Customer Reviews

GRE Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology (REA) - The Best Test Prep (GRE Test Preparation)

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1 star:		(5)

 

 

About the only review book I could find for the BCMB GRE. I found the review book was ok to use as an outline but not reliable as a stand-alone to study for the test.

PROS:
- Useful as a general outline
- Useful methodology review section, particularly if you have not taken a lab course recently, same goes for the related practice exam questions
- Good starting point for in-depth review with the cell and molecular biology sections.

CONS:
- DOES NOT TEACH YOU HOW TO TAKE THE TEST. This review book does not provide test taking strategies. More than anything the BCMB GRE test is about time management and knowing when to move on to another problem rather than waste time trying to solve it.
- As other reviewers have noted, too much emphasis on biosynthesis/biodegradation pathways in the biochem section.
- Had errors with diagrams and answers in the practice test.
- Multiple choice questions easier than the actual exam.

OVERALL:
Not a recommended buy unless your looking for an easy to carry outline of three textbooks.

If you have the time (>1 month), I suggest going over the following books for reference & review:

Biochemistry - Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry, Fourth Edition. (Has many practice problems that help you understand the material)

Cell Biology - MBOC by Alberts, 4th Edition. (Very comprehensive, available online thru NIH)

Cell Biology - MCB by Lodish and Baltimore, any edition >3rd. (Has GRE style practice questions)

Molecular Biology/Genetics - Modern Genetic Analysis: Integrating Genes and Genomes by Griffiths or Genetics by Weaver & Hedricks. The Weaver & Hedricks book is a very good source of practice problems.

Unfortunately, I have been disappointed with this book. It wasn't helpful for me. After reading part 1 of this book, I realized that it is not reliable. I noticed a couple of structural mistakes in important biochemical pathway molecules and some spelling errors. If you have a couple of months to prepare for this test, I would suggest quickly going over your main science books. Good luck everyone with the EXAM!

Like others who have reviewed this book, I bought it because it's the only one out there. The other books are just practice tests. This book alone did not adequately prepare me for the biochem subject test. What it did do is provide a guideline to things I needed to review in depth using my own text books from college. Also, the practice test in the back of the books was far easier than the practice tests from the GRE website, which were more in line with the real test. I would not purchase it again. Rather, just use the info provided by the GRE website to guide you and rely on your text books and lecture notes for review.

I have only read the first five pages and it has obvious critical errors. I will have to abandon it for fear of learning more mis-information.

This book has probably never been edited by a scientist.

<<<<DOON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY>>>>> Unless you want to buy my copy.

This book is rife with errors and mistakes, an in critical ways. For example, one question, on a fairly basic topic, asked what %age guanines are in a DNA molecule (double-stranded) that contains 20% thymines and 30% purines. Given that guanine is a purine, and adenine is a purine, this implies that the breakdown is as follows: 20% A, 20% T, 10% G, 40% C. This is clearly impossible, as that would not be a stable molecule.

Other idiotic errors abound, but I provide that as the absolutely worst examples. This book leaves me with absolutely no idea how well I will do on the GRE, and has basically been a useless study aid. I find myself correcting it far more often than it corrects me.

I found many typos in this book - the carbon atom has 5 covalent bonds sticking out in the diagram, the math derivation seems not coherent, etc.

I am a little disappointed since the book was written by two PhDs.

Definitely not worth the money, or anything for that matter. Not only does the book have typos, but the information is incorrect. Everything is summarized (and not very well at that!), and "old school" terms are used. Remember: it's cheap for a reason!

I bought this book because it was the only test prep book available at the time for the GRE Biochemistry subject test. The book put a lot of emphasis biochemical synthesis and degradation pathways for amino acids, lipids, nucleotides etc. and I was up until 2:00 am the night of my exam trying to memorize all of this material which I had never learned. When I got into the test the next morning, I realized that all of my memorization had been completely pointless.

The real GRE is nothing like the practice exams in this book! Also, there are many errors in the questions and in the answer keys.

If you want to buy this book as a general review, it has good information for the Cell and Molecular Biology sections, but the Biochem section goes into way too much detail and the practice exams are pretty terrible.

This book provides a very, very basic review of the major concepts of biochem, cell biology, and molecular biology (i.e. genetics). I found this review helpful, but the detailed questions of the actual exam require a much more detailed review. This prep was also chaulk-full of typos, mistakes, improperly tagged vocab words, and incorrectly drawn chemical structures (texas carbons and nitrogens, double bonds to hydrogen atoms, etc.) that required me to look up the actual structure or correct definition. The practice exams were also a bit easier than the actual exam was, so an accurate gauge of how well you are doing cannot be obtained with this test prep. If all you need is a brief review before your subject exam, then this will probably work, otherwise review your old corsework and notes.

I used this as a review guide for the Biochem GRE. I'd only taken a one-summer biochem class, so I was feeling weak in that area, although confident about the rest. The book has good organization, and doesn't go too in-depth into one topic at the expense of others.

The biggest problem I had with it was that it was much harder than the real test! I was very worried that I was going to do terribly, and this made me more anxious than I should have been. In the last few days before I took the one real exam that I had, and it was much easier than the book's questions. There were much more biochem pathway trivia in the book than on the real exam.

There are some factual errors in this book, and hopefully future editions will get a little more proofreading.