Buying TBR( Berkeley Review) Books!

[bclionsfan]

Buying the TBR (berkeley review) books if anyone has them in BC!

Doesn't seem like there's many who use these books in BC/Vancouver. 

PM me if you are selling!

Thanks

[JohnGrisham]

Very good books. The PDFs are floating around if that is your thing. 

[bclionsfan]

56 minutes ago, JohnGrisham said:

Very good books. The PDFs are floating around if that is your thing. 

I can only seem to find the TBR PDFs for the old mcat, not the new ones. 

[jul059]

On 26/08/2017 at 2:02 PM, bclionsfan said:

I can only seem to find the TBR PDFs for the old mcat, not the new ones. 

The various editions are very similar. I have the latest books, and I did compare them to the PDFs. Almost all the questions are the same, there's just 15 additional free standing questions per chapter. They are not worth it.

On a different note, I do not recommend TBR. It will NOT prepare you for the kind of thick biochem/genetics passages that plague the bio section on the MCAT. Also, I found them to have a very poor pedagogical style. I also found the passages to be completely uncorrelated to the content review. The latter is excessively details oriented, while the questions are more general. The questions are still good practice, but expensive practice. My recommendation would be, in order of importance (NOT chronological) :

1 Official AAMC material. Do the sections banks untimed, and take 2 hours per passage if you need. Look-up unfamiliar terms in reference books and the latest Kaplan books bundle (I hear there's a PDF somewhere...). Watch Khan Academy on those topics. Then answer. Then look at the solution. Learn the concepts you got wrong. You don't want to be telling yourself "Oh, I just have to learn my amino acids and I'll be fine". Learn your amino acids and see if you're really fine. Write the AAMC practice tests up to 2 weeks before test day like the real thing, with the same breaks duration. Again, review thoroughly.

2. uWorld. This is gold. The explanations are very detailed and the best out of any prep material, including AAMC. It is also very efficient : answers have keywords in bold, links you can click which pop-open other related key ideas, and a summary of what you should take away from the question. You can prepare for all sections with this.

3. NextStep practice tests. Use this to practice timing AND review material. Your first practice tests should take you several days to thoroughly review. Really dig every question you got wrong. It doesn't matter if you spend an hour on a question, as long as you end up understanding your mistake and remembering the concepts. As you get better and make less mistakes, reviewing your full length practice tests might end up taking half a day to a day.

For CARS, I found the AAMC question packs and Princeton Review Hyperlearning to be the best practice. If you stumble upon an AAMC answer that you don't agree with, read it again 10 times. They're usually right. If you still don't agree with it, come back to it the next day. If you STILL don't agree, then this is priceless learning : understand how the test writers want you to think, even if you feel it doesn't make sense. I felt horrible inside while doing this, but I went from 125 to ~130.

Doing all the above will already get you significantly above average. By that time, you will know your weaknesses and you'll be able to find appropriate supplements if needed.

[bclionsfan]

On 2017-08-30 at 8:54 AM, jul059 said:

The various editions are very similar. I have the latest books, and I did compare them to the PDFs. Almost all the questions are the same, there's just 15 additional free standing questions per chapter. They are not worth it.

On a different note, I do not recommend TBR. It will NOT prepare you for the kind of thick biochem/genetics passages that plague the bio section on the MCAT. Also, I found them to have a very poor pedagogical style. I also found the passages to be completely uncorrelated to the content review. The latter is excessively details oriented, while the questions are more general. The questions are still good practice, but expensive practice. My recommendation would be, in order of importance (NOT chronological) :

1 Official AAMC material. Do the sections banks untimed, and take 2 hours per passage if you need. Look-up unfamiliar terms in reference books and the latest Kaplan books bundle (I hear there's a PDF somewhere...). Watch Khan Academy on those topics. Then answer. Then look at the solution. Learn the concepts you got wrong. You don't want to be telling yourself "Oh, I just have to learn my amino acids and I'll be fine". Learn your amino acids and see if you're really fine. Write the AAMC practice tests up to 2 weeks before test day like the real thing, with the same breaks duration. Again, review thoroughly.

2. uWorld. This is gold. The explanations are very detailed and the best out of any prep material, including AAMC. It is also very efficient : answers have keywords in bold, links you can click which pop-open other related key ideas, and a summary of what you should take away from the question. You can prepare for all sections with this.

3. NextStep practice tests. Use this to practice timing AND review material. Your first practice tests should take you several days to thoroughly review. Really dig every question you got wrong. It doesn't matter if you spend an hour on a question, as long as you end up understanding your mistake and remembering the concepts. As you get better and make less mistakes, reviewing your full length practice tests might end up taking half a day to a day.

For CARS, I found the AAMC question packs and Princeton Review Hyperlearning to be the best practice. If you stumble upon an AAMC answer that you don't agree with, read it again 10 times. They're usually right. If you still don't agree with it, come back to it the next day. If you STILL don't agree, then this is priceless learning : understand how the test writers want you to think, even if you feel it doesn't make sense. I felt horrible inside while doing this, but I went from 125 to ~130.

Doing all the above will already get you significantly above average. By that time, you will know your weaknesses and you'll be able to find appropriate supplements if needed.

thank you for such a detailed reply! I very much appreciate it!