HELP! PCAT advice

[pharmdale91]

Hi,
I took the pcat yesterday and did pretty badly with my composite in the mid 40's. I did really bad in reading comprehension which was 16 . What can I do to raise this to a decent percentile besides simply reading more? (Had to click about 10 answers randomly due to lack of time)

How did you guys maximize your bio, chem and math sections? I get ok grades for those three but never near perfect like some of the other posts I have seen.
Also, where is a good place I can find similar bio questions with passages like the ones on the real exams? They didn't have any of those on my Dr. Collins exams.

I went through about 9 exams (re-doing a couple) of Dr. Collins and studied from the 2015-16 Kaplan book in about 2 weeks. I thought the kaplan book was dense enough so I didn't look over the bio/chem study guides from Dr. Collins- did those study guides help?

I am retaking the pcat at the beginning of November so I would love to have any advice which may or may not work for me.

I have a 3.1 GPA with not much pharm experience at the moment so I really need to get 90+ on this next exam.

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[Albino]

Don't know about reading, but I recommend study Dr. Collins for Chemistry, maths, and biology. Use KAPLAN to supplement biology.
I only studied chem, bio, and maths and it reflected in my score:

VA: 35%
Bio: 95%
Reading: 39%
Quantitative: 91%
Chem: 99%

Composite: 93%

Maths:
My best subject is maths and I was very disappointed with a 91%. I took my sweet time at the beginning and ended up with more than 10 questions to guess within 1 minute. My advice is to skip long questions for later and answer short and simple questions first. This section is all about time. Dr. Collins has a very good preparation material.

Chemistry and Biology:
Dr. Collins for Chemistry. Dr. Collins + KAPLAN for Biology. Don't just memorize the questions, try to understand and remember the concepts. Ask yourself questions, and go back and figure out what you did wrong in each practice test.

KAPLAN has a very good verbal ability section, I just didn't have time to study 1800 vocabs. I heard KAPLAN is also good for reading.

I wasted a lot of time in the reading and maths, be decisive and try to manage time. Good luck!

 

[pharmdale91]

Don't know about reading, but I recommend study Dr. Collins for Chemistry, maths, and biology. Use KAPLAN to supplement biology.
I only studied chem, bio, and maths and it reflected in my score:

VA: 35%
Bio: 95%
Reading: 39%
Quantitative: 91%
Chem: 99%

Composite: 93%

Maths:
My best subject is maths and I was very disappointed with a 91%. I took my sweet time at the beginning and ended up with more than 10 questions to guess within 1 minute. My advice is to skip long questions for later and answer short and simple questions first. This section is all about time. Dr. Collins has a very good preparation material.

Chemistry and Biology:
Dr. Collins for Chemistry. Dr. Collins + KAPLAN for Biology. Don't just memorize the questions, try to understand and remember the concepts. Ask yourself questions, and go back and figure out what you did wrong in each practice test.

KAPLAN has a very good verbal ability section, I just didn't have time to study 1800 vocabs. I heard KAPLAN is also good for reading.

I wasted a lot of time in the reading and maths, be decisive and try to manage time. Good luck!

For math, chem and bio did you use the Dr. Collins study guides at all? I just jumped straight into the practice exams without looking through the study guides (only using kaplan for info)
How many times did you need to go over all of the Dr. C exams?

I think I'm particularly bad at Quantitative (trig and precalc) so is there something other than Dr. Collins anyone has tried?

 

[pharmdale91]

How did you efficiently do well on the bio questions with passages? Read everything first or read/analyze figures as you answer each question?

 

[spintius]

To do well on the Bio and Chem you do need a solid foundation in your prerequisite courses. The level of question is not too deep but the answer choices are tricky enough to make you fall if you don't know your answer really well.

For trig and calc I have to learnt a lot around the web and pick up different things here and there since my major is Chemistry.

 

[Albino]

For math, chem and bio did you use the Dr. Collins study guides at all? I just jumped straight into the practice exams without looking through the study guides (only using kaplan for info)
How many times did you need to go over all of the Dr. C exams?

I think I'm particularly bad at Quantitative (trig and precalc) so is there something other than Dr. Collins anyone has tried?

I read the study guides for both. Probably twice and went over it before the test. I took all of the practice exams once (avg somewhere around 45/48), and went back to check on the ones I got wrong. It depends on your background knowledge really.

For maths, it is all about time management and understanding the concepts. If you can do a problem without looking it up or much hesitation, you understand it.

I hope it helps, I don't go on this forum that often.

 

[Albino]

How did you efficiently do well on the bio questions with passages? Read everything first or read/analyze figures as you answer each question?

It depends on if you already have a background knowledge of the topic or not. If you do, you can answer most of the questions without reading the passage, do be careful for questions that are subjective to what is being discussed in the passage though.