Wow! You did really well!! Congrats, how did you study and is this your first time taking the PCAT?
Thanks. This was my first time.
As for studying, I started about 2 months before the test date. I studied maybe 2 hours a day, but that was during my internship so there were quite a few distractions.
😀
I mainly used the Kaplan book as sort of a text book. I just read over it once without taking notes or highlighting, and that took maybe 3 weeks in total? Then I got a Peterson's MCAT book from my local library and used that for the biology and chemistry sections. I found the chemistry in that book to be much more thorough than in the Kaplan book, especially for organic.
So reading all the material took about 5 weeks, and I spent the following weeks doing practice tests. Again, I used the Kaplan book, which was good practice. I also took a Kaplan practice PCAT that they offered at a testing center, which I used to see what scores I would get in a real testing environment. I also used Barron's (too easy), Cliffs (mainly for vocab practice, didn't look at chem/bio/reading because I was lazy
😀), and Harcourt's 2 practice exams.
After a few practice tests, I realized how little I knew about anatomy and physiology (because I haven't taken those classes yet), so I got some review books by Schaum's and Cliffs. I also got a calc review book because I haven't had a real math class in 4 years.
It sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. I avoided sections that weren't heavily tested, such as plant biology. I didn't really prep for verbal or reading because for those, either you know it or you don't, and I wasn't going to memorize word lists that probably won't appear on the real test. I didn't practice writing at all (lazy again). Chemistry was really easy for me because I had just finished organic in school, and I've had like 4 years worth of general chem (Chem Honors in HS, Chem AP in HS, an outside Chem AP prep class, and general chem in college). Same for bio -- I had Bio in HS, self-studied Bio AP, and gen bio/mobio/biochem in college. I just needed to learn A&P and some micro. Math is a subject that kinda comes naturally to me, so I just needed to refresh on some calc. A lot of people say that the QA section has really weird questions, but none of them seemed confusing to me. I mean, there were questions that I flat out didn't know (i.e. integration by parts, which I didn't study), but for those you can work backwards (derive each solution).
Hope this helps. PM me if you want.
