I didn’t really study for critical reading, if I did my score would’ve been higher lol. I focused most of my energy on chemistry because it’s the one I was most concerned about since it had been 5 years since I took orgo.
The best advice I can give (and it’s what the GRE, MCAT, etc all suggest for critical reading or their verbal section) is just read stuff. The Economist is probably the most recommended thing to get in the habit of reading for all tests. There’s 2 reasons applicable to the PCAT.
1) Almost every article is written with clear bias from the author. There’s lots of points to earn by being able to easily discern opinions, arguments, and facts. The Economist will teach you to do that.
2) there’s a wide variety of topics (literally about the whole world!) so you’ll encounter the same variety you’ll see on critical reading passages.
If you’re struggling I’d also buy a Kaplan book and learn their method for triaging paragraphs/passages.
For math,
Make sure you know your trig derivatives/integrals, they’re easy points that will take you 15 seconds to get.
Likewise make sure you understand basic probability. There’s going to be a standard deviation question or two. Do not waste time calculating it. If you logically eliminate answers you can solve it that way or at least make a 50:50 guess. Most standardized test math is setup with shortcuts in mind to get the answer by thinking critically and eliminating choices without doing calculations and PCAT is no exception. There will also be easier stuff like coin-flips and permutations vs combinations probability. Review/learn those.
There’s going to be chemistry related math snuck in. You might end up calculating pV=nRT problems in math rather than chemistry. Make sure you have a good handle on math you’ll encounter in chemistry or genetics math like Hardy-Weinberg in case it pops up in math rather than Bio/Chem.
Mostly for math it was just getting a Kaplan prep book and studying stuff I forgot since graduating and working as a pharmacy tech. I used crackthepcat for a question bank but there isn't a perfect overlap between the math they cover and what's on the actual exam IMO.
Finally, no prep book or even pearsons official pcat practice questions emphasize the dose conversion and dose delivery rate questions. It’s basic stochiometry but it apparently trips up A LOT of pharmacy school students. The PTCB tech exam has tons of those questions. If you’ve never taken the PTCE, learn how to do them, they take <1 minute and are VERY easy points. They'll also make your life easier in pharmacy school. Pearson makes a licensed PTCE review book and it has tons of practice math questions to nail that material down.
Hope this helped a little. Let me know if you have other questions.
