Books for Prep | |
 - Waste of timeI bought this book two weeks before the BioGRE in order to bone up on anything that may have slipped my mind since freshmen bio class. The review section in the beginning of the book was ok, though it went into insane amounts of detail. I took the "practice test" in the back, which was so different from the actual test I wanted to scream. The actual test is far more clearly written, thought out, and fair. This book also gives a section to explain why you got that one question wrong about how bacteria reproduce. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Sometimes the explanations say things like "Answers B, C, and E can be eliminated because they are wrong. Answer D is the correct choice. Answer A is also a good choice." How helpful! Save your money and read another review book or your freshmen bio text. Rating:  - Future test taker you might wanna read thisI took my Biology GRE last November (2006). I got my score like a month ago and I was very disappointed. If you read the reviews for the new edition you'll find one reviewer talking about this book needs to be revised. And all I'm gonna tell you is he/she is 110% correct. If you are taking the test in April or later, consider NOT buying this book. I used this book, the Princeton review book and Campbell to study for the test. And I didn't get a 90 percentile or above, which totally enraged me since it felt like everything that was in this book was not on the test (I focused very much on the topics found in this book). I can't reveal the exact questions but let me just describe the kind of problems on the test (I bet future test takers would be curious). The most shocking question on the test I took must be the one where it mixed reproductive organs (anatomy) with evolutionary biology. There were 5 consecutive problems dealing with history stuff like when did this go extinct and when did that originated. It was just painful for me since I'm a big cell and molecular person. There were even matching problems where the student was supposed to match up the name of a specific gene (I mean very specific, at least that's what I thought) with its function or responsible disease or symptoms or body structure. Honestly I was quite devastated by the difficulty of the test, especially it felt like everything I studied did not show up on the test. If you're from Harvard or Yale or whatever, don't even bother studying because you're the people who get the 99 percentile. But for the rest of us (well excluding me), study your Campbell Biology textbook. And be sure to cover everything in the book. You'll be surprised when you see problems that you absolutely don't have a clue on the test. Rating:  - Good source but not definitiveThis books helped tremendously but the test requires A LOT of knowledge. So I think it's best viewed as one source to look at. That being said if you don't have much time, read this in it's entirety and you'll be fine. Rating:  - GREAT BUYI waited till 3 days before the GRE bio to prepare. I did it by reading this book. The stuff in this book very closely aligns with what is on the test. As long as you know your stuff and paid attention in class it offers just enough detail of a review to jog all your memories. In fact, some of the exact questions the GRE exam asked on test day were little factoids contained in this book. I do not know my score yet (just took the test this morning) but I have a gut feeling I did good. So in summation: buy this book and no other! I did not even read a general bio textbook; I think that if you basically know your stuff already the kaplan guide is all you are gonna need . I found the plant info and info on evolution very helpful Rating: - Good tool for test prepI found that Kaplan's bio GRE review book accurately represented the contents of the test. It gives a good review of the material covered on the GRE (although with a few minor errors) and the practice test was very similar in content, structure, and difficulty to the real one. Update: I just got my scores back, and I stand by my review :) an excellent buy, it was definitely worth it. In association with Amazon.com | |