Thoughts on the KAPLAN BOOK

[AsianGuy26]

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This book is certainly the most challenging and organized study guide I have had thus far but I sort of have the feeling that the person/group that wrote this book... didn't check for mistakes...

In my practice test, there were questions that were written incorrectly such that I couldn't figure things out like the rates of a reactions. The exponents and equations in some parts were incorrect... making it very difficult to decipher the actual equations.



I enjoyed the book and it certainly taught me a few things for this test, I will still review from it till the test... but KAPLAN I expected better out of you.

 

[ufdlim]

The biology section is far too in depth. I feel that chemistry section is just right but the entire quantitative section is very weak. I mean.. it doesn't even cover integral and derivative of trigonometric functions. I know for a fact there will be at least one question on this. And integration in parts? Nope.

 

[tahi193]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. It's like they didn't even proofread it. That being said, if you can ignore all of that stuff, it's a decent comprehensive review except for calculus, organic chemistry and the lack of microbiology.

 

[ffpickle]

This book is certainly the most challenging and organized study guide I have had thus far but I sort of have the feeling that the person/group that wrote this book... didn't check for mistakes...

In my practice test, there were questions that were written incorrectly such that I couldn't figure things out like the rates of a reactions. The exponents and equations in some parts were incorrect... making it very difficult to decipher the actual equations.



I enjoyed the book and it certainly taught me a few things for this test, I will still review from it till the test... but KAPLAN I expected better out of you.

cliff's has the same problem. they give wrong answers in the answer key.
also, their explanations make no sense sometimes. the answer key explanation isn't even referring to the stuff from the question

 

[AsianGuy26]

Believe me I know... I feel much better prepared even though I am scoring low in some of the Kaplan sections for this but... wtf... all the review material I have come across always contain some wrong answers because they don't go into depth about the answer...

Here's one...

Viruses have....

A)the ability to replicate their own genetic material. *Answer

B)the ability to make their own enzymes

C)their own metabolic machinery

D)their own enzymes

-------------------------------------

A is the answer but that isn't correct... viruses can't replicate their own genetic material but rather has the host do it for them. If you have taken microbiology, which I just did, this is false technically.

B and C are obviously false since those are not properties of viruses

D is true but only to an extent. Out of all these answers, this one is the only one that the virus actually has inherent to itself but the enzymes found within the virion is inactice (no metabolic processes). But viruses do contain enzymes like reverse transcriptase found within retroviruses like HIV.

 

[apteryx]

I must have spent 15 minutes trying to figure out the one polynomial that had a random "4" stuck in there, thinking it was some notation I had never seen before. Too bad it took looking at the answers to realize it was supposed to be a negative sign. The same thing on like 5 other questions, too. Like the one definite integral that went from 41 to 2 was actually -1 to 2....grrrrrr....

 

[YiYaoYue]

Believe me I know... I feel much better prepared even though I am scoring low in some of the Kaplan sections for this but... wtf... all the review material I have come across always contain some wrong answers because they don't go into depth about the answer...

Here's one...

Viruses have....

A)the ability to replicate their own genetic material. *Answer

B)the ability to make their own enzymes

C)their own metabolic machinery

D)their own enzymes

-------------------------------------

A is the answer but that isn't correct... viruses can't replicate their own genetic material but rather has the host do it for them. If you have taken microbiology, which I just did, this is false technically.

B and C are obviously false since those are not properties of viruses

D is true but only to an extent. Out of all these answers, this one is the only one that the virus actually has inherent to itself but the enzymes found within the virion is inactice (no metabolic processes). But viruses do contain enzymes like reverse transcriptase found within retroviruses like HIV.

There were a few typos like two Xs instead of Z and X so I had to guess which one was which and an organic problem where part of the structure was missing. However I wouldn't say that question is necessarily wrong, but just very badly worded.


How did you do on the Kaplan Final test? like percentage wise? I heard someone got 98% on the real thing but like 70-80% on the Final test. I don't know what to make of that.

 

[AsianGuy26]

86% first time w/o studying

 

[JeremyE30]

The quantitative section is junk, don't even use it. The biology section is too indepth. The organic chemistry section is weak compared to the pcat.

 

[illtreaturite1]

Now that I've taken the real thing, I can do some comparisons....

Bio-good for the animal related stuff, too in depth for the plant stuff

Reading/Verbal- these are the hardest sections to raise, so they don't spend much time on it. If these are week sections for you, look elsewhere to study, but the techniques they mention are worth looking at

Quantitative-While I would call it total junk, it does not go far enough to be even close to the actual test. A more complete review section on logrithms, integrals, and application of derivative, and composite functions would improve this section GREATLY.

Chemistry-Just like everyone else says, its Organic is very weak. There seemed to be a lot of organic on this test, and the review is not adequate enough, especially for those of us who have not had ochem