Gripes

Started by charleshawtrey
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Get help with your application

Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.

Browse articles Compare schools My application plan Read Interview Feedback
Practice for interviews Ask an Advisor
charleshawtrey

charleshawtrey

New Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
As a result of not being able to read a prereq guide, today was my third go at the PCAT (ferris required new version w/2nd essay), and I would like to share some thoughts. It seems that many here are attempting to determine how well they scored based on their own perception of how difficult/easy each subsection was. Let me remind you that this subjective determination of difficulty has already been made for you by the testmakers. From the CIB,

"Different forms of any test may vary somewhat in difficulty. Because of the differences in difficulty between different forms of the PCAT, the same raw scores (number of test items answered correctly) obtained for the five multiple-choice subtests on different test forms are not necessarily equivalent."

My previous scores (scaled, %) Oct. '06 on left, Jan. '07 on right. Writing was 3/5 both times.

difference
Verbal 422, 82 ----- 461, 99 +39, +17
Biol 406, 62 ----- 428, 87 +22, +25
Read 423, 83 ----- 417, 76 -6, -7
Quan 438, 93 ----- 417, 79 -21, -14
Chem 426, 86 ----- 426, 86 0 0
Comp 423, 87 ----- 430, 93 +7, +6
-----------------------------------------------------
Again, these tests were taken 3 months apart. I am *confident* that I answered more questions correctly in Oct. verbal than in Jan. The massive improvement of 39 points was because someone deemed the Jan. verbal section more difficult than the Oct. Even though I answered fewer questions correctly, my score jumped substantially. Upon learning I had to take the test yet again, I informed Harcourt that I should like a customized test which contained the "most difficult" version of each subsection; they did not respond. My reasoning being that a hypothetical 53/56 on an easier form would be a lower score than 45/56 on the most difficult. This may not be an issue if not for the time limit, as you could afford to miss more questions on the harder version--or even leave a few blank. As opposed to twiddling your thumbs after breezing through the easy version.

Also, even though 8 questions and 5 minutes were shaved off each section to make room for the much needed SECOND bs writing prompt, scores are still calculated against the same control group as before (1st time test takers 1998-2003), they had 35 minutes to answer 56 questions. I realize that these both work out to .625 minutes per question, and this would be OK if each question were of the same difficulty, but the easy questions can be answered in a few seconds. 5 more minutes would be an advantage when returning to work on the harder questions.

As for the essays, what do they prove? I have no problem admitting that I am unable to form a cogent, cohesive essay either for or against some random prompt in which I may or may not be interested -- in 30 minutes. Perhaps I have an innate defense mechanism which will not allow arguments to be formed so rapidly, with so little thought put into them, lest they lack solid foundations and collapse in a zephyr. An honest carpenter would refuse to build such a structure. Nor would he build a house simply to prove he could do so, that it may be torn down after its soundness had been verified.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
hey, i was just reading your post here and your observations about the exam are so correct, however, i do not know how you know that we are scaled again the 1998-2003 group as no one has officially said that (ie: Harcourt). I had taken the pcat 3 times total including the one i wrote today on the 19th. To justify your point, my first time was horrendous, it was very difficult and i did not do any studying at all. I did horrible as i also only had one semester of pre-reqs(wrote it in jan of 07). The next time i did it i thought it was so facile, i stormed through the sections and felt confident only getting a 53% composite. I was so disheartened and i was at the point where i doubted myself if i was competitive with the other students; despite my culmulative gpa being of 3.7. So now, I have taken the pcat again in january(today), and i thought it was mildy hard, but on the easy side for sure again. I felt ookay with my test, but i know i did pretty poorly onthe reading comprehension as i was not motivated at the time to carefully read the passages due to a lack of interest. I was angered when i saw on the verbal that none of the 1600 words that i studied from Kaplan guide were on the test....so what do you think? any prediction of how i did? because i am growing very frustrated with this pcat as it is one of my one and ony barriers to getting into pharmacy. My gpa and lotrs are good so...?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
in my opinion, the essays are pretty pointless. you have no way of doing any research and it seems to be a matter of chance as to whether or not they draw a topic which helps you out.

also, i think that quant is kind of pointless, too- though, on the last PCAT, it was more reasonable. when the questions were largely logarithmic problems, I just found myself asking "why?". I understand they use the PCAT to weed people out but we are talking about the Pharmacy College Appliction Test- you rarely, if ever, use logarithms in the real world and I'm sure as you all know that it is quite unnecessary to be able to do rapid mental math as a pharmacist (especially as far as logarithms and calc stuff go)... plus, you should probably check with a calculator anyway because if you kill someone because your quant was off one day, you wouldn't be a very good pharmacist. I just don't understand its purpose.

it'd be nice if the PCAT were more pharmacy-centric. I can see how reading comp can be important, but analogies? it's like we're being graded on "filler" material- "this test isn't really long enough to cost $120 so let's make them figure out how cheese and chef boyardi are analogous to your mother and uncle"
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
heavy87, i agree there was an excessive amount of log questions on that part, which can screw a lot of people over if they didnt remember how to do that in grade 12. Writing is pretty hard, as it is hard to make a clear thesis and statement while being pressured and timed. It is not a creative atmosphere at all and the topics are usually bland or uninteresting..
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Here is how I see the test coming into existence.

Harcourt has smart employees; they know that it is easier to pick a group and then design a product for said group vs. designing a product and searching for a target audience. A sub-par product that sells a million times over is better, i.e. more profitable, than a useful product that produces limited sales.

In an ideal world, a pharmacy school's primary objective would be to ensure a population of knowledgeable + helpful pharmacists whose sole concern was the well-being of their patients. Unfortunately, this is capitalism and nobody *really* cares about anyone/thing but themselves. Oh, and we all seem to have an insatiable hunger for pieces of green cotton that are most likely causing a lot of illness that doctors must then treat. (What always puzzled me was how a $5 bill could be produced, i.e. printed, for the same cost as a $100 bill, and magically, upon entering circulation, the $100 bill's value is 20 times greater. Perhaps this should have been in the quant, or better yet, a writing prompt--I digress.) Anyway, my point is that the pharmacy schools' main concern is profit. They need to ensure that every student admitted into the program will indeed be a paying customer for 4 years and not drop-out. GPA is simply no longer a good indicator, much less a predictor, of how well a potential student will perform in grad. school. This is due to the variation in both the administrative policies of undergrad/cc's and the curricula being taught at these schools. Community colleges have had an open enrollment policy for some time, and many other institutions are adopting similar strategies. Strategies? you ask, for what? Again, the capitalistic template = profit BAMN. More students in the doors equals more money. If classes are too rigorous, students drop-out and profit is not realized. The solution is to "lighten the load." These students are receiving a disservice; it is better to fail attempting the real thing than to succeed in conquering its imposter.

Which brings us full circle back to the PCAT and the question of its necessity. It would appear that because undergrad schools can no longer accurately portray a student's abilities, the PCAT is justified in its existence. Failure on the part of the undergrad schools is merely a symptom of dysfunction, which is itself a symptom of the profit by any means necessary model. Why then, I beseech you, do we simply mask the symptoms rather than treat the underlying causes? And I want to be a pharmacist.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The group from '98-'03 serves as a control/baseline. I'll try my best to explain.

Imagine you were part of a study for a group of engineers who had built an obstacle course. (I know it's a stretch, but go with it). The purpose of this course was to determine your physical fitness; those who did well received high paying jobs in the Swedish army. Instead of just letting everyone run the same course, the engineers decided they were entitled to some fun since they had to spend the time designing the thing. Thus, they added all kinds of secondary parts to the course that could be "turned on or off." That is, they could be implemented in one run, and not on the next. Some of these secondary features would make the course more difficult, while others would make it easier. Each contestant could then theoretically get any number of combinations to deal with. The mainstays of the course would remain the same; this is the standard course with no variations:
5k swim
10k run
cone drill
wall climb

So, the first guy runs the course straight up and his time is noted.
The next guy runs the course but this time the wall is a steeper incline. His time is noted.
Next guy the wall becomes steeper and 3kg weights in his shoes for the 5k run. His time is noted.
This goes on and on with variations that either make the course easier to run or more difficult. Each variation is studied to determine what effect it had on the participants. Eventually, it is determined that making runners wear 5kg weights in their shoes adds about 2 minutes to their time. A 5 degree incline of the wall adds 10 minutes. A rope on the wall to assist runners decreases time by 5 minutes, etc. Every variable gets a time, +/-, associated with it. After a few thousand of these trials, the average time to run the standard course is determined to be 135 minutes. This average becomes the 50th percentile. In addition, each subset of the course gets assigned an average time.

Now when a new person tries out for the army, he is given a random draw in the obstacle course. He could get the standard course, in which case a time of 135 minutes would put him exactly in the 50th percentile. He could also be swimming in a bodysuit, a very large bodysuit. It was determined that this suit adds 25 minutes to a person's time. But suppose this guy was just a kick*ss swimmer, and his time even with the suit was better than the average. He now gets 25 additional minutes dropped from that subsection and his time becomes riduculously low. As a result, even if his other scores were just above average, he could end up in the 80th percentile.

So someone taking the PCAT, who has a very large vocabulary, could get "lucky" and draw the hardest vocab section available. His raw score could be 39/40, this would no doubt land him in the 99th percentile with a very high scaled score, say 480. This scaled score in turn pulls up his composite. On the other hand, this same person could get a very easy vocab section and score 39/40. His scaled score now might only be 450 and it fails to pull the composite up.

Also, the students who took the PCAT as late as Jan. '07 had more time for each section. There were more questions, but I'll take 8 more questions with 5 extra minutes anytime.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.