Kaplan MCAT Physics Review Reviews

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1. Benjamin Craxton says:

   February 12, 2011 at 4:49 am

   6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

   
   Generally good review sections, poor reviewproblems., August 24, 2010

   By 

   Benjamin Craxton –

   This review is from: Kaplan MCAT Physics Review (Paperback)

   The book is split roughly into 3 sections: review chapters, “high-yield” problems, and a cluster of MCAT-imitating questions at the back. The review chapters are quite helpful, comprise the thickest portion of the book, and each chapter is followed by a small cluster of practice questions that should solidify information presented in the chapter. These questions are 80% of the time well formulated, but the other 20% of questions have flat-out WRONG answers/explanations or are simply terribly written. The occasional typographical error in these sections wouldn’t be so annoying if it weren’t for the terrible 20%: example: pg 278, Question 4:

   “How far away from equilibrium will the kinetic energy be equal to the potential energy of a spring that has a spring constant k=0.1N/m, a speed of 3 m/s, and a 0 kg mass attached?
   A. 3m
   B. 6m
   C. 12m
   D. 18m”

   In the explanation, they use 0.4kg as the mass… whoops!

   I couldn’t help but cringe as I read a couple of these bad questions: example: pg 161, Question 11:

   “Balls A and B of equal mass are floating in a swimming pool, as in the figure shown. (Ball A is drawn larger as Ball B) Which will produce a greater buoyant force?
   A. Ball A
   B. Ball B
   C. The forces will be equal.
   D. It is impossible to know without knowing the volume of each ball.”

   Buoyant force is proportional to the fluid displaced. The fluid displaced is proportional to the mass of the balls. If the balls are of equal mass, they will replace equal amounts of fluid while floating on the surface of the liquid. The correct answer is C. The book puts D as the correct answer and gives a muddled up explanation that leaves the reader feeling confused and betrayed because the review section shouldn’t be full of mistakes.

   Maybe I’m pedantic, but I found that about 15 of these sorts of mistakes in the book brought my rating from 5 stars down to 3 stars. The book is quite good at teaching material but the review questions at the end of each chapter should be a large embarrassment for Kaplan.

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2. Adam H. says:

   August 5, 2011 at 2:10 am

   You only found 15? Lol, I read these books cover to cover and knew I found some errors which confused the crap out of me. Thank you for pointing out that Kaplan had it wrong on this buoyancy problem, i was goin mad trying to figure out what they meant.

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