Some Book Q's

[Mephisto]

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Hey Everyone-

I'm sure this has been discussed to death already, but I have a few questions.

I will start M1 soon (yeah, I'm way ahead of myself right now), but I was thinking how much easier studying for MCAT would have been if I followed along with Kaplan or Examkracker MCAT books during my undergrad science courses, and did questions on topics that we discussed in class.

So to hedge myself with USMLE, I thought I'd buy some review books for my first semester courses and use those to supplement my texts/notes for the courses to practice questions before exams and just to get a condensed version of the material to make things easier.

I have been combing through the forums and have found a few things: firstly, all of you use First Aid, but is that useful to use to follow along courses with?

Secondly, you all pick either BRS or HY to supplement it. Which series is better? Are there certain books from a series that are better than the similar ones from the others? I think I'll do these books with my courses from each semester.

Last, what is a good book to buy that splits up questions by topic? You know, if Im doing protein interactions in Biochem, how can I find questions for those? My first semester courses are Genetics, Biochem and Anatomy (those are the big ones anyway).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dynx]

Hey Everyone-

I'm sure this has been discussed to death already, but I have a few questions.

I will start M1 soon (yeah, I'm way ahead of myself right now), but I was thinking how much easier studying for MCAT would have been if I followed along with Kaplan or Examkracker MCAT books during my undergrad science courses, and did questions on topics that we discussed in class.

So to hedge myself with USMLE, I thought I'd buy some review books for my first semester courses and use those to supplement my texts/notes for the courses to practice questions before exams and just to get a condensed version of the material to make things easier.

I have been combing through the forums and have found a few things: firstly, all of you use First Aid, but is that useful to use to follow along courses with?

Secondly, you all pick either BRS or HY to supplement it. Which series is better? Are there certain books from a series that are better than the similar ones from the others? I think I'll do these books with my courses from each semester.

Last, what is a good book to buy that splits up questions by topic? You know, if Im doing protein interactions in Biochem, how can I find questions for those? My first semester courses are Genetics, Biochem and Anatomy (those are the big ones anyway).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Relax...you dont need all this crap. If you want to do something then get a first Aid and annotate it as you move through your class...other than that, everything except studying the class material they assign is a waste of time. You'll soon find this out anyway.

 

[HamOnWholeWheat]

I disagree with the last poster, but only slightly.

I'm studying for boards right now, and I keep kicking myself in the ass for not studying Lippencott Biochem while I did my coursework. Its explained better in there anyway, and the diagrams rock. There's questions at the end of each chapter too, so if I had it to do over, I'd do that for sure.

Secondly, its a little early, but DEFINITELY get Medical Micro Made Ridiculously simple, and learn that thing cover to cover. You'll actually UNDERSTAND microbiology if you do that, rather than just memorizing a bunch of random tidbits to pass the exam. It also gave the first ever explanation of how the antibiotics applied to different bugs that I actually understood.

Those two books are what I'd recommend keeping up with. I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones that I'm kicking myself over.

Good luck,

HamOn