This should have been a good textbook. To be fair, it's ok - the syllabus is covered in just enough detail, and the brief introductions to the chapters do give a bit of extra background, but I get the feeling that this was rushed to the printers in just too much of a hurry. The index has become a running joke in our Biology class, but the fact that you don't really need an index is what I don't like about this text. Now, this might seem odd to all the syllabus-obsessed powers that be out there, but there are students (myself included) who are actually interested in the subject for its own sake, and would like a bit more depth on occasion. I found that there simply wasn't enough meat to this book, so I bought one of the old-style A-level texts after the first term. I'm glad I did.
By all means buy this book as a core text - it could be a whole lot worse - but don't expect any more from it than that.