Which review books are best?

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doctorme555

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For those of us who can't afford to take a $1200 Kaplan or PR course, does anyone havea preference of which review books work the best?

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Originally posted by doctorme555
For those of us who can't afford to take a $1200 Kaplan or PR course, does anyone havea preference of which review books work the best?

Hi,
There has been a lot of threads on this. I think if you do a search on this forum, u will find out. :)
 
Having used kaplan (what a waste) princeton (better) and Berkeley Review, I had to pick other. Berkeley Review books were well worth the $$.
 
Originally posted by paean
Having used kaplan (what a waste) princeton (better) and Berkeley Review, I had to pick other. Berkeley Review books were well worth the $$.

Having tutored out of all off those (and now EK too), I'd have to agree with you. While BR is not the best in every area, overall, they are the best materials. They have great passages and the best answer explanations of anyone BY FAR! The advice I give to tutees is that the most important thing to look for is answer explanations to passage questions, because that is where the real learning happens. Great text is nice, but you have to do passages to succeed on the MCAT. BR offers very strong text and the best passage/answer combos of anyone.
 
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DEFINITELY Berkeley review for physics and gen chem....EK for Biology, and I used my old textbook for organic chemistry.
 
TBR for physical sciences. Will update about EK on Biology after I start it.
 
Wow, this is six and a half years old and people were recommending Berkeley Review. I thought it was a more recent thing that it got popular on here.
 
Wow, this is six and a half years old and people were recommending Berkeley Review. I thought it was a more recent thing that it got popular on here.

haha woah I had no idea this was such an old thread. Talk about a huge bump haha.. some of these early posters may even be residents now. I also thought BR was a recent thing. What's hilarious is back in 02 there were posts telling people to search cause there's a lot of threads on the same topic.. :laugh:
 
The other thing about Berkeley Review, which I think it worth noting, is that the guy that wrote the General Chemistry books (Todd something) is hilarious, imho. He puts little comments at the end of answers explanations of in-text solutions to example problems that are so funny.

For instance, in the Stoichiometry chapter on pg 6:
"....The value is not close enough to .5 M, so you should choose C, and be a wise student! Wise students are a good thing."

In an explanation for answer to a passage question: "choice C is correct...Choose C for feelings of correctness and fulfillment."

lol...I tend to get so intense when I study, but it's nice to have humor.
 
The other thing about Berkeley Review, which I think it worth noting, is that the guy that wrote the General Chemistry books (Todd something) is hilarious, imho. He puts little comments at the end of answers explanations of in-text solutions to example problems that are so funny.

For instance, in the Stoichiometry chapter on pg 6:
"....The value is not close enough to .5 M, so you should choose C, and be a wise student! Wise students are a good thing."

In an explanation for answer to a passage question: "choice C is correct...Choose C for feelings of correctness and fulfillment."

lol...I tend to get so intense when I study, but it's nice to have humor.
:laugh: yea i like those comments too
 
I think it depends how deeply you want to study. The EK books are really nice if you complement them with their Audio Osmosis lectures. Hearing the material over and over again can be done with little effort. I loop the lectures while I sleep, and while it doesn't help much, I do get a little from it without cracking a book open....it does drive me a little crazy though, not that that's a bad thing...right??

I have TPR, Kaplan, TBR and Nova books too, but I haven't had a chance to really go into them since I've just started my studies. I got all of them so I can find the set that best matches my learning style.

I believe the general consensus is EK for bio and verbal, then TBR and TPR for everything else. Well, Nova for physics too.
 
Kaplan for sciences, EK for verbal.

Improved my score 6 points from one MCAT to another.
 
Does anyone know when the new edition for BR Physics is going to come out?

Apparently the prototype will be used in their courses this summer, at least that's the last I heard. I'll believe it once I see it, but it would seem right in terms of timing.

As old as this thread is, why is it still going?
 
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