Biology: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self Teaching Guides)

If you're like me and needed to learn all of highschool biology in the space of a few months, and hate wasting time on content fluff, then this is the book for you. No filler explanations, no time wasted; just pure biology in ultra condensed format that gets straight to the point with concise expelnations and definitions. This isn't a textbook, it's a self teaching backbone to substitute additional research and practice (which you'll want to do to properly retain the info, as sometimes a bit more explanation is needed than what's provided. Occasionally this book gets a little TOO condensed). Covers everything you could possibly need to know about highschool biology basics, food chains, environment, cell types, etc. This thing thing is probably more detailed than what's taught in American highschools tbh.

Great book for learning and retaining info.

This is a well-written review of general biology (particularly cell biology). I recommend it to students who are coming into a biochemistry class, to brush up on their cell biology. However, this book is not truly "self-teaching" for anyone who has zero biology background, for two main reasons. (1) It is written mainly as a review of biology rather than a text. It will be difficult to learn biology from it. Just managing the terms it refers to is impossible if you don't already know something about them. (2) You cannot take everything in this book literally, so you have to watch out for conceptual and typographical mistakes. For someone who has no biology previously, one won't be able to tell what not to trust. For example, in Ch. 2 under Lysosome, it states that "A lysosome is a membrane-enclosed storage vesicle." While this is true, the name lysosome means that the key function of this organelle is to break down larger molecules (mainly proteins) to recycle them. There are also some typos. For example, in Ch. 3 under Eukaryotic Cell Division, it says "The chromosomes are the structures in the cells that contain the greens." When you use this book, it is best not to get fixated on the details. Focus on the big picture that is presented by the book to use it as a quick review of biology. I will not recommend trying to learn biology from it.

My middle schooler liked this book…since he is preparing for his science bowl..this book helps him to understand properly lots of important biological aspects.

While I found this resource to have some value, I honestly am surprised that Wiley Publisher would allow this to go out under their publishing name. It is riddled with mistakes. Answer keys that are missing answers, questions that are missing the multiple choice options, information that is inaccurate (facilitated diffusion is a passive transport not active as is listed in the vocabulary... 1 of multiple errors). In Ch. 17 every answer for the answer key is wrong. It's disappointing, but I do appreciate having an inexpensive book that I can practice with. Just please double check things, if something seems off.

Great book to use as a CLEP Test prep supplement. The book is well-written, with information as recent as COVID-19 facts. The test questions at the end of each chapter are good reviews of the material addressed, and the diagrams are clear. The book also has an impressive glossary.

I developed an interest in biology when the COVID-19 spread widely, but biology textbooks are just expensive. So I bought this book as an alternative. I am glad I bought this book. It presents a detailed and overall introduction to fundamental biology knowledge in plain language, which is very helpful for beginners like me.

I am a biologist and enjoy reading about biology to keep my mind in shape! Great book!

参考にはなる。

Vino toda la portada del libro como si fuera de segunda mano

Not useful for my style of learning. This may be a me issue, not a this book issue! Just not for me.

This book starts roughly from the scratch. This was my first introductory book into the topic of biology, before I didn't know much about photosynthesis or most of the stuff from this book. That's why for me it was a couple of months lasting yourney into many discoveries about nature and human body. After first warm up chapter about different possible views how to see the origin of life, you go staight into cells structre and then mitosis and meiosis in next chapter. The book contains 22 chapters and most of them could be defined as separate branch, topic, or discipline. Examples would be chapters on ecology, nutrition, cellular respiration (molecular biology), reproduction (genetics). Other chapters would include information about one of our body systems, for example circulatory system, brain and nervous system, bones and muscles (musculo-skeletal system), or hormones (endocrine system). Then there is a number of chapters explaining basics of classification system, or taxonomy. That would be viruses and subviruses, fungi, plant and animal kingdoms in separate chapters. I have to say that for almost total beginner, the book was quite easily understandable for me, even if I had to go slowly, because the text is dense and packed with info. First reading is only superficial exposure. It's the second one or third one(revision) to get to the core of each topic. I have a lot of respect for books like this, where the system and sequencing of delivering the information is well thought as well. It's not only about the information itself. It's about the story and meaning behind the lines, and reading the text that is revealing the bigger picture in systematic way. So I recommend this book to everyone who is interested in biology, nature, and processes in human body, but never had those subjects during the school. Which was my case. Another super feature is the multiple-choice test at the end of each chapter. Sometimes right questions (and answers) bring more spark and interest then pages and pages of text explaining the concept. Plus there is a lots of diagrams, tables, and pictures for better illustration of many points. Enjoy.

Good purchase, easy to read