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12% on Verbal....
Started by ellen1982
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Okay, with a name like Ellen I am assuming you are a native English speaker but if not just say so. Your overall composite is relatively decent for a number of schools - don't know if that is the case for your chosen school however - but I would suggest planning on retaking the January PCAT to raise the three lower scores.
For the reading comprehension go order Examkrackers MCAT 101 passages verbal reasoning. Do two passages every other day until January, check your errors and figure out what you are doing wrong...this should take about 20 minutes a day. Then on the days you are not doing the passages spend 20 minutes reading out of a difficult scientific journal....concentrate on what you are reading about and make yourself verbally summarize what you have read at the end of your reading time.
For the verbal section go purchase two or three MAT (miller analogy test) test books....they are filled with...you guessed it....analogies. Go purchase 501 sentence completion and any other sentence completion test books, lastly purchase SAT vocabulary flashcards. Every day spend 20 minutes doing either the MAT tests, the sentence completion test, or the flashcards. Read over the different types of analogies..there are only so many categories and are easily mastered with a small amount of effort.
Every day spend two hours reviewing biology. If you can spend more time than this you should. I was doing three to four hours per day in prep for the PCAT.
You clearly don't need any improvement in chem or quant so do minimal review for these areas and concentrate on your weak areas.
You might be able to get interviews with your current comp score but you should be prepared to tell the interviewers that you are taking the Jan PCAT to raise your lower scores.
For the reading comprehension go order Examkrackers MCAT 101 passages verbal reasoning. Do two passages every other day until January, check your errors and figure out what you are doing wrong...this should take about 20 minutes a day. Then on the days you are not doing the passages spend 20 minutes reading out of a difficult scientific journal....concentrate on what you are reading about and make yourself verbally summarize what you have read at the end of your reading time.
For the verbal section go purchase two or three MAT (miller analogy test) test books....they are filled with...you guessed it....analogies. Go purchase 501 sentence completion and any other sentence completion test books, lastly purchase SAT vocabulary flashcards. Every day spend 20 minutes doing either the MAT tests, the sentence completion test, or the flashcards. Read over the different types of analogies..there are only so many categories and are easily mastered with a small amount of effort.
Every day spend two hours reviewing biology. If you can spend more time than this you should. I was doing three to four hours per day in prep for the PCAT.
You clearly don't need any improvement in chem or quant so do minimal review for these areas and concentrate on your weak areas.
You might be able to get interviews with your current comp score but you should be prepared to tell the interviewers that you are taking the Jan PCAT to raise your lower scores.
I agree that you may potentially get a couple of interviews, but I'm more worried about the low biology score...
Ideally most schools prefer a well-rounded student with a minimum of 60%-70% on each section of the PCAT; this is based on asking admissions committee members and from reviewing the statistics that are available for the past 5 years on some school websites. (I had 78% verbal, 85% RC, 91% quant and chem, and 98% bio after my 1st time taking it this past Oct, Comp = 95%).
Most schools are more leanient on the verbal and RC sections, hence it's fine to get lower in those sections, but are pretty firm on Bio/Quant/Chem. If you rocked chem hard, you should easily rock Bio as it is just route memorization.
My advice: retake the Pcat, and good luck.
Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions. Sorry for the misleading user name but actually I'm not a native speaker. That might explain my low scores on verbal and reading...I'm quite upset since it seems I have to take pcat again😡
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Hey guys, I'm in a similar dilemma...
Verbal: 32 (ouchhhh!!)
Reading: 55
Bio: 61
Quant: 81
Chem: 91
Comp: 71
3/3 on writing
English is my first language, actually the only language I know... but for some reason I thought I did better on verbal and reading. Verbal was a real shocker... can't believe I got 32 on it!!!
The minimum scores for the PCAT last year (for the University of Toronto) was 20% in ALL sections, except a 50% in Chem.
I'm not sure what to do... the minium could increase past my 32 in verbal. I really don't want to write the January one, but will take it if needed.
Thanks alot!
Verbal: 32 (ouchhhh!!)
Reading: 55
Bio: 61
Quant: 81
Chem: 91
Comp: 71
3/3 on writing
English is my first language, actually the only language I know... but for some reason I thought I did better on verbal and reading. Verbal was a real shocker... can't believe I got 32 on it!!!
The minimum scores for the PCAT last year (for the University of Toronto) was 20% in ALL sections, except a 50% in Chem.
I'm not sure what to do... the minium could increase past my 32 in verbal. I really don't want to write the January one, but will take it if needed.
Thanks alot!
ONE Suggestion for Verbal that worked for me. I bought the Dr. Collins packet.
My verbal score on the Jan 09 test was an 18% I got my results for the Oct. I got a 78%. I was shocked trust me...but I have to had it to Dr. Collins
My husband couldn't believe it...since I was pretty clueless with analogies up to 2 months before the test.
That was the only thing I studied for verbal too. OOOHHH. And I read the book How to increase your vocabulary in 30 days...I recommend it.
My verbal score on the Jan 09 test was an 18% I got my results for the Oct. I got a 78%. I was shocked trust me...but I have to had it to Dr. Collins
My husband couldn't believe it...since I was pretty clueless with analogies up to 2 months before the test.
That was the only thing I studied for verbal too. OOOHHH. And I read the book How to increase your vocabulary in 30 days...I recommend it.
By convention you would think this to be true, as did I. However my assumption of this lead to abysmal verbal and RC marks of 40 and 45% respectively. I didn't prepare at all for those sections as I had passed the Mensa test and believed I would have no problem, but I was proved wrong and now must prepare for both. At least I prepared for the science and math and scored 80% on all. It appears that you only need to be about one standard deviation above the mean as far as intelligence, and after that it is just about how hard you work and most of all how well you learn to play the game. The PCAT measures how well you learn to play it, and that takes a unique direction of hard work separate from the working hard in college in order to excel.
I recommend GRE and SAT books. They can easily be found at local libraries. The most useful ones are the ones that just have problems (one good one is the Princeton Review's "1014 GRE Practice Questions"). You can probably find a cheap copy of this or other books on Amazon if your library fails you. The format of the GRE is slightly different, but I definitely recommend it.
I recently bought the examkrackers MCAT book and I did a couple of the reading excercies. i found them to be really really hard! plus the passages were very different from past PCAT passages.. some were about fashion some were about acting... on top of that, im also using cliffnotes kaplan and dr collins for reading practice. the level of difficulty between these 4 sources are sooo different that i'm really confused about how to study. for collins and cliffs, i tend to get high 70s or 80s. with kaplan and examkrackers, i always get in the 50s or 60s range. any ideas on how i should study?
OP, you made a 99 in chemistry so **** verbal 
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yaa i found the MCAT passages very hard and confusing. cliffnotes and dr collins were a lot easier. but still, my actual reading score was 26percentile I have no idea how to improve reading. I've done sooo many practices but I'm still only getting 60s on them. I feel so hopeless about reading. 🙁🙁
Did you take the SAT's when you applied to college? Did you finish your pre-reqs for your degree yet?
SAT's usually covers Verbal and Reading, while your freshmen english class (pre-req) would have made you read 50 pages and write an essay every day for a year. That should have kept your reading and verbal skills reasonably decent. Also most schools have a writing assessment test that everyone must pass before graduating.
So you might want to look up your old SAT stuff, and take your english pre-reqs if you haven't taken them yet.
well, its hard to say because the first time i did the tests, I just kinda went over them and picked out the ones i didn't understand. i studied those and then redid the practices again.. and overall, the second time i did these practices i got around 80-90%. Ifound dr collins verbal very easy. I mean, easy as in the answer choices they give are very obvious.. i dont know if the real PCAT will be like that
I wouldn't worry too much about the low score in verbal. I got in all 3 pcat-required schools i applied with a 17verb, 99 bio, 32 reading, 91 quan, 98 chem and 92 comp. Unless you'r aiming for school which set min score of each subjects, you should be fine
How did you get 99 on bio? Do you have a degree? That's amazing to me, some of the questions on there seem so obscure to me.
I just want to know if my poor verbal/reading comprehension score will stop me from getting an interview at UIC. Thanks
I took pcat thursday. my scores where:
Verbal 18
R.C. 26
Q.A. 72
Bio 89
Chem 93
Comp 68
I volunteer year round at a YMCA in chicago, I volunteer as a summer camp teacher at salvation army every monday and tuesday from 8-1pm. I work as a sterilization assistant at an oral surgery clinic, Last summer I worked as a CNA at a nursing home. I have been a Chemistry/Biology Supplemental Instruction leader ( holds review lectures based off of the main lecture) at my school for the past two years. My current cumulative gpa is 3.68, prepharm gpa 3.74, math science gpa 3.69. I am the president of the Chemistry and physics club at purdue, I am also the VP of the Democratic club there. I have also shadowed a few pharmacist in my area.
I also recieved A in all science classes except physics 1 (B+)
I cant afford to retake pcat.
So am I doomed?
I took pcat thursday. my scores where:
Verbal 18
R.C. 26
Q.A. 72
Bio 89
Chem 93
Comp 68
I volunteer year round at a YMCA in chicago, I volunteer as a summer camp teacher at salvation army every monday and tuesday from 8-1pm. I work as a sterilization assistant at an oral surgery clinic, Last summer I worked as a CNA at a nursing home. I have been a Chemistry/Biology Supplemental Instruction leader ( holds review lectures based off of the main lecture) at my school for the past two years. My current cumulative gpa is 3.68, prepharm gpa 3.74, math science gpa 3.69. I am the president of the Chemistry and physics club at purdue, I am also the VP of the Democratic club there. I have also shadowed a few pharmacist in my area.
I also recieved A in all science classes except physics 1 (B+)
I cant afford to retake pcat.
So am I doomed?
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