know why do many feel this way? Is it the content review? The discretes? The passages?

Furthermore what is the relative level of difficulty of Nova passages compared to TBR, TPR, EK, etc?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

 

[patineurMD]

I agree wholeheartedly that it is the best. My undergrad is renowned for its horrendous physics department -- averages on an open book test for my class would generally fall in the 40s. Even though I pulled off a miraculous 72 average and earned an A, I came out of there feeling like I knew absolutely nothing about physics. Nova does a great job of giving content review so I feel like I am actually learning the things the prereq class was meant to take care of. I personally am liking the discretes -- I feel like they help me get the content down before I try to do the passages, but then the passages come along and I actually understand what is going on. I don't know how my MCAT is going to turn out but hopefully this will boost my score from the 2 I would have otherwise gotten!

I can't compare to any other books because I haven't tried them. I do know that Kraplan is, well, crap... I read the first few pages of their premier review book while in the bookstore and even my non-physicist self could tell there were lots of mistakes.

Hope this helps, I HIGHLY recommend!!

 

[sgtbrushes]

I haven't used Nova, but I'm using EK and Princeton Review, and they are both adequate. What I like about PR is that it has "stuff you NEED to know" pages, where it lists formulas and shortcuts used to estimate answers on the MCAT's multiple choice question-style.

 

[ru4real1666]

Not to hijack this thread, but I was going through BR physics and noticed that the electricity and magnetism chapters are pretty weak. I think this is because I have the older physics books from BR as compared to the newer ones, but I was wondering if I should use NOVA instead or is BR good enough?

 

[Silverfalcon]

Not to hijack this thread, but I was going through BR physics and noticed that the electricity and magnetism chapters are pretty weak. I think this is because I have the older physics books from BR as compared to the newer ones, but I was wondering if I should use NOVA instead or is BR good enough?

E&M are difficult concepts that no prep book will cover sufficiently. Heck, it's even more difficult to cover it in regular physics textbooks. I would say you should know the basic rules like Coulomb's Law, right-hand rule, and other electrostatic/magnetic laws/equations that are worth knowing (BR has them I think). I think solenoid may be helpful, but that's not really a "high-yield" topic.

Like I said, E&M is something that you don't get to learn in details unless you take E&M as an upper level physics course. Just know the basics and do problems.

 

[ModernAlchemist]

I started with NOVA and then moved to the newest version of TBR physics books. I think they're great, but ya I still wasn't understanding E&M. It's just a hard concept. Something that helped me a little bit was releasing that when you put a conducting loop in a magnetic field, it acts like a magnet that will align its field with the applied magnetic field. When I got that concept, it started coming together a little more, but I think everyone has a different crutch inside the E&M material.

As for NOVA, I thought the first half was good, but it started getting pretty iffy toward torque and fluids until the end of the book. The worst was optics because the way they told you to solve problems would take you half the total time on the PS section. I haven't used it for a while, but I would suggest maybe using videos, such as wikipremed. (http://www.wikipremed.com/mcat_course_syllabus_17.php)

Good luck!

 

[CrushMCAT]

Anybody ever use the 1st Edition of Nova's Physics book? I picked it up at a used book store hoping it was similar to the 2nd Edition but cheaper. My long term plan is to follow up with TBR so hopefully the differences in the two Nova editions will be inconsequential.

 

[muhali3]

Khan Academy is the best.