Customer Reviews

GRE - Biology (Exclusive Guide) (3rd Edition)

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I took the GRE Biology Subject Exam 12/1999, and prepared for it using every single GRE Bio test preparation book I could find (about 5.) This was the most useful of them all, because it provided the only really accurate representation of what the exam was actually like. It is only one full sample exam and one partial sample exam and doesn't provide any review material per se, but it is well worth taking as practice, and then even more useful if you go back over the questions you missed, and review or teach yourself the pertinent subject material from standard text books. It seemed pretty obvious to me that Campbell's Biology and The Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts, et al, were two major sources for the test questions. Some of the questions on the practice exam covered material that my college Biology and Biochemistry courses didn't address. For example, I was confronted with population equations I had never seen before, but turned out to be in a previously unread chapter in my Campbell's text. Learning that, and other new material the practice test exposed me to, proved invaluable on test day. If it makes any difference, I scored in the upper 97%. If your goal is to score 90% and above, I strongly recommend this book. On the other hand, if your Bio knowledge is very rusty and you need extensive review material, or you have more modest scoring goals, Cracking the GRE Biology Exam by Deborah Guest was reasonably OK, but not broad enough in scope to result in top scores. The other review books I used were really pretty bad and a waste of time and money. They were so poorly written, using material so far removed from the content of the actual test, I honestly began to feel I could write a better review book myself. Maybe I should.

I was a chemical engineering major in college and after a few years out of school, I decided to go to graduate school for a PhD in molecular biology. Being that I had no formal education in biology whatsoever, I decided to take the biology test rather than the biochemistry because I think it's a much easier test to study for from ground zero (and I was right). I had no idea what to expect from the test, so this book helped a lot to demystify it. I knew what type of questions were asked and whatever I didn't understand, I would look it up in a textbook or on the web (you'd be surprised how much biology one can learn on the web, so many colleges put up study guides and reviews for their students and everyone can have access to them). What's the point of studying for the test, if you don't practice on the official version? On the real test, I actually saw some of the same questions. They actually recycle questions, just posed in slightly different ways. I only study using this guide and the Princeton Review guide (and supplemented with textbooks here and there), and I got a decent enough score to get me into three graudate schools in NYC, including Columbia, NYU and Albert Einstein. I couldn't have done it without this book. This is NOT an endorsement of ETS, by the way, I think ETS is one of the most evil empires ever created on earth and I think the government should shut them down because they are an unfair monopoly with no real consumer or educational value. ETS is the biggest scam that was ever invented. I'm endorsing this book because you have to learn the system to beat the system.

Many of you probably know that ETS.org has free PDF versions of its GRE exams, including the subject tests like Biology. However, the test guides that were published and are now out of print contain DIFFERENT exam questions. So if you can get one, it's still worth your while.

Disclaimer: I'm selling my copy, so a review encouraging you to buy this book could be considered a conflict of interest! :)