Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
I took pcat in Jan 07, Aug 07, & Aug 08.
First, here is a list of good books and courses that you most likely need to buy/take:
1. Organized organic chemistry I notes helps a lot to study on.
2. Take many bio classes. Bio I, II, and physiology & anatomy (one that consists endocrine system) are the most important.
3. Kaplan pcat book
4. Any Kaplan mcat/dat book that has organic chemistry with review problems after each chapter.
5. Take the MWU-Chicago 2 day course
6. PCAT Destroyer
7. CliffsTestPrep, at least do the biology practice tests
8. Examkrakers Mcat Organic chemistry 7th ed from amazon (ISBN: 1893858464) {study at least the beginning, skip review problems, & do the flash card problems in the end of the book}
9. Examkraker Mcat Verbal Reasoning & Mathematical 7th ed from amazon (ISBN: 1893858480)
10. Maybe use Kaplan GRE Exam Verbal Workbook 4th Ed for verbal to learn new words
11. Maybe take the Harcourt Pcat Practice Test
12. As of the 40 bio question from the DAT 3rd edition. I think I can scan them and send them to you by email if you ask me for them.
One small detail before moving on, a question came on the last pcat that is related to the Mendel cross the one with 16 squares except there is an easier way to find a genotype in a much faster way than drawing the whole 16 squares; ask a Genetic prof about it or take Genetics.
THE DETAILS:
Below, I've listed very detailed stuff including a list of organic chemistry questions for pcat destroyer that I recommend you to do. Reading for the Pcat takes weeks; reading my details below takes minutes!
2008 Harcourt Pcat Practice Test (I took only the first one):
Overall, they were too easy in comparison to Pcat and many questions were similar to that 2007 Harcourt practice test. Many of these questions you see in the practice test never shows up on the actual exam. However, I'm sure that this test helped me a little bit, at least 5% or so.
Midwestern University (Chicago) 2 day $300 Pcat Course:
They gave me a book (about 400pages) but since it's only 2 days, they can't cover the whole stuff.
Math: The math professor is great because she listed so many problems and stuff for the math, covering almost everything you would need. She did much better than the Kaplan pcat book and made it rather easy to study. Although she explained a lot of Calculus 1 stuff in the book, I think she forgot to talk about how 1st & 2nd derivatives play a role on a graph and of how to know which is the min and which is the max points from the 2nd derivative, so cover this stuff in the Kaplan Pcat Calc section. In addition, there are some stuff she listed that you need to skip: graphical representations (charts & stuff), anything beyond standard deviation in statistics, vector in polar form, and matrix stuff. Overall, her stuff helped me around 70-80% of the math.
BIO: The biology prof went over 60questions and discussed random parts of biology; there are 2 of 48questions practice tests to do on your own and the rest of the bio section are thousands of biology terms (no definitions included). A lot of terms were unnecessary to be included in the book and with no defintions, it's useless. So only the practice tests helped me since I saw a few questions in the pcat test that were similar; these practice tests helped to know about 10%-20% of the bio pcat material.
CHM: The chemistry prof discussed mostly general chemistry rather than organic chemistry. He did simplify the organic chemistry in the book into simple separate categories but he didn't place enough examples or questions regarding the matter. There is a 100 questions practice test in the end which may have helped me around 5-10% for the pcat test.
ENG: The actual English prof wasn't available but his assistant knows as much as the actual prof. He went in very high detail on the writing essay section. As of reading comprehension and verbal, he goes over them a little bit but it's mostly to work on your own for some later time. He even gave us links & stuff; unfortunately, I didn't have much time to look into it so I can't rate this section, sorry! I'm sure his stuff helps at least a little bit.
Math: 5/5
BIO: 2/5
CHM: 2/5
ENG: NA
Price: 4/5
---------------
Overall: 3/5 which is good but not enough by itself
Kaplan DAT Review Notes (Demo Copy) book; I think 1999:
The organic chemistry is very helpful. Buy an MCat or Dat book that has 15 chapters of organic chemistry and make sure that it also has Review Problems after each chapter.
Pcat Kaplan Course:
I didn't take the Kaplan course but from looking at their 2007 books it didn't have much more than the Pcat kaplan book at least for math & biology. For chemistry, I don't know how much organic chemistry it has but I'm sure not more than an old kaplan DAT Review Notes/Demo Copy book which has 15 chapters of organic chem with review problems after each chapter. As of english, they placed thousands of terms to memorize which is pointless because they may take you months of practice.
Kaplan course is not enough by itself and for $1100, it's not worth it. You can study on your own.
Pcat Destroyer by Orgoman:
The book consists only of questions. It's for $150(+$15 for shipping) on ebay. Otherwise, check orgoman.com
General CHM: 190 questions, I did only the first 68, some were a little bit hard/not exactly pcat material but I think it's worth your time to do some of these questions to get faster on answering chemistry questions in the test.
Organic CHM: 186 questions; 90% were organic II based type of questions which you won't see in the pcat. Pcat organic questions are mostly on simple reactions & naming. Here is the list to the problems that you should do: 2U, 5P, 12, 13A,14,25,49P,51,52,54P,56,57U,60,69,71,73,74A,75,76A,96P,97,99,100, 101,108, 110,112,125,127, 128,130,132,135,136,137,138, 140,147,148,152,153,164,167,176,&186.
A: is to pay very close attention at the answer
U: unlikely to come on the pcat but study it anyway
P: you are supposed to know at least some of the reactions
Non-Calc Math: 153 questions. I did about 30 questions and some were tough and time consuming but there are some ones that will definitely help you to do better in math. So, overall this book won't be enough, you definitely need more.
Calc Math: 70 questions. They were good simple questions to practice on, definitely helps.
BIO: 366 questions. I didn't do any of them but some won't ever come to pcat while others seem good questions.
General CHM: 3/5
Org CHM: 1/5
BIO: NA
Non-Calc Math:2.5/5
Calc Math: 3.5/5
Price: 2/5
------------
Overall All: 2.5/5 not good enough, but buy it if you need to score higher
ExamKrakers MCAT Verbal Reasoning & Mathematical Techniques 7th Ed:
From amazon. It's really small and doesn't have much but it has some good non-calc math stuff in it and the rest is a way to do better in reading comprehension which it should've helped me on the pcat test that I just took.
ExamKrakers MCAT Organic Chemistry 7th Ed:
From amazon. This book is also thin and doesn't cover everything but the beginning is very useful, skip the review problems that comes in the end of sections, and do the flash cards that are at the end of the book (very good stuff).
CliffsTestPrep Pcat 5 Practice Tests, 2006 I think:
Verbal Eng: it's hard, maybe too hard for pcat, I really don't know if some of these words came on the pcat test.
Reading Comprehension: didn't seem very helpful to me!
Math: all were non-calculus but they are helpful
Biology: I think it's a very good idea to do at least the biology sections, I think they are very helpful.
Chemistry: A little bit helpful in doing more problems.
Reading Comp: 2/5
Verbal: NA
Math: 2/5
Bio: 4/5
Price: 5/5
---------------
Overall: 3/5, good to do at least 1 test. Since, it's a cheap book, you better try it especially for Bio.
Pcat Kaplan 2007 Book:
Problem: too many mistakes can be found within the kaplan book.
BIO: too extensive on some subjects & not enough questions but should help you a lot to review biology by reading parts of the bio chapters that seem familiar to you.
General CHM: too extensive but it should prepare you almost all the way.
Organic CHM: not enough.
Math: not enough especially for calculus.
English: I didn't go over it completely but it's not enough especially for verbal.
Overall: 3/5, it's cheap so buy it and study on it, try to finish it. Again stay careful for the mistakes that were created by Kaplan.
Kaplan GRE Exam Verbal Workbook 4th Ed:
There are 300 words that you may try to memorize and I'm sure that some will help you but as of how much does this book will help you is probably 2/5 because it's time consuming.
Kaplan DAT 3rd Edition:
Has very good biology questions on p665, there are only 40 questions but their answers are very extensive and useful for studying biology.
ExamKrakers 101 passages in MCAT Verbal Reasoning 2002:
If you need to work more on passages then this the book. I didn't use it yet!
ExamKrakers 1001 Biology Questions didn't seem to help at all.
There are other ExamKrakers, one for biology and one for general chemistry, and one with 1001 chemistry questions, only general chem I think. However, I didn't look into these books so I've got no idea of how well they are.
First, here is a list of good books and courses that you most likely need to buy/take:
1. Organized organic chemistry I notes helps a lot to study on.
2. Take many bio classes. Bio I, II, and physiology & anatomy (one that consists endocrine system) are the most important.
3. Kaplan pcat book
4. Any Kaplan mcat/dat book that has organic chemistry with review problems after each chapter.
5. Take the MWU-Chicago 2 day course
6. PCAT Destroyer
7. CliffsTestPrep, at least do the biology practice tests
8. Examkrakers Mcat Organic chemistry 7th ed from amazon (ISBN: 1893858464) {study at least the beginning, skip review problems, & do the flash card problems in the end of the book}
9. Examkraker Mcat Verbal Reasoning & Mathematical 7th ed from amazon (ISBN: 1893858480)
10. Maybe use Kaplan GRE Exam Verbal Workbook 4th Ed for verbal to learn new words
11. Maybe take the Harcourt Pcat Practice Test
12. As of the 40 bio question from the DAT 3rd edition. I think I can scan them and send them to you by email if you ask me for them.
One small detail before moving on, a question came on the last pcat that is related to the Mendel cross the one with 16 squares except there is an easier way to find a genotype in a much faster way than drawing the whole 16 squares; ask a Genetic prof about it or take Genetics.
THE DETAILS:
Below, I've listed very detailed stuff including a list of organic chemistry questions for pcat destroyer that I recommend you to do. Reading for the Pcat takes weeks; reading my details below takes minutes!
2008 Harcourt Pcat Practice Test (I took only the first one):
Overall, they were too easy in comparison to Pcat and many questions were similar to that 2007 Harcourt practice test. Many of these questions you see in the practice test never shows up on the actual exam. However, I'm sure that this test helped me a little bit, at least 5% or so.
Midwestern University (Chicago) 2 day $300 Pcat Course:
They gave me a book (about 400pages) but since it's only 2 days, they can't cover the whole stuff.
Math: The math professor is great because she listed so many problems and stuff for the math, covering almost everything you would need. She did much better than the Kaplan pcat book and made it rather easy to study. Although she explained a lot of Calculus 1 stuff in the book, I think she forgot to talk about how 1st & 2nd derivatives play a role on a graph and of how to know which is the min and which is the max points from the 2nd derivative, so cover this stuff in the Kaplan Pcat Calc section. In addition, there are some stuff she listed that you need to skip: graphical representations (charts & stuff), anything beyond standard deviation in statistics, vector in polar form, and matrix stuff. Overall, her stuff helped me around 70-80% of the math.
BIO: The biology prof went over 60questions and discussed random parts of biology; there are 2 of 48questions practice tests to do on your own and the rest of the bio section are thousands of biology terms (no definitions included). A lot of terms were unnecessary to be included in the book and with no defintions, it's useless. So only the practice tests helped me since I saw a few questions in the pcat test that were similar; these practice tests helped to know about 10%-20% of the bio pcat material.
CHM: The chemistry prof discussed mostly general chemistry rather than organic chemistry. He did simplify the organic chemistry in the book into simple separate categories but he didn't place enough examples or questions regarding the matter. There is a 100 questions practice test in the end which may have helped me around 5-10% for the pcat test.
ENG: The actual English prof wasn't available but his assistant knows as much as the actual prof. He went in very high detail on the writing essay section. As of reading comprehension and verbal, he goes over them a little bit but it's mostly to work on your own for some later time. He even gave us links & stuff; unfortunately, I didn't have much time to look into it so I can't rate this section, sorry! I'm sure his stuff helps at least a little bit.
Math: 5/5
BIO: 2/5
CHM: 2/5
ENG: NA
Price: 4/5
---------------
Overall: 3/5 which is good but not enough by itself
Kaplan DAT Review Notes (Demo Copy) book; I think 1999:
The organic chemistry is very helpful. Buy an MCat or Dat book that has 15 chapters of organic chemistry and make sure that it also has Review Problems after each chapter.
Pcat Kaplan Course:
I didn't take the Kaplan course but from looking at their 2007 books it didn't have much more than the Pcat kaplan book at least for math & biology. For chemistry, I don't know how much organic chemistry it has but I'm sure not more than an old kaplan DAT Review Notes/Demo Copy book which has 15 chapters of organic chem with review problems after each chapter. As of english, they placed thousands of terms to memorize which is pointless because they may take you months of practice.
Kaplan course is not enough by itself and for $1100, it's not worth it. You can study on your own.
Pcat Destroyer by Orgoman:
The book consists only of questions. It's for $150(+$15 for shipping) on ebay. Otherwise, check orgoman.com
General CHM: 190 questions, I did only the first 68, some were a little bit hard/not exactly pcat material but I think it's worth your time to do some of these questions to get faster on answering chemistry questions in the test.
Organic CHM: 186 questions; 90% were organic II based type of questions which you won't see in the pcat. Pcat organic questions are mostly on simple reactions & naming. Here is the list to the problems that you should do: 2U, 5P, 12, 13A,14,25,49P,51,52,54P,56,57U,60,69,71,73,74A,75,76A,96P,97,99,100, 101,108, 110,112,125,127, 128,130,132,135,136,137,138, 140,147,148,152,153,164,167,176,&186.
A: is to pay very close attention at the answer
U: unlikely to come on the pcat but study it anyway
P: you are supposed to know at least some of the reactions
Non-Calc Math: 153 questions. I did about 30 questions and some were tough and time consuming but there are some ones that will definitely help you to do better in math. So, overall this book won't be enough, you definitely need more.
Calc Math: 70 questions. They were good simple questions to practice on, definitely helps.
BIO: 366 questions. I didn't do any of them but some won't ever come to pcat while others seem good questions.
General CHM: 3/5
Org CHM: 1/5
BIO: NA
Non-Calc Math:2.5/5
Calc Math: 3.5/5
Price: 2/5
------------
Overall All: 2.5/5 not good enough, but buy it if you need to score higher
ExamKrakers MCAT Verbal Reasoning & Mathematical Techniques 7th Ed:
From amazon. It's really small and doesn't have much but it has some good non-calc math stuff in it and the rest is a way to do better in reading comprehension which it should've helped me on the pcat test that I just took.
ExamKrakers MCAT Organic Chemistry 7th Ed:
From amazon. This book is also thin and doesn't cover everything but the beginning is very useful, skip the review problems that comes in the end of sections, and do the flash cards that are at the end of the book (very good stuff).
CliffsTestPrep Pcat 5 Practice Tests, 2006 I think:
Verbal Eng: it's hard, maybe too hard for pcat, I really don't know if some of these words came on the pcat test.
Reading Comprehension: didn't seem very helpful to me!
Math: all were non-calculus but they are helpful
Biology: I think it's a very good idea to do at least the biology sections, I think they are very helpful.
Chemistry: A little bit helpful in doing more problems.
Reading Comp: 2/5
Verbal: NA
Math: 2/5
Bio: 4/5
Price: 5/5
---------------
Overall: 3/5, good to do at least 1 test. Since, it's a cheap book, you better try it especially for Bio.
Pcat Kaplan 2007 Book:
Problem: too many mistakes can be found within the kaplan book.
BIO: too extensive on some subjects & not enough questions but should help you a lot to review biology by reading parts of the bio chapters that seem familiar to you.
General CHM: too extensive but it should prepare you almost all the way.
Organic CHM: not enough.
Math: not enough especially for calculus.
English: I didn't go over it completely but it's not enough especially for verbal.
Overall: 3/5, it's cheap so buy it and study on it, try to finish it. Again stay careful for the mistakes that were created by Kaplan.
Kaplan GRE Exam Verbal Workbook 4th Ed:
There are 300 words that you may try to memorize and I'm sure that some will help you but as of how much does this book will help you is probably 2/5 because it's time consuming.
Kaplan DAT 3rd Edition:
Has very good biology questions on p665, there are only 40 questions but their answers are very extensive and useful for studying biology.
ExamKrakers 101 passages in MCAT Verbal Reasoning 2002:
If you need to work more on passages then this the book. I didn't use it yet!
ExamKrakers 1001 Biology Questions didn't seem to help at all.
There are other ExamKrakers, one for biology and one for general chemistry, and one with 1001 chemistry questions, only general chem I think. However, I didn't look into these books so I've got no idea of how well they are.
