For those who took PCAT as ESL

[jazee81]

Hi everyone,

Currently, I am preparing to take the August PCAT. I have covered most of the PCAT prep stuff and i feel good about Chem, Bio, and Math sections. But, the verbal and reading sections are giving me nightmares.

English is my second language. I am trying to get a decent score on the PCAT. For those of you who were in the same situation, can you please share how you prepared and what materials you used to prepare to help you achieve a decent score on those sections.

Thanks in advance

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[Science Girl]

Hi everyone,

Currently, I am preparing to take the August PCAT. I have covered most of the PCAT prep stuff and i feel good about Chem, Bio, and Math sections. But, the verbal and reading sections are giving me nightmares.

English is my second language. I am trying to get a decent score on the PCAT. For those of you who were in the same situation, can you please share how you prepared and what materials you used to prepare to help you achieve a decent score on those sections.

Thanks in advance

have you already registered for Aug. PCAT? b/c i was gonna say that maybe if you register for Oct. PCAT would be better. when are you going to apply for pharmacy school?

read articles from nature.com if your college offer free access to nature.com then that will be a good sourse for you to read from.
good luck

 

[jazee81]

have you already registered for Aug. PCAT? b/c i was gonna say that maybe if you register for Oct. PCAT would be better. when are you going to apply for pharmacy school?

read articles from nature.com if your college offer free access to nature.com then that will be a good sourse for you to read from.
good luck

First, thanks for the response!

Yes, I am registered for the august pcat. I have been going through most of the stuff. I am even trying to memorize some words, i don't know if that is going to help though.

If I don't feel good about how I do in the August, I will most likely retake it in October. I haven't submitted the Pharmcas, but the application is good to go now. I am just going to wait to see how I do the PCAT before I submit it.

 

[crazybob]

instead of memorizing the words, i would recommend going through any practice questions you have on the verbal and reading sections. just so that you know the format, and you can figure out what works for you. one thing that gave me a hard time on the reading sections was trying to choose between two answers when i narrowed down some choices. sometimes you see choices that look like really good answers, but you have to go with what the passage says.

for analogies, try to use the first two words in a sentence to figure out how they're related and use the third word in the same sentence to figure out what the fourth word should be. if you're unsure, just write down something you were thinking and come back to it, so you won't have to start over when you return to the question.
for sentence completion, try to use your own words to fill in the blanks, and then pick similar enough words from the choices. some choices may seem like a good fit, but sometimes there are ones that are better. watch out for any kind of contrast that might give you a clue about how the two blanks could be related.

 

[medicalCPA]

I am ESL, but how I prepared for the verbal section will probably not be applicable to you. However, I'm posting for the sake of others who may read this thread.

One month before the PCAT is already too late to prepare for the verbal section, as verbal skills have to be developed over time. In 1999, one year after I graduated high school, I went on a personal "reading program" which I thought would last a few months, but which ended up lasting over four years. Within that time period, I read a ton of books, probably more books than I had ever read in my life up to that point. The weird thing was, I was just reading for pleasure, not for the express purpose of improving my verbal skills. But during the process, I gained a large vocabulary, improved my grammar, learned a lot of colloquialisms, and gained a sense of when it is okay to break grammatical convention to make a point in writing. My verbal scores skyrocketed and have remained high ever since (and for the record, my PCAT verbal was 98, and reading comprehension was 99).

You may not have the time to go on such a program, but the least you can do is begin to read for pleasure. You may not like reading, but if you want to improve your verbal skills, there is no other way. When you read, make a note of all the unfamiliar words you find and look them up. Make note of spellings, and how authors string their sentences together.

For the shorter term, you should simply get as much practice as possible. Use ExamKrackers' MCAT 101 VR book, and perhaps practice the analogies section with MAT (Miller Analogies Test) or even old SAT books (the new SAT has no analogies).

 

[jazee81]

I am ESL, but how I prepared for the verbal section will probably not be applicable to you. However, I'm posting for the sake of others who may read this thread.

One month before the PCAT is already too late to prepare for the verbal section, as verbal skills have to be developed over time. In 1999, one year after I graduated high school, I went on a personal "reading program" which I thought would last a few months, but which ended up lasting over four years. Within that time period, I read a ton of books, probably more books than I had ever read in my life up to that point. The weird thing was, I was just reading for pleasure, not for the express purpose of improving my verbal skills. But during the process, I gained a large vocabulary, improved my grammar, learned a lot of colloquialisms, and gained a sense of when it is okay to break grammatical convention to make a point in writing. My verbal scores skyrocketed and have remained high ever since (and for the record, my PCAT verbal was 98, and reading comprehension was 99).

You may not have the time to go on such a program, but the least you can do is begin to read for pleasure. You may not like reading, but if you want to improve your verbal skills, there is no other way. When you read, make a note of all the unfamiliar words you find and look them up. Make note of spellings, and how authors string their sentences together.

For the shorter term, you should simply get as much practice as possible. Use ExamKrackers' MCAT 101 VR book, and perhaps practice the analogies section with MAT (Miller Analogies Test) or even old SAT books (the new SAT has no analogies).

Thanks all for response,

Your story is inspirational. I am going to start reading to improve my language. Not just for this PCAT because I feel that language is probably my weakest skill.

Again, thanks all for the helpful resposes!!