Biological Science 2nd EDITION [Hardcover]

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1392 pages
• Publisher: Brnjamin/CummingsPubCo,2005
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131409417
• ISBN-13: 978-0131409415
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.4 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #663,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars too much focus on experiments that certain details are not explained as well., December 15, 2005

By 

Shann Yu "Go Rice Owls!!!" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Biological Science 2nd EDITION (Hardcover)

After acing Introductory Bio the previous year with Campbell & Reece's Biology, I returned this year as an undergrad TA for the same class. The professor had switched to this book, which is by far just a piece of crap next to the Campbell & Reece book.

This textbook seems to put too much emphasis on experiments done in the past that all the material is lost beneath piles and piles of experimental 'abstracts'. I once misunderstood the textbook, specifically on the differences between genes important in developmental biology, and ended up giving wrong information on a Q&A session. I ended up having to spend a lot of time tracking down every single person who had come to the session in order to let them know about the error.

Now I say Campbell & Reece is better because it makes better use of its diagrams and figures in order to clarify points made in the text itself. Freeman does not do as good of a job in this way. I guess it does a mediocre job of enabling you to delve out relationships between experimental results and conclusions that have been deduced from those experiments. But for one who is studying introductory biology I, I do not personally see the purpose of looking at experimental data just yet. With all the definitions and concepts that need to be understood first, the emphasis should not be as much on experiments than on developing concepts and throwing in experiments every once in a while.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great CD-ROM, Great Information, Interesting Research, December 13, 2005

By 

Emily K. Nelson "Fantasy geek" (Grand Forks, ND) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Biological Science 2nd EDITION (Hardcover)

I love biology and the book was a huge help in my lecture class this year. The layout flowed well from one section to the next, and from all the chapters we covered there was very little extraneous data. Everything we needed to know what contained in the chapters and detailed enough to understand the basic concepts. The study questions at the end of the chapter also helped with the basic understanding of the material.

The CD-ROM was extremely helpful with studying for tests or clarifying a chapter that was a bit confusing. For each concept there is a PDF worksheet, a pre-quiz, an animation with video and audio and text, and a post quiz. The CD-Rom was the biggest help in studying for my final, I'm more confident that I will pass because of this CD-ROM.

And on the web tutorial browser used, I had ZERO problems with the program working within my Mozilla Firefox browser. No Netscape needed.

The book isn't perfect for everyone. If your teacher strays from the book in lectures, you may need other sources to help clarify some concepts. My teachers never strayed farther than their own experiences in the field that were very closely related to the topics we were studying at the time. Most cases, the book will be all you need for raw information and the CD-ROM can help clarify a topic even more and help you study for your tests. Don't be afraid of the book, it's large but very much worth the money.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Intorductory Biology Book, November 1, 2009

By 

Manderson198 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Biological Science 2nd EDITION (Hardcover)

This book is great for an introductory collegiate biology student (and portions are even sufficient for higher level learning). It is very comparable to other "standard" Biology textbooks (ex. Campbell and Reece). I highly recommend this publication.