worth it to read 650 pages of campbell's?

[hunterx2]

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Hi guys

I read cliff's bio over the weekend, and while I did well on the end of chapter quizzes I feel that the material presented is very skimpy and skips a lot of important details, particularly on physiology. Since I have 2 more months to study, I am wondering if I should devote some time to a more thorough study of bio by reading Campbell's?

I'm thinking about going over units 1, 2 and 3 (the chemistry of life, the cell, and genetics), as well as unit 7 (animal form and function). It's 650 pages total, but half is pictures or tables so it's actually not too bad (I read fast). This will cover pretty much everything except for plants and biological diversity, which together comprise only 3 questions on the test. www.ada.org/sections/educationAndCareers/.../dat_users_manual.pdf page 45. So I should theoretically nail the other 37 Q's.

Has anybody done this, and do you think it's worthwhile? I estimate it will take me 2 weeks to go through the material, which leaves me plenty of time to review the other subjects. Any thoughts? Thanks!!

 

[Shazzam]

Do you think you could effectively study 650 pages? Plenty of people have just studied cliffs + X BIO resource (KBB, Barron's, etc...) and have scored 25+ on the BIO section. It might not be worth the effort.

 

[jmh018]

I read the Campbell's AP review book. Much more manageable and I scored a 22 on Bio. You will never retain enough from reading a full textbook to make it worth it for this test.

 

[FeralisExtremum]

hunterx2,

Reading Campbell strikes me as an insane waste of time. Even if you did set aside the time to read the hundreds upon hundreds of pages of detail, how much of it are you really going to retain by the time you've finished? Campbell is a great reference tool for when you don't understand a concept or you feel a topic isn't covered in enough depth and you want to understand it better, but actually reading it textbook style just strikes me as inefficient.

But, I definitely agree that Cliff's has its weaknesses (especially in physiology - honestly, it leaves out a lot of physiology). I've finally finished my set of notes and I still need to get around to PMing them to people, but I reviewed a ton of sources to put it together and cover all those missed topics and details. It's still a work in progress because I haven't gone over DAT destroyer or some tests that I'll use to put even more info in, but I can confidently say it's 98% complete at this point and I did a ton of work to pad out the physiology section. I think the file might be too big to post on here but PM me your email address and I'll send them too. Hopefully with those, you can save yourself the trouble of reading a textbook.

 

[hunterx2]

Campbell's AP review? You mean cliffs?

I guess it's true that a lot of ppl get 22+ using only cliff's, but it's probably not true that these people have cliff's as their only source of knowledge. Particularly, many ppl are still in school and have the benefit of remembering their stuff from courses not only in basic bio but also cell bio and biochem. On the other hand, I graduated several years ago and worked in an unrelated field, so I don't remember anything from school. In my case cliff's is the ONLY source of knowledge.

Yeah I can actually effectively study that much. I started studying chemistry from scratch on page one, and in the last couple of weeks I read both my general chem and organic chem textbooks cover to cover and did all the problems in the back. So it's no big deal, but still, every minute I spend studying is a minute of my life I'll never get back.

 

[Shazzam]

Campbell's AP review? You mean cliffs?

I guess it's true that a lot of ppl get 22+ using only cliff's, but it's probably not true that these people have cliff's as their only source of knowledge. Particularly, many ppl are still in school and have the benefit of remembering their stuff from courses not only in basic bio but also cell bio and biochem. On the other hand, I graduated several years ago and worked in an unrelated field, so I don't remember anything from school. In my case cliff's is the ONLY source of knowledge.

Yeah I can actually effectively study that much. I started studying chemistry from scratch on page one, and in the last couple of weeks I read both my general chem and organic chem textbooks cover to cover and did all the problems in the back. So it's no big deal, but still, every minute I spend studying is a minute of my life I'll never get back.

In my opinion, when it comes to the DAT. A minute spent studying BIO past the Cliffs + another resource is a minute poorly utilized. From my perspective, if you spend that minute studying Ochem or Chem or QR, you're more likely to learn information that you WILL utilize on test day. If you get a 19 in BIO but smoke Ochem / Chem your AA will be 20+. I feel that is the easiest way to get a higher score while retaining your sanity.

 

[jmh018]

Campbell's AP review? You mean cliffs?

I guess it's true that a lot of ppl get 22+ using only cliff's, but it's probably not true that these people have cliff's as their only source of knowledge. Particularly, many ppl are still in school and have the benefit of remembering their stuff from courses not only in basic bio but also cell bio and biochem. On the other hand, I graduated several years ago and worked in an unrelated field, so I don't remember anything from school. In my case cliff's is the ONLY source of knowledge.

Yeah I can actually effectively study that much. I started studying chemistry from scratch on page one, and in the last couple of weeks I read both my general chem and organic chem textbooks cover to cover and did all the problems in the back. So it's no big deal, but still, every minute I spend studying is a minute of my life I'll never get back.

Nope, I mean Campbell's AP review. Campbell's is a text used to make the test and they also have an AP review based on their text. That is all I used and it covered just about everything I saw on the test.

 

[lquibeuf]

Is the AP review online? I just tried a quick Google search since I'm interested in purshasing it, but couldn't find much besides Campbell's actual textbook.

 

[NYDano]

I read Campbell's textbook twice over before my exam and scored a 21 on the bio section. I definitely wish I had studied from a review book instead. Would have focused my studying.

In my opinion, when it comes to the DAT. A minute spent studying BIO past the Cliffs + another resource is a minute poorly utilized. From my perspective, if you spend that minute studying Ochem or Chem or QR, you're more likely to learn information that you WILL utilize on test day. If you get a 19 in BIO but smoke Ochem / Chem your AA will be 20+. I feel that is the easiest way to get a higher score while retaining your sanity.

Couldn't agree more. The kinds of questions they could ask you on the GC and OC sections are limited, plus with Chad's videos you can really focus on what you need to know.

 

[jmh018]

Is the AP review online? I just tried a quick Google search since I'm interested in purshasing it, but couldn't find much besides Campbell's actual textbook.

http://www.amazon.com/Preparing-Bio...2429607&sr=8-5&keywords=campbell's+AP+biology

This is what I used. I also got the text as a reference because I found an older addition online for like 4 dollars. And like I said before, this text is used as a reference for making the test.

 

[lquibeuf]

Thank you very much!

 

[wo5678]

Hi guys

I read cliff's bio over the weekend, and while I did well on the end of chapter quizzes I feel that the material presented is very skimpy and skips a lot of important details, particularly on physiology. Since I have 2 more months to study, I am wondering if I should devote some time to a more thorough study of bio by reading Campbell's?

I'm thinking about going over units 1, 2 and 3 (the chemistry of life, the cell, and genetics), as well as unit 7 (animal form and function). It's 650 pages total, but half is pictures or tables so it's actually not too bad (I read fast). This will cover pretty much everything except for plants and biological diversity, which together comprise only 3 questions on the test. www.ada.org/sections/educationAndCareers/.../dat_users_manual.pdf page 45. So I should theoretically nail the other 37 Q's.

Has anybody done this, and do you think it's worthwhile? I estimate it will take me 2 weeks to go through the material, which leaves me plenty of time to review the other subjects. Any thoughts? Thanks!!

That sounds insane. lol.

 

[nirjar2212]

I did the power points of the whole book which are available online for free.. I scored 23 in Bio...

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk

 

[ATG20]

hunterx2,

Reading Campbell strikes me as an insane waste of time. Even if you did set aside the time to read the hundreds upon hundreds of pages of detail, how much of it are you really going to retain by the time you've finished? Campbell is a great reference tool for when you don't understand a concept or you feel a topic isn't covered in enough depth and you want to understand it better, but actually reading it textbook style just strikes me as inefficient.

But, I definitely agree that Cliff's has its weaknesses (especially in physiology - honestly, it leaves out a lot of physiology). I've finally finished my set of notes and I still need to get around to PMing them to people, but I reviewed a ton of sources to put it together and cover all those missed topics and details. It's still a work in progress because I haven't gone over DAT destroyer or some tests that I'll use to put even more info in, but I can confidently say it's 98% complete at this point and I did a ton of work to pad out the physiology section. I think the file might be too big to post on here but PM me your email address and I'll send them too. Hopefully with those, you can save yourself the trouble of reading a textbook.

I agree that reading Campbell would be a waste of time. I didn't read it for my bio series and I wasn't about to wipe the dust off it just for the DAT. I used Cliff's AP bio (kind of skimpy in some areas like physio and early life on earth) and it covered 90%+ of what was on my DAT in sufficient detail. The DAT is not highly detailed, it's very broad. Read Cliff's, get some flashcards, and study outlines on that website *********** (I thought they were helpful the week before the test). I snagged a 22 in Bio, and I was happy with that. Good luck!

 

[hunterx2]

ok guys, lots of good advice here, I think I'll just go over cliff's one more time right before the test and use the rest of my time to focus on other sections. no point in studying low yield stuff