done with Pcat Jan 22nd. How u guys did?

[nbui]

verbal : Dr.Collin is the best with 10-15 similar questions
Biology: easiest part
Chemistry: I did ok, some organic II questions I have no idea.
reading comprehension : English is my 2nd language u know how it went
math: easy but i need more time
Essay: dont care

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[Lubeckd]

Chem was hard this time.
Math was a lot harder...
Biology was okay, Reading was okay, Verbal was okay. I think my biology, reading and verbal are better now. But my math and chem score probably decreased. Chem had too much theory this time.

 

[nditebeck]

Verbal: was my best-Dr. Collins nailed it.
Bio: easy
Chem: Easy but needed more time
Reading: Easy but didn't finish last passage( will still do better tha Oct.)
Math: Don't know what to think. It might be a drag on my scores
Writting: Super duper easy

Also, i took the CBT and would say, it WAS SUPER COOL. No need to fill any bubbles which take about 5 sec.. Good thing is only CBT from next PCAT.

 

[HockeyGod]

Today was my first experience with the PCAT. I think I did really well on verbal, Bio was really easy, chem was terrible, ran out of time and had to bubble at least 10, Reading I did really well on, or at least I tink I did, and quant was terrible. I'm going to have to retake in July I think.

 

[PharmJunkie]

Verbal easy thanks to Collins, Biology was very easy, Chemistry was pretty easy, Reading did ok (idk), math did better than last time.

 

[histopath]

Verbal: Very Easy Dr.C's was almost identical
Bio: Very easy- only didn't know 2 answers
Chem: Easy, probably 4 I was unsure of
Reading: Easy- I've had 3 or the 6 passages before
Quant: WTF?? WAY harder! I was only certain of 15, a lot of guessing. I ran out of time, bubbled in 4.

 

[PharmJunkie]

Chem was hard this time.
Math was a lot harder...
Biology was okay, Reading was okay, Verbal was okay. I think my biology, reading and verbal are better now. But my math and chem score probably decreased. Chem had too much theory this time.

How was your first PCAT if you do not mind me asking?

 

[Stevenn]

Essays : Easy
Verbal : Fine
Biology : relatively easy
Chemistry : ran out of time, some questions were ridiculous
Readings : Missed one passage
Quanitiative : Hardest ever, some question were time consuming. missed almost 10mad:

GSU pre-pharmacy student
3.9 GPA

 

[wmw]

to give some perspective, when I walked out the door I felt like this:
I was expecting in the 70s% for verbal and reading....
80s% for bio
maybe mid 80s% for quant
possibly a 90% for chem
and I guess around an 80% for comp, based on what people were saying on here and based on the scores I got back on all three pearson practice tests....

ended up with this:
Verbal Ability 437 - 92%
Biology 430 - 88%
Reading Comprehension 435 - 90%
Quantitative Ability 455 - 97%
Chemistry 505 - 99%

Composite 452 - 99%

no idea if anybody will find this helpful, but I remember feeling really intense right after I took my PCAT (June 19th) and wanting to have a comparative idea of how I might have done. Let me know if anybody has any questions.

 

[MotherRussia]

bio easy
chem and math ok
essays decent topics, but results who knows
reading, eng is my 2nd language, so bad
verbal not so good just because did not dedicate enough time for Collins

gonna keep on memorizing more words

 

[pharmvsu]

Essay - easy
Reading and verbal - easy
Chemistry - difficult but i've only had gen chem 1 so thats expected. But I think even if i knew how to do every problem exactly I still wouldnt have had time. I guessed on a lot and I still ran out of time.
Biology - not to bad. Pretty easy.
Quant - ridiculously hard. I am really really good in Math and some of that stuff just looked foriegn to me.

dreading waiting 6 weeks for results...ughh!

 

[Stevenn]

to give some perspective, when I walked out the door I felt like this:
I was expecting in the 70s% for verbal and reading....
80s% for bio
maybe mid 80s% for quant
possibly a 90% for chem
and I guess around an 80% for comp, based on what people were saying on here and based on the scores I got back on all three pearson practice tests....

ended up with this:
Verbal Ability 437 - 92%
Biology 430 - 88%
Reading Comprehension 435 - 90%
Quantitative Ability 455 - 97%
Chemistry 505 - 99%

Composite 452 - 99%

no idea if anybody will find this helpful, but I remember feeling really intense right after I took my PCAT (June 19th) and wanting to have a comparative idea of how I might have done. Let me know if anybody has any questions.

How'd you manage your time ? Especially for Chem, Quantitaive, and reading ?

 

[wmw]

How'd you manage your time ? Especially for Chem, Quantitaive, and reading ?

Look at my other posts I made a detailed guide.

 

[fturepharmD]

This was my first PCAT. I have been out of undergrad for 20 years and started studying in December; used Kaplan book.

My experience today:
Essays: pretty easy - should have practiced w goal of time management. I barely finished the first essay as I spent too much time planning. 2nd essay went better when I realized i needed to abbreviate my outline and get writing!

Verbal: Went pretty good...nothing unexpected

Biology: Pretty easy (Biology major here) Kaplan prepared me pretty well; I had forgotten a lot of detail, so it was good at refreshing and details.

Chemistry: I have to admit I only had C's in college chem...I spent the last 3 weeks (spare time) Studying Kaplan, trying to learn it inside and out. It was literally like a foreign language since it had been 20 years. Built my chem construct all over from scratch. Of the 200 pages in Kaplan, I spent 2 weeks on the first 100 pages and over the last couple days on the remainder...cramming is an understatement.
Net Result: I felt like Chemistry went quite well.

Reading Comprehension: Went decent, except ran out of time and had to skim the last passage and only answered 3 Q's, guessed on the rest. To be honest, i think of myself as good at reading comprehension but I only do mediocre on sample tests.

Quantitative: Totally SUCKED! I mean it was RIDICULOUS!. I am good at math - did the Kaplan Math section twice and felt really good about it. I had a slight phobia of calc, but after reviewing it twice felt quite comfortable with it. (my second review was yesterday, so I felt like I was ready). Of the 48 questions I only legitimately got through 30+, I did an abbreviated attempt at 30-40, and had about 8-10 left unanswered. There was a lot of Calc and not just problem solving; it was mostly application. For that matter, almost all of the math was application. That is fine, but if that is the case, there shouldn't be so many questions that require so much time. There were a LOT of log questions (I am guessing 10 or so) maybe I recollection is skewed as I don't like them.

Net:
Verbal: Expected Difficulty
Biology: Easier than Expected
Chemistry: Easier than Expected
Reading Comprehension: Expected Difficulty
Math: MUCH more difficult than expected!

Best Guess on Performance:
Verbal 70%
Biology: 80%
Chemistry 70%
Reading Comp: 60%
Math: 40-50%
Writing: Expect a 3 (unless they pick the essay I ran out of time on...then 2)
(I am a good writer, just challenged by time constraints)

Total: I would expect a 60-70%
(First time PCAT taker...and hopefully the last!)

 

[Lubeckd]

How was your first PCAT if you do not mind me asking?

chem 81
Math 64
Verbal 45
Bio 51
Reading - Terrible, not giving it out lol.

I guess I had a different exam from everyone esle. Because there was only like 2 dr collin words on mines DX. Biology had a lot new stuff too, but since I read the kaplan book this time, I think I would be okay.
Reading I used Examkracker, so I think I will be fine, I spend a lot of time going back to the passages.
Chem was totally different from the October one! The math section, I had the first 5 right, then it got a lot harder >>. No graphs at mines at all...

Im hoping they look at my october pcat for my math and chem score, because this one seriously has me questioning my scores in the 40-50 percentile.

 

[ochemgirl]

Verbal: better than I thought... Thanks Collins!
Biology: guessed 2 or 3
Chem: guessed 2 or 3
Reading: no idea
Quant: that's the section I have the most confidence... guessed 2 (and I suspected these two are experimental...)
Writing: expecting a 3/3

hey I have a question... If everybody did well in Verbal and Bio, then even I scored pretty high I might still get a low percentage???

 

[pharmmd12]

Essays: pretty easy
Verbal: better than Oct. test I think
Chemistry: hard, I just feel rushed through the questions
Biology: not bad but harder than Oct. test
Quantitative Ability: not enough time so who knows how I did
Reading Comp.: felt longer than last time
Overall: I just hate this test! UGHHHHHHH

 

[Lubeckd]

meh whatever, I got my 4th interview at LIU lol. Forget about this PCAT XD.

 

[Timbo]

took it at UCLA and testing area was terrible. it was in an auditorium with half-desks smaller than your answer and test booklet. also i didn't know we would get no scratch paper and had to work out problems given the tiny space in between questions on the test booklet. also the essay planning page is part of the answer booklet so you have to constantly flip back and forth while writing your essay.

quantitative section went horrible. this is coming from someone who has had calc III + differential equations + linear algebra and whose strongest subject is easily math. it bugs me that the pcat really just tests how fast of a human calculator you are rather than test your actual algebra and calculus abilities. it feels like they expect you to have memorized the multiplication table from 1 to 1000 or something

 

[pharmmd12]

took it at UCLA and testing area was terrible. it was in an auditorium with half-desks smaller than your answer and test booklet. also i didn't know we would get no scratch paper and had to work out problems given the tiny space in between questions on the test booklet. also the essay planning page is part of the answer booklet so you have to constantly flip back and forth while writing your essay.

quantitative section went horrible. this is coming from someone who has had calc III + differential equations + linear algebra and whose strongest subject is easily math. it bugs me that the pcat really just tests how fast of a human calculator you are rather than test your actual algebra and calculus abilities. it feels like they expect you to have memorized the multiplication table from 1 to 1000 or something

Agreed!

 

[MayMay123]

It was alright. I honestly found chem and math to be okay. I managed to finish everything. I'm just worried about reading.

 

[mimi10]

chem 81
Math 64
Verbal 45
Bio 51
Reading - Terrible, not giving it out lol.

I guess I had a different exam from everyone esle. Because there was only like 2 dr collin words on mines DX. Biology had a lot new stuff too, but since I read the kaplan book this time, I think I would be okay.
Reading I used Examkracker, so I think I will be fine, I spend a lot of time going back to the passages.
Chem was totally different from the October one! The math section, I had the first 5 right, then it got a lot harder >>. No graphs at mines at all...

Im hoping they look at my october pcat for my math and chem score, because this one seriously has me questioning my scores in the 40-50
percentile.

same here! I took the PCAT back in OCtober and had about 15-20 Collins words on verbal and BIology was really easy too. I decided to take a no score since I didn't feel like I did my best in math and chem.

Now I'm wishing I scored that test instead of this. I probably saw less than 5 Collins words on this test. Collin's did not help with BIo at all and let's not even talk about math, lots of long problems that needed long solving.


I am soooo over this test

 

[Shadii]

First time tester and I was so nervous I felt like throwing up since I woke up..

Essays: easier than expected
Verbal: wasn't too bad, probably missed around 5 (~5 mins to spare)
Biology: wasn't hard except the microbiology questions since I haven't taken the class(~3 mins to spare)
Chem: didn't do like 4 of the calculation problems and the orgo 2 section was a little challenging since I'm only 3 weeks into the class (finished right on time)
Reading Comp: ehh it was a little harder than excepted but not too bad (3 mins to spare)
Quant: Only guessed in 3, the others I felt pretty confident about and finished with a few minutes to spare (2 mins to spare)

Overall I thought I was going to do way worse since I've only had time to study less than 2 weeks and actually found the math surprisingly easier than a few collins test I did and the practice tests online.

 

[gluglugs]

I am a freshman in Canada. All the sections were "easy" with the exception of math being rape. I really wasn't expecting to see some of the questions that I saw was expecting more calc and less of the weird crap.

I took the Kaplan course and I really recommend it for those of you who are able to shell out the money. The Kaplan practice tests made me feel terrible before the exam because I'd always do terrible on their tests in the sense i had to guess a lot of the questions, all the ones I didn't need to guess usually were correct. However, although the kaplan exams offered by the course were extremely hard in comparison to the real deal, being a first time test taker I probably fudged the PCAT anyway.

 

[nuwa]

i've taken the pcat 3 times and the math section this time was the hardest so far.... and i'm a good math student. well, it's been 3 years since i've taken math so maybe that's why it was so difficult for me.
verbal&reading comprehension were the easiest ive seen.
chem was relatively easy
bio, i feel like i haven't seen a lot of the material before.. and i read the entire bio section of the kaplan book. i dont know where they get the questions from

in the end i didnt score it, just because of how horribly i did on math

 

[gluglugs]

nuwa I feel the same way! I'm not going to comment on how chem, verbal and reading was. I just felt they were easier than the Kaplan tests. In the math and bio section, I was thinking... hmm.. I've been going over the kaplan bio book since last summer and just finished taking first year bio. Some of the stuff was strange.

 

[Shadii]

Now I'm feeling like every answer I put for math is gonna be wrong..you guys are scaring me lol. I mean for the quant I just remember a lot of "find x", some stats,
barely any calc (I was surprised I found the answer to "find the slope of the tangent line question quite fast, all those hours put into calc helped out) and idk I forgot what else

 

[UpstateNY518]

I felt the Quantative was very difficult. Verbal was decent along with reading. Chem was alright some tricky ones, alot more theory then i expected , and Bio there was some questions that were just very strange maybe they were experimental i dont know I just hope it went good because I decided to score it being my first time.

 

[pharmacist5870]

I heard the Chem and Math sections this time around were horrible.

 

[chrispharm]

I heard the Chem and Math sections this time around were horrible.

this is my first time taking the pcat, but i think they were the hardest. I was doing well on the collins practice and pearson practice test, but there were some questions that were a differant language.

 

[meekstro]

I have a B.S. in Math., graduated with honors and I got to admit some of the questions were way beyond Cal.I......I was on question 30 with 15 minutes left and was like "what the".....I finished, but it was frustrating not being able to put much thought into the remaining questions.
I hate Biology because it is just about memorizing loads of pointless information imo.
What really suprised me was the lack of Organic Chem on the test I took. I really did not see alot of organic questions.

 

[nbui]

I feel like I can do every single question in Bio, Chem and Math if I have like 10 more minutes. I went through kaplan bio and chem twice , same with Dr. Collins materials. A little over prepared but it's good for me in the long run. Anyways the waiting game is on so let's hope for the best

 

[chrispharm]

I feel like I can do every single question in Bio, Chem and Math if I have like 10 more minutes.

i was the same way, the math i could fell i could have done alot better on if i had just a few more minutes to work out some of the problems.

 

[FuturePharmD81]

I see most of you are very satisfied with dr.Collins and the verbal. is it true that the exact questions appeared on the test?

 

[IV Rubella]

I have a B.S. in Math., graduated with honors and I got to admit some of the questions were way beyond Cal.I......I was on question 30 with 15 minutes left and was like "what the".....I finished, but it was frustrating not being able to put much thought into the remaining questions.
I hate Biology because it is just about memorizing loads of pointless information imo.
What really suprised me was the lack of Organic Chem on the test I took. I really did not see alot of organic questions.

Agreed, I have a B.S in Biology that I just received in December and their was a few biology questions where I thought to myself "no normal person would know this". The chem sections seemed 90% gen chem and 10% O'Chem. Math was horrendous, Some of those questions were pure time traps. Overall the only section that seemed difficult was the Quant section. I could of had a calculator and still needed an extra 20 minutes it felt like.

 

[fturepharmD]

Here's my question...so if there is a test with an outlier section (i.e. quantitative in this most recent test), what difference does it make if it is scaled if they are averaging the scores of first time test takers over the last five years? An outlier is still an outlier, even if they recognize that an entire testing group had low scores, all that will do is give them feedback on adapting questions for that section in the future. Do admissions counselors even consider variability of material among test periods when reviewing applications? I understand there are probably some experimental questions embedded in the section, but the reliability of a "score" is really dependent on the results having an appropriate scaling or the outcomes are really not very differentiating.

 

[delano2000]

Please remember NOT to post any revealing or specific information relating to the test. Do not make reference to any questions whatsoever that you may have seen on the test. Keep the comments as general as possible.

 

[Iqra]

I see most of you are very satisfied with dr.Collins and the verbal. is it true that the exact questions appeared on the test?

I only saw 5-6 questions from the Dr.Collin's guide on the test version that I had.
It is a good buy though because it provides you with a good list of analogies and practice for sentence completion.

 

[adu322]

 

[nbui]

you're annoying. we can do what we want, ghetto mod.

lol

 

[Farmercyst]

we can do what we want.

 

[broland]

I also felt Dr. Collins was spot on with the math & verbal, as well as the chemistry. I wish I would have spent more time with his packet instead of reading the entire kaplan book.

I feel like I did great on verbal, reading, essay and bio. Chem was ok and Math I ran out of time and had to guess about 4 questions. Luckily I went through the test and skipped the questions that would have taken me the longest, so i guess those 4 questions were the "hardest". I did make it to the end just had to guess on those 4.

Keeping my fingers crossed. I really dont want to have to go through that again, lol.

 

[All4MyDaughter]

you're annoying. we can do what we want, ghetto mod.

Sure bro, do whatcha like. But be sure to read the first post of this thread first. If you get your PCAT scores canceled you'll never get off that LECOM-B waitlist, or get to attend any school at all.

 

[adu322]

 

[All4MyDaughter]

I didn't take the PCAT last weekend, therefore I'm good. Thanks for playing.

Not sure what that has to do with anything. If you diclose specifics from ANY administration of the PCAT, you risk invalidation of your scores. The moderator's announcement was trying to help students by keeping them informed, in the hopes that you'd constrain your own behavior. It's for your protection.

 

[adu322]

 

[mimi10]

Oh yes, I understand. We don't need ghetto boy to tell us the obvious though. We're applying to grad school, not daycare. Much love. QUOTE]


"Ghetto boy", why is he ghetto? Have you met him before? Do you know where he lives?

Since you are on a pharmacy forum, I can only guess you are trying to be a pharmacist. So let me just remind you that a pharmacist have to SERVE people from all walks of life.

Your condescending attitude won't get you far in such a career, I hope the admissions people can see through you and you get denied at every school you apply to. Just my two cents!!!!

 

[adu322]

Oh yes, I understand. We don't need ghetto boy to tell us the obvious though. We're applying to grad school, not daycare. Much love. QUOTE]


"Ghetto boy", why is he ghetto? Have you met him before? Do you know where he lives?

Since you are on a pharmacy forum, I can only guess you are trying to be a pharmacist. So let me just remind you that a pharmacist have to SERVE people from all walks of life.

Your condescending attitude won't get you far in such a career, I hope the admissions people can see through you and you get denied at every school you apply to. Just my two cents!!!!

LOL...it was a joke...doesn't really matter...this is a website.....just stirring up some controversy!

And it's too late for being denied at every school, but way to step down to my "fake" level! Hope you come to my pharmacy because I just might not catch the interaction with your sildenafil and nitroglycerin.

That was also a joke, but maybe you can't catch that...you must play baseball for the Pirates.

(and take your SGA before you reply)

Sincerely yours,

President Obama

 

[adu322]

It's probably not a good idea to post that I'm a pharmacist already and just helping out others with info but it's whatever. (plus it'll teach you guys not to trust anyone on this board)

 

[masterchemist]

I studied for months. Read the entire kaplan book. Really learned the biology and chemistry BEFORE taking any practice exams. I studied for the verbal by taking many practice exams and writing down and memorizing every word that was unfamiliar in all of the multiple choice answers in all of the practice test questions. I also used synonym.com to search the words I didn't know to come up with a family of words that had related meanings.


Really don't want to wait 5 more weeks! This was my first time taking the PCAT and the last time. I feel very confident but due to a low pre-req GPA i NEEDED to dominate. Math was my only real concern, I had to fill in a lot that were too time consuming. I know I missed a few on the other sections but that doesn't bother me. No one is supposed to make a 100%.

However, anyone know how the percentile scoring is exactly worked? What if this test had overall higher scores and they were compared to 2007 average scores? I'm a little confused with the scoring...