# Which Biochemistry Book for First Year?



## Zaini33

Asalamu alikum!
At first I didn't realise what a pain biochemistry can turn out to be. I thought only anatomy is my nightmare but turn out that biochem has hit the top place on my list.
I know many people take it comparatively easy but biochem is proving very dry. It is basically all craming (right) but the concepts are not explained well in the textbooks i use. Some biochemistry books are even incomplete i think.
I use Lippin, Hashmi, Muhtaq, Satya and very rarely Harper.
We are not taught biochemistry well in our lectures! The teachers deliever lecture in such a weird way that near the end of it we realise what the TOPIC was of that lecture! 

So no, we don;t have biochemistry notes to rely upon. Now what to do?
Teachers recomend using Hashmi, and yes it is a very complete book having all the topics we require for proff. But there is just no EXPLANATION! the topics with the following paragraphs are so disjointed. The infromation (LOADS of cramming stuff) is just thrown at you without good or satisfactory amount of information!

I don't just wanna pass my proff but I want to have good concepts too. They will help me and SAVE my time in the long run. So what to do???

Please suggest some good biochemistry book or notes available on power point slides online. Our college teachers are no help in this for us. We are on our own


----------



## abdullah-khan

Zain I am 3rd Year MBBS student at AIMC, Lahore.

All you wrote in your post is right.

Actually for Biochemistry you cannot rely on a single book. You always have to mix some books.

In 1st year, I did 70% of preparation from Mushtaq, 20% from Lippincott and some 10% from Harper.

Lippincott is well-written and well-illustrated but is unable to fulfill the needs of 1st year syllabus as given by UHS.
(In 2nd year, however, Lippincott is quite enough to cover the syllabus of UHS and score well. However, a few topics not written in Lippincott can be supplemented from other books.)

You always confront some problems in the beginning but soon you adjust yourself according to the curriculum.

So, keeping an eye on good books like Lippincott every now and then will somewhat help you to memorize well and make an image in your mind. I know it is not appealing to study black and white books like Mushtaq. But for the time being in 1st year, you will have to do so.


----------



## Zaini33

Thanks alot respected senior! May Allah bless you! Yeah Harper is also a very good book for some topics. =]
There was this one more book recommended to me by a helpful member of this community but I couldn't find it anywhere on google books or net.

Do you suggest that I buy Kaplan notes? But I didn't find their lectures in DVD form so what to do about that? 
Jazakumullahu Khairan ^_^


----------



## abdullah-khan

I do not have Kaplan Notes of any subject. Few of my friends are having these. Once I casually glanced these notes for analyzing them, but I disliked them. They are some sort of review notes. From syllabus point of view, they are insufficient.


If any of your friend has bought such notes, you can glance them to get an idea wether you should buy them or not.


In my view, Kaplan notes are usually bought by those students who are afraid of bulky looking books or who are trying to pass the exam with as little study as possible.


Rest of the decision is up to you...


Best of Luck.


----------

