Not so this one. I am studying part time for a BSc in Life Sciences at present and wanted a good all rounder biology textbook. So I forked out for this. At the time, the price seemed a little steep but it has proved to be worth the money.

The book is well set out with lots of pictures and illustrations to lighten up the chapters and make the book a little easier to digest. There are also end of chapter tests - good if you want to recap what you've done.

However, best of all was the access to the "Online Learning Centre" on the McGraw Hill website. There you could see flashcards, tests, chapter summaries and all sorts of useful bits and bats to go with the book. True, you can see a lot of this information without buying the book but it just doesn't make the same sort of sense.

This is definitely recommended. Why does it lose a star? Well, it is still a textbook after all so lets not go overboard...