Berkeley Review????

[cozmokrmr]

Anyone know anything on Berkeley Review, how well they prepare you for the mcat, reputation, teaching quality, etc. Any comments are great. Anyone had good success using them.

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[UCLAstudent]

I took it and loved it. The instructors, for the most part, are fabulous. The practice tests are hard, but I do feel that they prepared me well (although the real MCAT felt like a nightmare while I was taking it). Would you be taking it in the LA area? I totally recommend it. The only weakness would be their verbal materials ... but the sciences are excellent, particularly the general chemistry and o-chem. Good luck!

 

[LoneCoyote]

My friend rocked the MCAT (38) after doing Berkeley Review in Berkeley. I have never heard anything bad about them. Good luck

 

[cozmokrmr]

I will probably be taking it up in N. Cal. . I called and spoke with them. They're offering it down at Stanford for the april '05 test. I think the verbal stuff, you have to really just practice a lot using practice tests and passages, quicken your reading comprehension and speed. I need a little structure to keep me motivated when I started to get burned out closer to April.

I've heard that they are much more intensive in their teaching and meet more often each week.
thanks.

Lone coyote are you going to UC Davis Med.? I finished my undergrad. there. Great school.

 

[clockitnow]

I used Berkeley Review last summer and it was awesome. They literally teach you everything, meaning if you took any premed courses a while ago or haven't yet, it will be fine. There is class 2 hrs a day, 4 days a week, plus problem sessions, etc. Their books are really good. You definitely have to be self motivated to get all the review material done. It is near imposssible to run out. Doing the classes +30hrs/research a week and all the practice tests took up my whole summer. BUT it was so worth it. I got a 38. Another friend of mine got a 38 after using them the previous summer. You can PM if you have more questions about them.

 

[cozmokrmr]

That's awesome. They sound great! I will probably go ahead and use them

 

[iggyboop]

They're awesome. I believe that practice passages are the best way to study, and they integrate it into their teaching and their material. And the instructors are hilarious; I fall asleep in my lectures at Berkeley but I never fell asleep in their classes. I totally recommend them. For those not fortunate enough to be in their classes in California, buy their books! I think it was $237 (including S&H) for the set of 10 books if you're not in California. They're completely worth it.

I'm not going to reveal my score because I have some weird belief system, but let's just say I was very satisfied.

And as a word of advice to any future Berkeley Review students - as they will say to you, don't be intimidated by all the material they give you - you're not expected to read and memorize everything.

 

[OnMyWayThere]

And as a word of advice to any future Berkeley Review students - as they will say to you, don't be intimidated by all the material they give you - you're not expected to read and memorize everything.

Thats what made me stop using them... They kept saying we give you a lot more than you need, but HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT TO STUDY AND WHAT NOT TO?

Please let me know how you sorted it out since there is a lot that they would expect you to skip.

 

[iggyboop]

OnMyWayThere:

As you're reading through the material, if you think you know it, just skim through the reading, and then do some of the practice passages after it to make sure. In a sense, these are like textbooks for the MCAT - nothing in it that won't be covered, and enough details to really fill you in on anything you need to know.

My teacher reiterated over and over - you don't need to finish the books. Everybody has different weaknesses, so they put everything there, and each person finds what they need to work on. He told us that he found it strange that some people felt so insecure about not finishing it; I suppose all our lives we're told to finish book after book so much so that it's strange for us to actually use study material to our own advantage and not because someone else wants us to complete it.

 

[dogbyte]

I took the berkeley review to prepare for the april 2004 mcat. i'm really happy with the score i got. they do a great job of preparing you for the sciences. i actually went through all the books. the instructors told us to just do the passages and not read the material related to the passages unless yuo were really weak on a topic. i read the stuff beforehand anyway. if you dont read, do the passages. they can be discouraging because the questions are hard. just keep at it, and always read the explanation, even if you get the answer right. they explain why an answer is wrong or right really well. the verbal is not that great. not very similar to the aamcs. get the examkrackers book. if you have time, try to get your hand on as many practice questions as possible and do them. do as many practice tests as possible. i think that's more important than attending lecture.

 

[pbehzad]

How is the Berkely Verbal Book? The one I am using i think is outdated (like from the 90s) but it seems like that the questions are a little too straight forward.

Thanks.

 

[OnMyWayThere]

OnMyWayThere:

As you're reading through the material, if you think you know it, just skim through the reading, and then do some of the practice passages after it to make sure. In a sense, these are like textbooks for the MCAT - nothing in it that won't be covered, and enough details to really fill you in on anything you need to know.

My teacher reiterated over and over - you don't need to finish the books. Everybody has different weaknesses, so they put everything there, and each person finds what they need to work on. He told us that he found it strange that some people felt so insecure about not finishing it; I suppose all our lives we're told to finish book after book so much so that it's strange for us to actually use study material to our own advantage and not because someone else wants us to complete it.

That makes sense. I guess I'll try it again but I'm really considering keeping my 24 and going to the Carribean and forget about my DO hopes. I'll decide by Sunday but in the meantime I'll crack open one of my BR books and see if I'm up for studying. I think one of the major drawbacks for me is that they were so hard, it would discourage me and I couldn't convince myself that it was a productive method... I guess I was wrong.

Did you find the passages really hard?

 

[OnMyWayThere]

How is the Berkely Verbal Book? The one I am using i think is outdated (like from the 90s) but it seems like that the questions are a little too straight forward.

Thanks.

BR Verbal sucks

 

[iggyboop]

That makes sense. I guess I'll try it again but I'm really considering keeping my 24 and going to the Carribean and forget about my DO hopes. I'll decide by Sunday but in the meantime I'll crack open one of my BR books and see if I'm up for studying. I think one of the major drawbacks for me is that they were so hard, it would discourage me and I couldn't convince myself that it was a productive method... I guess I was wrong.

Did you find the passages really hard?

Oh man, the passages were killer. I was so discouraged at first, but I just thought to myself, well, hopefully this makes the real thing look easier. Around halfway through the course, I took the AAMC 3R, and it did turn out such that the passages were a cakewalk compared to some of the ones in TBR.

Actually, I had a pretty set system (it was a suggestion from one of the instructors) with the TBR books - I'd do the first five passages of a topic first, wait a couple of weeks, do the next five passages, and then towards MCAT time I did the last five. There was little improvement across them - BUT, the week before the MCAT, I looked back at where I was consistently making mistakes, and that really helped.

One thing they tell you is that in the month or two before the MCAT, where you will improve the most is refining what you know (i.e., cutting down on silly mistakes) rather than learning new material - so that's why doing practice passages helps in making sure you really know what you think you know.

And yes, the Berkeley Review Verbal book kinda stinks. And I let them know that in person. They're changing it around such that lecture time is devoted to exposing and having people try new ways to look at passages/answer questions. I don't know if they told you this, but you might have noticed that a lot of the passages that you read in the Verbal book would be good material (examples) for the Writing section - and this was intentional. I always thought that was clever...

By the way, if anyone is interested, I discovered a technique (like a week before the MCAT!) for going through the passages that seemed to be the most efficient:

I start by skimming the questions - NOT reading the questions, but rather looking for questions that have "in line xx" in them. When I see that, I circle it and go straight to the passage and find the relevant material and circle that too. Once I'm done with that, I start at the beginning of the passage and start reading, and when I reach a circled area I go to the question and circle a gut answer. That is, I try to answer the question, but I don't dwell on it so much as to break the flow of reading the passage.

Well, you can try this and see how it works.

Good luck everybody, and congrats for making it this far!

 

[iggyboop]

How is the Berkely Verbal Book? The one I am using i think is outdated (like from the 90s) but it seems like that the questions are a little too straight forward.

Thanks.

The books right now still have 70 questions per section in them. Yeah, they're a bit outdated. But at least you get more practice!

You know, the funny thing is that while I was studying for the MCAT, I kept reminding myself to dig out my SAT Verbal stuff to see if it was similar - can anyone confirm this? I never got around to doing that.

With the Verbal, I had to first learn how to actually stay focused while reading the passage. It's easy to say, yeah, on the actual day I'm going to treat every passage like it's the most important thing in the world (which it is) but it takes a bit of practice to just concentrate on the darn things! After that, even after really reading a passage, I had (and still have) trouble answering some of the hypothetical questions.

I can say that their explanations for their questions are pretty thorough. Whether the questions are good - eh...some are good, some are a bit shaky... Who knows, it seems that the people on this board who do the best do a ton of reading. Not surprising...

 

[cozmokrmr]

So would anyone reccommend using EK's Verbal book as a supplement to TBR course. All I've heard are good things about this verbal book. Any other suggestions???

 

[UCLAstudent]

So would anyone reccommend using EK's Verbal book as a supplement to TBR course. All I've heard are good things about this verbal book. Any other suggestions???

Yes, this is EXACTLY what I did. I used the EK 101 verbal passages book while taking the TBR class. With the EK book, I could literally see myself improve. On the first passage set, I got a 7. This went up (with some fluctuation) until on the last passage sets I was getting 10s. I got a 10 on the real MCAT verbal. I definitely recommend it.

For TBR science passages , I attacked them a little differently than iggyboop. I went to class (didn't read the corresponding section in the books ahead of time ... that may help). The next day, I would do half of the passages for the material that was covered the previous night. I would finish the passages the day after that. The thing is that I repeated passages in the future, two or three times. This might not work for everyone, and it might sound silly, but, for me, it really nailed the concepts in my brain. That is how I learn best ... by "memorizing" (although this wasn't memorizing, per se). It paid off.

 

[cozmokrmr]

Anyone else have success with Berkeley Review????

 

[Kussemek]

berkeley review pretty much already has me sold. question though. i just graduated from cal and will be taking physics this year both in the fall and spring. is it possible to take both one course, physics, and take the berkeley review program? or is that mcat suicide?

 

[UCLAstudent]

berkeley review pretty much already has me sold. question though. i just graduated from cal and will be taking physics this year both in the fall and spring. is it possible to take both one course, physics, and take the berkeley review program? or is that mcat suicide?

I took three courses along with Berkeley Review. It's definitely possible. Just be prepared to sacrifice a lot during the months while you are studying. I honestly didn't find the MCAT preparation process to be terrible or anything, just time-consuming.