Dr. Collins practice questions not enough for the PCAT?

[Vdoll]

Hi I have been studying for the PCAT for over a month now, I started out with the 2016-2017 Kaplan book but I heard Dr. Collins is better so I purchased the 2015-2016 version and been using it for the past 3 weeks. I also purchased Pearson's practice tests and when I took it, it was a lot harder then I expected. A lot of material on the tests wasn't covered on the collins package. His practice questions on the package are a lot easier than the actually practice test.
Has anyone used Dr. Collins and did well on the actual test because I am officially worried. I am aware that not all questions count toward your final score but I just wanna be able to do most of them.

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[Mxt1990]

I am starting to get worried too.. I thought Collins was preparing me well until I opened Pearsons,,,and my exam is in a week : (

 

[aar44]

I haven't taken the exam yet. I'm taking it in September but I am prepping from the MCAT books for the biology, and chemistry sections. I am using the Kaplan from last year since I refuse to buy the new version. And the Kaplan book is very dense and is not detail as I expected. As for Dr. Collins, I have a version from 2012 and all the questions was fairly easy. I purchase PCAT destroyer and the questions were challenging. I would recommend trying those and try to find someone selling it, I know I will once I pass mine but in the mean time just try those questions. Based on how you perform on the Pearson exam practice the sections you think you are weak in. And just practice. Good luck!

 

[RMarquez05]

I take the exam July 22. I'm having the same nervous break down as you. I studied Dr. Colin from February, all the way until now. I even took his in person prep class. Today, I took a Kaplan practice exam because I felt so confident about all the study and great reviews of his whole course. However I bombed the practice exam! Turns out the pcat exam is totally different than what's in Colin material. There is research passages with questions in Chem and bio. I'm totally freaking out because these passages were never reviewed in the study material. So there is no way to know what is the best way to tackle them. I'm just going to go head in first and see what happens. I'm going to retake it if it doesn't go well.

 

[atnguy13]

Hi I have been studying for the PCAT for over a month now, I started out with the 2016-2017 Kaplan book but I heard Dr. Collins is better so I purchased the 2015-2016 version and been using it for the past 3 weeks. I also purchased Pearson's practice tests and when I took it, it was a lot harder then I expected. A lot of material on the tests wasn't covered on the collins package. His practice questions on the package are a lot easier than the actually practice test.
Has anyone used Dr. Collins and did well on the actual test because I am officially worried. I am aware that not all questions count toward your final score but I just wanna be able to do most of them.

Not sure how the 2015-16 is, but my Dr. Collins material has passage questions in every exam and he said that its the same ones used in the previous PCAT that were experimental.

Can anyone tell me what the critical reading portion set up like in the pearson practice test? Can you view the passage at the same time while reading the questions, or do you have to read the passage first and 'flip' back and forth from the passage and questions? Also is passage set up the same way for biology and chemistry?

 

[Mxt1990]

I feel the same way. I was scoring really high on the Collins test and my confidence was great until I opened up Pearson.. Even the passage based questions on Collins are a joke. I will take it next Friday and then hopefully that will be enough. If not , definetly going to use Kaplan next time

 

[Vdoll]

Not sure how the 2015-16 is, but my Dr. Collins material has passage questions in every exam and he said that its the same ones used in the previous PCAT that were experimental.

Can anyone tell me what the critical reading portion set up like in the pearson practice test? Can you view the passage at the same time while reading the questions, or do you have to read the passage first and 'flip' back and forth from the passage and questions? Also is passage set up the same way for biology and chemistry?

Yes, you can view the passage and the questions at the same time. It is a split screen where half is passage and half is questions.

 

[clutchtho]

I feel the same way. I was scoring really high on the Collins test and my confidence was great until I opened up Pearson.. Even the passage based questions on Collins are a joke. I will take it next Friday and then hopefully that will be enough. If not , definetly going to use Kaplan next time

What were you scoring on the Collins tests?

I agree it was ridiculously easy, I did somehow manage 80-99 on all 3 pearson tests but was so much harder than Collins made it feel. Starting to wonder if I wasted 400 bucks :/

 

[futurepharmD103]

What were you scoring on the Collins tests?

I agree it was ridiculously easy, I did somehow manage 80-99 on all 3 pearson tests but was so much harder than Collins made it feel. Starting to wonder if I wasted 400 bucks :/

I know this was not directed at me but.. First time I took the Chem sets from Collins, I missed a lot of questions. Probably ~20. This number gradually decreased. When I took them for the second time through, I was missing ~5. I did similar on Math, but did well on Bio the first time through. I think Collins' Bio section is a little bit easier compared to Pearson.
Even though Collins and Pearson use different styles of questions, I think just doing a lot of problems in Collins helped me learn the concepts which I was able to apply in Pearson.

 

[clutchtho]

I know this was not directed at me but.. First time I took the Chem sets from Collins, I missed a lot of questions. Probably ~20. This number gradually decreased. When I took them for the second time through, I was missing ~5. I did similar on Math, but did well on Bio the first time through. I think Collins' Bio section is a little bit easier compared to Pearson.
Even though Collins and Pearson use different styles of questions, I think just doing a lot of problems in Collins helped me learn the concepts which I was able to apply in Pearson.

same! I did most of the tests twice and did a lot better. It has gotten me to learn the concepts better, but at a point I need help with how to deal with passage questions, not the simple reading comprehension dr. collins tests have as their passage questions. I can only hope I do well enough on the standalones to keep my scores up

 

[Vdoll]

I just took the PCAT today and I have to say the passage questions in bio and chem were quite hard. There was a a lot of organic chem and biochem involved. At this point I would say go with Kaplan for practice bc it is more detailed and its practice tests involve more organic chem/ biochem questions.

 

[futurepharmD103]

I just took the PCAT today and I have to say the passage questions in bio and chem were quite hard. There was a a lot of organic chem and biochem involved. At this point I would say go with Kaplan for practice bc it is more detailed and its practice tests involve more organic chem/ biochem questions.

Oh no! So you didn't think they were similar to Pearson?

 

[futurepharmacist2016]

I just took the PCAT today and I have to say the passage questions in bio and chem were quite hard. There was a a lot of organic chem and biochem involved. At this point I would say go with Kaplan for practice bc it is more detailed and its practice tests involve more organic chem/ biochem questions.

How was the test overall? Would you say like majority of chem section is biochem? I haven't taken it yet :/. Also, how was the exam closer to Pearson practice tests or Kaplan?

 

[RMarquez05]

I just took the PCAT today and I have to say the passage questions in bio and chem were quite hard. There was a a lot of organic chem and biochem involved. At this point I would say go with Kaplan for practice bc it is more detailed and its practice tests involve more organic chem/ biochem questions.

How did you do? Would you say the practice pearson reflects your pcat score?

 

[Vdoll]

Oh no! So you didn't think they were similar to Pearson?

I would say some of the questions are similar in level of difficulty but I barely had enough time to finish to i had to guess a lot of questions. You can use Pearson as your practice test but definitely use Kaplan as your study guide.

 

[Vdoll]

How was the test overall? Would you say like majority of chem section is biochem? I haven't taken it yet :/. Also, how was the exam closer to Pearson practice tests or Kaplan?

I feel like the majority of the questions are related to organic chem, but some questions ( I think about 4 or 5 ) are about Biochem in the passage, mostly amino acid. Pearson practice exams are good but I also recommend Kaplan practice exams bc they have similar format to the actual exam.

 

[Vdoll]

How did you do? Would you say the practice pearson reflects your pcat score?

I think I totally bombed the exam it was harder than I thought lol. Retake is a must *sigh*. I actually did better on the Peason practice test than the actual exam.
Here's my composite score:
Biological process: 58
Chemical Process: 76
CR: 19
Quantitative: 23
Composite: 40

 

[RMarquez05]

I think I totally bombed the exam it was harder than I thought lol. Retake is a must *sigh*
Here's my composite score:
Biological process: 58
Chemical Process: 76
CR: 19
Quantitative: 23
Composite: 40

Wow! you did good on the chem. Now I am nervous. I take the exam tomorrow and I did the same study course you did. I studied for like 6 months the Dr. Colins material. Then they switched up the exam. I barely took the pearson practice exams yesterday and they were okay still tough. Would you say your person practice score reflects your actual pcat score?
I think I am def going to switch to Kaplan. After this exam and retake in September...

 

[iamwhatichoosetobecome]

I think I totally bombed the exam it was harder than I thought lol. Retake is a must *sigh*. I actually did better on the Peason practice test than the actual exam.
Here's my composite score:
Biological process: 58
Chemical Process: 76
CR: 19
Quantitative: 23
Composite: 40

Same situation as you. I did better on the practice exams.. so annoying

 

[8turkeys]

just took it today, and I must say the test was much harder than the practice tests. Many more passages

 

[futurepharmD103]

just took it today, and I must say the test was much harder than the practice tests. Many more passages

Conpared to what test prep?

 

[8turkeys]

Conpared to what test prep?

dr collins

 

[mjkez]

Also took it today. Agree lots more passage based questions than past exams, but was expected because that was a key change that was implemented. Definitely get the pearson exams, a few questions I had were the same.

 

[RMarquez05]

dr collins

You did well though, did you use anything else other than Dr. Colin?

 

[RMarquez05]

Also took it today. Agree lots more passage based questions than past exams, but was expected because that was a key change that was implemented. Definitely get the pearson exams, a few questions I had were the same.

would you say your pearson practice were the same as your official pcat score?

 

[8turkeys]

You did well though, did you use anything else other than Dr. Colin?

no, I was just mad at how many passages their were. Did poorly on math because the questions are all word problems and after reading it you only have like 30 seconds to answer it ugh. thanks for noticing my scores haha

 

[Teey09]

Also took it today. Agree lots more passage based questions than past exams, but was expected because that was a key change that was implemented. Definitely get the pearson exams, a few questions I had were the same.

did you mean that there were direct passages from the pearsons on the PCAT for bio and chem?

 

[RMarquez05]

no, I was just mad at how many passages their were. Did poorly on math because the questions are all word problems and after reading it you only have like 30 seconds to answer it ugh. thanks for noticing my scores haha

hahah yea I saw it on the other bulletin. Did your pearson practice match you official score?

 

[mjkez]

would you say your pearson practice were the same as your official pcat score?

I did a little better in the pearson exams. For example, the bio was much easier in my opinion (on pearson). Chem and quant difficulty were about the same.

 

[mjkez]

did you mean that there were direct passages from the pearsons on the PCAT for bio and chem?

Some individual questions were the same, I might be getting it confused with collins. But no direct passages I wish! Passages on PCAT were harder for me.

 

[8turkeys]

hahah yea I saw it on the other bulletin. Did your pearson practice match you official score?

i took the official practice test, and the scores were very similar

 

[ViolettaFay]

I studied off Dr. Collins:

Bio - 96
Chem - 96
CR - 77
Comp - 89
Quantitative- 41 (OK, to be fair I didn't study math at all this summer so this is my fault completely lol)

The problem I found with Dr. Collins was that it was repetitive and not introducing new material in the practice exams much.
BUT I think I did see some similar questions on the PCAT today that I saw on the practice exams.
I only had three months to study and all I studied was bio and chem. I think I did pretty well in those areas!

 

[Teey09]

I studied off Dr. Collins:

Bio - 96
Chem - 96
CR - 77
Comp - 89
Quantitative- 41 (OK, to be fair I didn't study math at all this summer so this is my fault completely lol)

The problem I found with Dr. Collins was that it was repetitive and not introducing new material in the practice exams much.
BUT I think I did see some similar questions on the PCAT today that I saw on the practice exams.
I only had three months to study and all I studied was bio and chem. I think I did pretty well in those areas!

Wow! congrats on your scores! did you strictly studied collins or did you use kaplan/pearson as well?

 

[ViolettaFay]

Wow! congrats on your scores! did you strictly studied collins or did you use kaplan/pearson as well?

I studied ONLY Dr. Collins for two to three months.
Near the end, the last two weeks, I purchased the official pearson practice PCAT tests (ALL THREE) and completed the Bio and Chem portions.