Are CGP A-level Biology and Chemistry books worth it??

I've seen some ppl saying they are oversimplified and im unsure whether i should purchase or not.

I think they are worth it for biology as the examboard accredited textbooks aren’t that good. For chemistry, just use the notes on chemrevise.org as they are way better than the textbook and CGP.

I've seen some ppl saying they are oversimplified and im unsure whether i should purchase or not.

I've seen some ppl saying they are oversimplified and im unsure whether i should purchase or not.

I was in the same situation as you this time last year and I used CGP, they are AMAZING books. They are literally written with the exact wordings off of the mark schemes, and they include about 90% of the info you need to know (the other 10% can be picked up with practise questions) . The textbooks just waffle, giving you about 300% of the info you need to know, mostly just being clustered with random , pointless facts. Although , I will admit, sometimes the CGP don't emphasise details to be important , but that doesn't mean they miss the details out, it just means they might be in small print below a diagram (very rarely do they do this though)

If you don't believe me, try it yourself. Btw I got As 80% of the time in biology and about 70% of the time in chemistry .

I used Chemguide for my chemistry to go over harder stuff, but I wasted a lot of time trying to understand stuff at uni level which is pointless as I don't even plan on taking my A levels at uni...

Just CGP it and then use practise questions. But for maths use the textbook as the best way to revise maths is just by immersing yourself in practise question after practise question.

Personally, I find that for biology there good but it depends which one you get. I prefer the big thick cgp textbooks which actually have the spec as a checklist on each page so it helps me make notes on what I actually need to revise. For chemistry I just use YouTube because I can’t concentrate reading chemistry. Allery chemistry on YouTube is REALLY good. Hope this helps

100% - you should definitely get it.
You can get full marks in your exams using the CGP textbooks and past papers.

thank you! I had another q. for chem if theres a topic i don't understand where do u think is the best place to learn it?

i have the cgp textbooks for both & they're good at explaining things without all the unnecessary bs, but they do miss out some details so you can't solely rely on them.

thank you!!! did u use the cgp textbooks or rev guides?

i have the cgp textbooks for both & they're good at explaining things without all the unnecessary bs, but they do miss out some details so you can't solely rely on them.

Revision guides. I had a Pearson textbook for reference but it was really hard to follow.

Can you elaborate on an example of the details missed out , like an example ?

e.g. in digestion of carbohydrates, it tells you how enzymes break carbs down & where, but it doesn't talk about how food is mechanically broken down by chewing, how the pH is maintained in the mouth for salivary amylase to work & that stomach acid denatures salivary amylase. (pretty straightforward ik, but i'd rather have all the details to make notes from in case i forget).

another thing is that when talking about non-competitive inhibition on enzymes, it doesn't specifically name where the non-competitive inhibitor binds, it just says "away from its active site". idk maybe we don't need to know that exact detail, but i think it's better to be specific for clarity.

1) That is application ; they give you enough info in the question to apply your knowledge of enzymes. I do agree that it is good to be familiar with all of the different scenarios you may have to apply info in though

2) It literally says in the revision guide twice on the same page that it is called the allosteric site.