Customer Reviews

High-Yield™ Immunology (High-Yield Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

PLEASE look over some one else's copy of this book before you decide to buy it. It is INCREDIBLY nonsensical. The writing is extremely vague, and I would have to assume the only way to understand what the authors are getting at is to have already mastered the subject. It will frustrate you to no end trying to understand the pictures and seemingly arbitrary outline format. I realize I'm rambling a bit here, but this is by far the worst book I've read to prepare for the boards. The writing is simultaneously vague, incoherent, with hardly a logical progression of explanations. You'll see, look at a copy...check out chapter 8. You thought you knew this stuff? Haha, guess again. They manage to take all the easier principles, and muck it up beyond recognition. The photos/graphs/diagrams are all borrowed, so they never quite correlate with the text...you're just supposed to extrapolate the main idea somehow. This has been one painful read...I absolutely regret wasting money on this book. Can you tell I'm frustrated? Far and away, the worst read I've had yet.

This book is poorly written - because of long sentences, it's extremely difficult to read and understand; don't think that that's because it deals with difficult topics - content is extremely basic (in the worst meaning of this word) and many intricacies of this beautiful subject are completely ignored; many very high yield topics for USMLE step 1 aren't even mentioned; writing style is boring and inimaginative as well; this books is also poorly illustrated - immunology is a subject which is difficult to understand without pictures; at the same time, 'High-Yield Immunology' is extremely expensive for the number of pages and for the amount of information presented.
There are many much better reviews of immunology - try, for example, new 'USMLE Road Map: Immunology', by Parmley, with numerous well-done and useful illustrations - you'll be amazed how this author has managed to put all heavily board-tested immunology topics in just 224 pages (MCQs and index included - by the way, both these helpful features are missing in 'High-Yield Immunology'); what's more - all difficult topics are explained in a logical, clear, and uncluttered way - so different from 'High-Yield Immunology'! also, 'USMLE Road Map: Immunology' is even cheaper - by $2 - than good for nothing 'High-Yield Immunology'.
Otherwise, if you need more in-depth review, get Abbas' excellent 'Basic Immunology' - this little (336 pages) textbook is also packed with useful information and nice full-color illustrations, but it's much more expensive - $59.95.

I agree with one of the reader, the graphs have way too much details. They are not high yield at all. This book has some unnecessary details. For example, it has one big paragraph on different influenza vaccine strains from "advisory committtee on immunization practice, mmwr 2004:53 1-40." And it has select CD antigens on immune cells from CD1 all the way to CD 89 on two pages.

and some of the sentences are wordy and hard to understand, for example, on page 14, "monoclonal antibodies can also be constructed using the Fab domain from a murine antibody against a cancer-specific antigen with the mouse Fc domain removed and displaced by any number of different toxins." And the entire paragraph is one long sentence! Whoever taught the authors English obviously did not do a good job. So sometimes I have to read several times just understand them.

It does have some good information especially the last few chapters, but you can't possibly remember everything in the book, it has too many details.

I disagree with reader "apotosis", he rated 5 for the road map immunology, that book is worse than this book. That book has way too many information, if you want to get a phd on this subject that book is for you.

I bought this book as a review for USMLE step 1, and I started reading a friend's copy of levinson's review of medical microbiology and immunology. Not only is Levinson's the best resource for microbiology, but its immunology section is fantastic for both learning and review. I tried reading HY immunology afterwards and was only confused by it. It is poorly written and inconsistent, and not at all high yield--I wish I had not bought it. I guess there are some okay parts to HY immunology, but there are much better alternatives (Levinson's, How the Immune system works).

I almost didn't buy this book after reading some of the reviews here. But I have been getting killed by the immunology questions on Kaplan's QBank, so I decided to get it after all. So far it has been a very good decision.

The best part about this book? I got it today and I am already more than 1/3 of the way through it - it is clear, concise, and easy to get through. Someone else wrote in their review of this book that people should get Levinson's immunology text instead - but it is 600+ pages! I don't have time to read that much before I take Step 1. This is a very good review book...if you are trying to learn immunology from scratch you are probably going to be lost, but the High Yield series assumes you've already taken medical school coursework and need a focused review source, not a complete course in immunology.

Pros:
-Concise
-Well organized; easy to find the information I need
-Last few sections of the book are almost entirely clinically focused - just what is needed for USMLE preparation

Cons:
-Some of the diagrams are hard to follow (but I don't know how to make the complement pathway look better, so I can't blame them)
-I would have liked a few more graphics to break up the text and help illustrate concepts.
-The review questions at the end are not very "USMLE like" - they are more straightforward basic review than actual board prep.

This book is well written and formatted in a way that makes it easy to follow along with a medically oriented immunology course. If you have more than a couple months for your board review it would be a handy tool as well, although First Aid does a brilliant job of covering the high yield stuff you will see on the USMLE.

I am using this book in additiion to the classes I am taking for a second year medical student. The self tests in this book help you to prepare for the Medical Exam.

This is a good basic text. Depending on the nature of your Immunology course it might be oversimplified.

Perfect review book for the USMLE step 1. It is quick yet thorough. I found it was a great supplement to what was in First Aid and had all of the pertinent information. I didn't see any topics on the boards that weren't covered in the book.

Great book. Well organized, compact, easy to read. If you've got no time to lose, this is your book! I read it and learnt it in one day!