Week 1: Berkeley Review

"All men by nature desire knowledge," - Aristotle

I have completed Chapter 1 for Organic Chemistry, Chemistry, and I'm almost done with Physics. Using SN2ed's schedule, I have read chapter 1 of Examkrackers Biology. Reading Berkeley Review, I've found that they brought a lot of concepts together that overlap within the subjects. The first chapter of Organic Chemistry had a lot to do with Acids and Bases and bonding. Chapter 1 in Chemistry delved on Molarity and mass equations. Each chapter took me about 3-4 hours to complete, since I was also taking notes on loose-leaf. At first, I just glossed over the chapter and went straight to the questions, I realized it was a mistake, it's important to just read everything because they bring up information you might not know about. For instance, in the Chemistry book, the first chapter discussed an experiment I actually did not know a lot about. It ended up being in one of the passages I read- I had no idea what was going on when I skipped the chapter. When I went back to read the chapter, I was finally able to answer the questions.

After each chapter I did a few passages. They include about 10 passages that can be completed in about 100 minutes. These passages are very helpful, and you would be missing out if you didn't do them, it's great practice. I also find myself doing the examples within the chapter to make sure I'm understanding the context. I did about 3-4 passages per chapter. I took breaks when I was over-straining myself. I think  it's helpful if you take 15-30 minute breaks after an hour or so to keep your mind focused. Also, after reading Examkrackers Biology, I found their material to jump around a lot.

I'm a bit behind schedule, since I should have completed all the chapters by now, but I feel like I finally crossed that boundary of telling myself, "yeah I'll get to it." The hardest thing for me is to just open up a book and read the first page, once I read it, I can just keep going. Lastly, my Princeton Review books came, they are so heavy! But I am just going to look over the Science Review and the Verbal workbook. I've done my research and people swear by the verbal workbook, so I will be doing some practice on that. Another important thing to do is to make a schedule, if you know what you're going to do everyday, you'll feel less overwhelmed with the work. I know I'm behind schedule, so I will catch up, this is great motivation for me to get my work done. I also posted a "45" on my wall- I know it's weird. But every time I look at my wall, I'm constantly reminded that I need to study. I'm a huge fan of subconscious thought, I do believe we're affected by what we read and see everyday, even if we don't notice it.