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Lodish (a then popular cell biology book) and Lehninger (a 1500 page biochem tome) are substantial books. 101 courses would cover the first 5-9 chapters of 25. Reading back to back and understanding all of it puts you at the top of the best students in biology in the world.

I was lucky, I genuinely loved reading them. I think I went through them both once every time I had a bad breakup lol.

It's clear they mean that the barrier to entry was available to anyone. That doesn't mean that anyone has the capacity to understand and apply the contents of the text.

> How can these be true at the same time? If you can just read a book and get a good score, why don't everyone just get the good score?

All you need to do to get 4.0 in Calculus 1, 2 and 3 and Real Analysis is work through Stewart, doing all the questions. Just because it’s simple to describe doesn’t mean it’s easy.