2 out of 4 stars
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The Must-Knows for Pre-Medical Students by Sara Toussaint is an instructional guidebook for students who would like to study medicine. The book is a hodge-podge of information from basic principles of the main sciences involved in medicine to study tips for the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT. The majority of the book is spent with the main concepts from certain sciences that you should know if you want to someday go to medical school. It covers the different types of chemistry: general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry. The author then moves on to the bare basics of the study of anatomy. Then it has a small section for understanding the importance of physics in the study of medicine. It also covers the discipline of psychology.
This is where the book took an interesting turn, because Toussaint starts discussing communication. The author discusses tips on how to be an effective speaker and also how to be a listener. After communication, the book goes back to some basics of personal health and wellness. Toussaint lays out the basics of human nutrition and even gives examples of exercises to try doing whenever you have a spare minute. She also has given examples of the best foods to eat that will keep a person in good health. She also mentions foods that contain antioxidants and why these are important for a person’s balanced diet. The last part of this section is all about foods to avoid and what to eat to keep the heart in working order. Toussaint then moves on to some tips and encouragements regarding medical school application and taking the MCAT to finish the book.
My first thought about this book is that it is a fantastic idea. I am trying to get into medical school myself. I love the idea of containing the most basic information about certain important subjects in one book. I also appreciate that Toussaint tried to incorporate things like study tips and statistics about medical school applicants.
While I like the idea for this book, I think that the execution was very poor. I found many errors while reading this book, including spelling errors, grammatical errors, and informational errors. While I can forgive an author who has written a 500 page book for making a couple of spelling errors, I cannot forgive an author who has written 60 pages and has over that many errors. The worst part is that there were errors in the information that was being given. Reading this book could confuse a new student who is just starting to learn about these concepts. I also do not like the fact that the information that is presented is not the most important information to give to students. There are some subjects that were very underdeveloped in their sections, and some that were completely left out, such as biology.
So, while I believe that this book was an attempt at something wonderful, I give it 2 out of 4 stars. I have not given it 1 star, because while there was a lot wrong with this book, I think that if the author goes through it and corrects the errors, it could be a great resource. I am definitely not recommending that people read it as it is though, which is why I will not give it 3 stars.
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The Must Knows for Premedical Students
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