good_girl
Forum Newbie
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Guys, need your experienced opinion realy bad. I just started biochem prep. Seems like Kaplan notes is not enought and med school text is tooooo much. Anyone can advise something in between, please. Big Thanks.
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| bioguy
Forum Guru
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what do you mean by med school text? is it Harper's Illustrated 27th Ed?
i went through Harper's and found it really good. haven't compared it with other books. the thing i like is that every paragraph has a heading that highlights what the paragraph contains. thats an easy way to get the big picture first before you start reading in detail. biochemistry is a very volatile subject if you are reading it without associations. i mean if you want to just remember the pathways and enzymes as you keep reading, that is tough. infact that may not be whats important for USMLE. i may be wrong because i haven't given the test yet. what i do is have the important pathways printed out from Harper's and pasted on the wall in my study room. that way whenever i come across some associations i write them down on the wall. feel very easy to review, memorize and associate. that way you have everything on the wall, don't have to search through the book or the index to find something about a metabolite. well, i am just going on and on, haven't answered your question properly, have i?
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| bioguy
Forum Guru
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by the way, i have to tell this, during my PhD, i took "metabolism course" and also was teaching assistant for undergrad biochem course, so i dont' find biochem so daunting as i did in medschool. still i am no expert, to be honest.
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| good_girl
Forum Newbie
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Thank you so much, bioguy.  I am looking at Harper's at Amazon.com right now and I think that is what I need. Some how I trust you...Just dont' want to understudy for my test as well as overstudy (if there is such a thing).
It is great idea about posting material on the wall. In fact I started mine last week. It seems to be working. Anyway, big thanks for your replay and take care.
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| bioguy
Forum Guru
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By the way, if you want to try textbooks before buying them, check if its available in www.medicalheaven.com - usually they will have a softcopy. some people don't like reading from the screen, they enjoy only from paper books... but i feel we should develop the habit of reading from screen because the test is on screen, duh?!!
also search this forum, and you will find a lot of resources just free.
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| good_girl
Forum Newbie
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Thank you AwesomeBioGuy. Yo uare very helpfull. You are absolutly right about reading from the screen ...
By the way, what do you think about Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews?...
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| GoodGirl
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I like Lippincotts, it is time absorbing doing it along with Kaplan ( at least it was for me ), the pathways are really good in it, and it is more the text book, than a review. So I got sometimes a better understanding out of it, than compare to Kaplan, esp. in biochem pathways.
Harper is too thick, gives very detailed descriptions, so I got to conclusion it will be too much.....
Good luck, twin.
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| ShweHope99.9998
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GG , now u found ur similar gg
I like Lippin too, very clinical with basic Sc p.w . , but so far no time to get back to it, Kaplan is already more than enough in book, in Dr Raymon , that I study with when in center .
So my books [ bioch, pharm ] is so full of my hand wriiten of every word he had said .
GL 
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| Jackofknives
Ipwnpoker.com
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At my school if you want to ace biochem, Devlin is the way to go, but ofc its way too detailed for the MLE, 1.5K pages n all.
http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/Textbook_o...
Lippincott is really good imo bc i have a hunch that kaplan alone wont suffice.
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| good_girl
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Thanks Guys. Your input is really priceless. I think it is very important to pick a right book and it is different for everyone becasue of level of knowledge and amount of time we have for prep...
I am trying to stay away from 1200 pages of Delvin...we'l see...So far, all I know I need to study.... aloOOOt.
Hello and good luck to everyone.
PS. Hey twin
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