The biology book provided is pretty unsatisfactory. As I have posted numerous times before, the diagrams are inadequate and sometimes they have absolutely useless diagrams while other places that need a diagram do not have one. Also, reading it is a real chore and it is very low yield. The passages just do not flow very well.
The questions that go along with the biology section are alright. They seem to test in too much detail at times, but it's okay overall. The passages are not very MCAT-like since the questions that go a long with the passage rarely have to do with the passage at all. They're more or less all discretes. The later passages for each homework are more MCAT-like. Overall, it is somewhat balanced because the passages that are not very MCAT-like help you reinforce what you just learned by asking remedial details while the MCAT-like passages help you work on your passage comprehension. I wish there were more MCAT-like passages, though.
Having a good teacher definitely makes a difference. I had a decent one, but I learned little in the class since TPR is pretty obsessed about going over a lot of detail which he did a lot of. The ICC's go way beyond what is tested, but is definitely good practice for handling new information.
There is just so much biology to cover that TPR tries to play it safe by trying to cover it all. There needs to be more of an emphasis of what is actually expected of us on the MCAT. Often times, the teacher just wouldn't teach some subjects in class and tell us to read up on it because there simply was not enough time. EK is very good about this by placing reminders of what should be understood from each section. I think TPR should follow suit.
Overall, this is how I rank the effectiveness of each TPR subject:
Physics/Chemistry > Biology > Verbal Reasoning > Organic Chemistry
I do not think there is a need for covering anything more in depth. I did have a rather left-field question on AAMC 9 about some evolutionary stuff that I have never seen but it was neither in the EK books or TPR books. I guess it was a weed out question since it was extremely detailed and there was no way to eliminate answer choices because there was no context to the question due to it being a discrete. Perhaps they should add a little more evolution; I do not know.
I apologize for the general grammatical incoherence, I'm in the middle of reviewing for my May 25th MCAT.
But, my opinion is rather skewed because I had two of the best TPR teachers for physics and chemistry in the nation.
