Customer Reviews

Barron's SAT Subject Test Biology E/M with CD-ROM (Barron's SAT Biology E/M (W/CD))

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I have two major gripes with this book that really bring it down below other SAT II B E/M review books, particularly the one put out the Princeton review:

1) A lot of the explanations don't display much organization. The phylogenetic tree section, for instance, just sort of threw out various bits of information without actually comparing the different organisms or specifically stating the main points of distinction (particularly development of the body systems throughout the various phyla). I feel that this is a grave error, particularly in that specific section, because the official practice tests and the official test I took before purchasing this book tend more towards questions of main patterns, and while I could reason things out based on what WAS there (and what was in the Princeton Review book, which I'd already used once with great success [760]), reviewing for the SAT II is the third time I've gone through this material.

2) The practice tests contain a number of questions that simply will NOT appear on the actual SAT II, and even those covering things that might appear on the real test are poorly-phrased and in a few cases very badly-diagrammed; this is somewhat disturbing, given that we're talking about a review book for a test written by the college board, whose skill at miswriting questions is almost legendary.

I took the test once with some minimal review from the Princeton Review SAT II Bio book and got a 760; I then purchased this one in the interest of getting more practice tests and some potentially-better explanations. Having gone through, though, I really would suggest avoiding it. The PR one has much better explanations for the few things I couldn't remember immediately from my past biology classes, and has far more realistic practice tests.

Seriously, don't buy this. It's better than nothing, but not much more.

I decided to take the SAT II Bio in freshman year after taking a basic course in Bio. I bought this and the PR book.

The Barron's book came a few weeks earlier. It was really boring, hard to follow and had me doubting whether any of this stuff was actually going to be on the test. The information they give you isn't even on the test, and they don't go over the actual important stuff that's going to be on the test. Furthermore, the practice tests were ridiculously hard.

I switched over to PR while my friend stuck with Barron's, insisting that "PR is too easy." I got 710 using the PR book and a little bit of Kaplan. My friend studied solely from Barron's didn't even break 700. Both of us were A students in freshman bio.

after carefully perusing all of the books in the store on the subject, I went with Barron's. It was an excellent choice. Some of my friends even wound up borrowing my book in the weeks before our exam. I think that the thing that made it the most useful was its organization. This is a very user-friendly book. I found the material to be well-presented, easy to understand and thoroughly explained. My teacher now recommends this book to all of his students. and I recommend it to Amazon.com
Good luck!

I love this book, it helped me to prepare for the bio SAT. If you know your basic biology, this book only helps to further explain what you already know in even more detail. I must admit, I wish they had better strategies on how to approach problems, but this is biology we're talking about. The subject requires alot of memorizing, and this book has all the right information you need. If you pace yourself to learn the info, it pays off. With only a month of dedicated, hard-core studying, I took the bio SAT as a freshman and scored a 700. This book taught me every thing I needed to know, I strongly recommend it.