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I have worked ad a butcher/ meatroom Manager for nearly 10 years, in a beautiful little European style market on the coast of Maine. This market was know for its high end selection of meats and the ability to get nearly any cut desired from your common Rib Roasts to whole piglets for outdoor pit roasting. One of the most common questions I had during that 10 year span was, "Is this a good roast? How do I cook it?" Regardless of what anyone says, every roast is specific, and has a unique cooking style that will suit it best. That being said with regard to BEEF roasts there are two major catergories under which all beef roast fall. The first is your traditional pot roast styles, and the second is your oven roasts. I will attempt to go into some detail about each of these.

Pot roasts include the following cuts of beef: bottom round, chuck, shoulder, and often top and eye round cuts as well. Also in this group are some of your less common cuts such as brisket, or even beef shanks.
The basic requirements for a pot roast is a low, slow even heat, lots of liquid and lots of time. These roasts are traditionally cooked in a pot of boiling water, with potatoes and carrots, like a New England boiled dinner, or in a crock pot, slow simmered on the counter, with mushrooms,red wine, and beef stock, or in an oven bag with assorted veggies, some beef stock, and often a packet of onion soup mix. THere are of course many other recipes, BBQ beef brisket, braised beef shanks, pulled beef chuck roast, and many others, but I am for starters trying to give readers here the basic overview. As a general rule, a pot roast cannot be over cooked, the longer they cook provided they have enough liquid, the more tender they will be until you reach that desired fork tenderness. If you are seeking a roast that will pull apart with a fork, then a chuck roast or a beef brisket are the two best cuts for that, If you desire a pot roast that will hold together and still be sliceable, then go with a bottom, top or eye round.

Now onto the oven roasts wich also include the king of roasts the Beef Tenderloin.
This catagory includes Strip roast, Rib Roast, Sirloin roast, as well as Top round and Eye round. You will notice that top and eye rounds can be treated as either a pot roast or oven roast. Each of these roast have specifics in cooking that will make them better, however there is a general rule that will help for all oven roast cooking.
First of all unlike pot roasts TIME DOES MATTER, sometimes even

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