Any good study guides for the verbal & reading section?

[Ailiniel]

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I just took the July PCAT. I tried answering as many questions as I could so that I could get all of them. So some of the longer ones that required thinking I sort of just skipped over. Here are my results:

Percentiles:
Verbal Ability: 38
Biology: 63
Reading Comprehension: 15
Quantitative Ability: 33 (In the practice PCAT I was around a 63-83 percentile with the quantitative ability but that was from taking it without the time limit. I am going to practice with my math book.)
Chemistry: 88
Composite: 47

My main concern is with the English. I do not know how I should study for the verbal and reading comprehension section because I feel like that is something that should have been slowly learned over the years. I have Dr. Collins 2011 and I felt that the verbal and reading were easier. Are there any study books that you would recommend that would help me tackle this by October?

 

[Binchen222]

i have a low VA score as well and a lot of people suggested to study for those vocabulary for the GRE. idk how much that would help but im going to try it and see how it goes with the sept pact

 

[88888888]

i have a low VA score as well and a lot of people suggested to study for those vocabulary for the GRE. idk how much that would help but im going to try it and see how it goes with the sept pact

No your main concern is raising your math and biology. My reading was 25 and I got into all my top schools. Use Dr Collins and practice your timing. Don't waste your time on reading. If you aren't doing well now no point in trying. It's either you're good or you're not.

 

[RxRunner]

i have a low VA score as well and a lot of people suggested to study for those vocabulary for the GRE. idk how much that would help but im going to try it and see how it goes with the sept pact

I agree. GRE Verbal preparation by Kaplan will have different style questions, but help immensely. Couple of GRE verbal YouTube videos to help you with the "top words used" but mostly, the best advice I heard was to keep a word journal while you read and any time you see a word you don't know, look up the etymology of it.

 

[Binchen222]

No your main concern is raising your math and biology. My reading was 25 and I got into all my top schools. Use Dr Collins and practice your timing. Don't waste your time on reading. If you aren't doing well now no point in trying. It's either you're good or you're not.

raising the scores for math, chemistry and biology are the priorities but having a really low on the reading and VA will drag down the composite so i would think attacking all of the material would be better.

 

[88888888]

raising the scores for math, chemistry and biology are the priorities but having a really low on the reading and VA will drag down the composite so i would think attacking all of the material would be better.

Va is Ok to improve. Memorize more vocab. Reading is a waste of time it's either your good or not. It's difficult raising it. I remember when I took sat most I improved was 500-600.. While math and writing I went from 500s to near perfect. Reading is something you had to be working at since you were young.

Honestly you can get into whatever school you want if you can get 90+ in bio math and chem regardless of what you got in va or reading.

 

[Binchen222]

But having 90+ on all three of them aren't as easy as it look lol

 

[88888888]

But having 90+ on all three of them aren't as easy as it look lol

Mm do you use Dr Collins?

 

[Binchen222]

i had 72 in math 79 in bio and 81 in chem but got a composite of 66 due to low VA 30 and RC 42
and i just bought dr collin's materials but i dont think it will help me much after i looked over and did all the math sections.... i just now started looking at the bio section today but their information are that detail... i hope their practice test are better than what they have for math

 

[88888888]

i had 72 in math 79 in bio and 81 in chem but got a composite of 66 due to low VA 30 and RC 42
and i just bought dr collin's materials but i dont think it will help me much after i looked over and did all the math sections.... i just now started looking at the bio section today but their information are that detail... i hope their practice test are better than what they have for math

I got a 97 on math with their practice tests and I didn't fill in 5 because I didn't have time

 

[Binchen222]

i found the ones on the actual pcat to be more difficult than the ones on dr collin's... and i didnt fill out at lest overall of 10-15 question... lol i didnt utilize that clock too well.

 

[chemguy79]

When I took the PCAT a few years ago, a large number of questions were the exact same as what was in Dr. Collins' packet. I remember laughing as I was going through the verbal section because I counted up at least 10 EXACT analogies that I had seen previously via Collins. Maybe I got incredibly lucky with my form of the exam, but I'm doubtful of that fact. (I wrote a long post about this in the 99% PCAT thread.)

The bottom line is to memorize a word bank (I strongly recommend the 500 most common words that are seen on the GRE) as well as prefixes, roots, and suffixes. It was extremely beneficial when I encountered words that I didn't know.

When it comes to reading, it's probably the least important section of the exam. However, if you were to peruse a study guide and use the answer key wisely, you can learn how to answer the questions and improve your approach.

Whenever someone does poorly with Dr. Collins' packet, I always wonder how they used the packet because I tend to think that it is foolproof. Having a study guide is nice, but using the study guide correctly is what gets you an incredible PCAT score.

 

[88888888]

When I took the PCAT a few years ago, a large number of questions were the exact same as what was in Dr. Collins' packet. I remember laughing as I was going through the verbal section because I counted up at least 10 EXACT analogies that I had seen previously via Collins. Maybe I got incredibly lucky with my form of the exam, but I'm doubtful of that fact. (I wrote a long post about this in the 99% PCAT thread.)

The bottom line is to memorize a word bank (I strongly recommend the 500 most common words that are seen on the GRE) as well as prefixes, roots, and suffixes. It was extremely beneficial when I encountered words that I didn't know.

When it comes to reading, it's probably the least important section of the exam. However, if you were to peruse a study guide and use the answer key wisely, you can learn how to answer the questions and improve your approach.

Whenever someone does poorly with Dr. Collins' packet, I always wonder how they used the packet because I tend to think that it is foolproof. Having a study guide is nice, but using the study guide correctly is what gets you an incredible PCAT score.

100% agree. Same thing happen to me when I took few years ago. Math and bio had almost verbatim questions