Can Someone critique My Study Plan

Started by anewton
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anewton

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I'm taking the PCAT in august and needed some advice. My plan is to read the Kaplan book. Everyday do 2 Sections of Bio 2 Sections of Chem and a Section of Math. And every other day work on the verbal. Is there anything else anyone can think of that I should add to this.

Thanks
 
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anewton said:
I'm taking the PCAT in august and needed some advice. My plan is to read the Kaplan book. Everyday do 2 Sections of Bio 2 Sections of Chem and a Section of Math. And every other day work on the verbal. Is there anything else anyone can think of that I should add to this.

Thanks
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I found Kaplan *extremely* helpful - especially chemistry ... but not Kaplan math. I would strongly consider using a different book to supplement the math section.
 
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Tailor your studying to your needs. For example if you're pretty good at math - don't even bother studying for the math section.

Don't read the entire book. Read the parts about test taking strategies and after that only read the portions that you really feel like you need to - just skim over the rest...

As to "working on verbal" - I'd suggest just reading over the little section on strategies for taking the verbal section. After that, don't specifically work on verbal - instead just read - a lot - leisure reading is fine.
 
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1. Pound out the Kaplan book as you are planning (should take no more
than 1 month).
2. Take a Pearson PCAT test ($60 for 2 tests) under real test conditions
(do it on a Saturday AM 0800 with a proctor. These tests are computerized so bring your laptop to your test room or use a computer lab.
3. Take the next day to go over every question - right or wrong - read all the explanations. Do the assessment - determine your strengths and weakness, did you follow your test strategy (you have a test strategy for each PCAT section right?, then set up a plan to work on the areas you
need improvement.
4. Take second test 2 weeks before August real deal.
5. Assess and make any prep adjustments before PCAT - review your
test strategies/test game plan.

Preparing for PCAT is content review, practice testing/practice questions, assessment and revising your study plan, learning/re-learning concepts/problems you are weak on, practice test/questions, assessment
and revising your study plan, etc, etc, etc...

Good Luck - hope this helps
 
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You are also going to need a better source for Organic Chemistry than the Kaplan book. I thought the book did a pretty decent job on Bio and Gen. Chem but there were some serious deficiencies in other areas.
 
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anewton said:
I'm taking the PCAT in august and needed some advice. My plan is to read the Kaplan book. Everyday do 2 Sections of Bio 2 Sections of Chem and a Section of Math. And every other day work on the verbal. Is there anything else anyone can think of that I should add to this.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Are you forgetting about RC?

I didn't think RC was a big deal and didn't spend that much time on it and instead mastered all those other sections!
But, on the real PCAT, RC was the section that killed me (and also my RC score was the ONLY thing that inhibited me to get into pharmacy school this year)

conclusion: work on RC just as hard as any other section... unless you're a REALLY good reader!
 
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