cecie starr, gets mixed up in her own poorly written (and many times, poorly organized) textbook and produces numerous grammatical errors that make her sentences have two meanings, or mean something else that's completely wrong. the textbook uses too many pronouns, like "it" "them" "they" and you end up wasting time finding out what "that" was 2 to three sentences ago. one ends up spending too much time figuring out what she tried to mean, and the logic of her grammar, rather than learning the new material. so you end up reading a chapter over and over again without much help. her pages are jam packed with new and therefore hard concepts to grasp, without much explanation. starr needs an editor big time, especially when it comes to simplifying her complicated and poor writing of the already not so simple concepts of biology to new students. i do not recommend this book (or most of cecie starr's textbooks) to novices, this book is an easy read for bio experts.