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This is an extension of a previous thread that I posted containing some general study tips for the PCATS. If you wanna check it out click this link: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/tips-to-help-you-dominate-the-pcat.1178128/ As requested by a user, this post is focusing on the specifics with respect to how to excel on the chemistry portion of the exam - I ended up getting a 95: [Disclaimer - This is all subjective and based off my personal experience - if you feel I am wrong or misleading in any way please feel free to speak up]
* = inherently important
1. Structure - The chemistry section is 35 minutes long and you will be graded on 40 out of 48 questions. Eight passage based questions are experimental and don't count towards your final score. It hasn't been determined if all of them don't count for the 2015/2016 exams so don't hold me against that. Keep this in mind when taking the exam. Personally, I would flag the seemingly intimidating passage questions and finish the smaller questions first to conserve time. Now, if you plug "chem section pcat" into google you'll end up seeing a bunch of different responses saying how it's x% inorganic chemistry, y% organic chemistry, and z% biochem. I won't say they are wrong but none of these breakdowns were consistent with my exam. There is, however, a general agreement that it's light on the biochem, which I found to be true.
2. Depth of Material - To be frank, chemistry is the sole most important section of this exam. This is obvious as pharmacy school involves a great deal of chem (and biology but that's not generally weighted as heavily). Now, with so much to study you might be concerned by what concepts to focus on and to what extent you should focus on them. If I were to rank the three subcategories based off depth of material (from greatest to least): Inorganic > Organic > Biochem ... one might not expect this trend considering the inherent difficult of the latter. Although organic and biochem are highly conceptual, there are ways to conceptualize inorganic in a way that puts the numbers into words (e.g. kinetic molecular theory) and they will do just that. These core concepts are going to makeup the bulk of this post.
3. Inorganic Chemistry - This portion is where most of my studying was dedicated because I haven't touched inorganic in 4 years. Just because I mentioned how they conceptualize the math does not mean there will be no math. Although there is no calculator, you will be responsible for calculating. This will involve simple math that you can easily work out with a scratch pad. A few big concepts that you should keep in mind are listed below [Note: there is more material that you absolutely need to learn but for the purpose of this post I'm focusing on big concepts that I found to be imperative]
6. Good luck! - As I mentioned before, if there is anything that you feel I missed, should omit/revise, or just general questions you have, don't hesitate to message or reply.
* = inherently important
1. Structure - The chemistry section is 35 minutes long and you will be graded on 40 out of 48 questions. Eight passage based questions are experimental and don't count towards your final score. It hasn't been determined if all of them don't count for the 2015/2016 exams so don't hold me against that. Keep this in mind when taking the exam. Personally, I would flag the seemingly intimidating passage questions and finish the smaller questions first to conserve time. Now, if you plug "chem section pcat" into google you'll end up seeing a bunch of different responses saying how it's x% inorganic chemistry, y% organic chemistry, and z% biochem. I won't say they are wrong but none of these breakdowns were consistent with my exam. There is, however, a general agreement that it's light on the biochem, which I found to be true.
2. Depth of Material - To be frank, chemistry is the sole most important section of this exam. This is obvious as pharmacy school involves a great deal of chem (and biology but that's not generally weighted as heavily). Now, with so much to study you might be concerned by what concepts to focus on and to what extent you should focus on them. If I were to rank the three subcategories based off depth of material (from greatest to least): Inorganic > Organic > Biochem ... one might not expect this trend considering the inherent difficult of the latter. Although organic and biochem are highly conceptual, there are ways to conceptualize inorganic in a way that puts the numbers into words (e.g. kinetic molecular theory) and they will do just that. These core concepts are going to makeup the bulk of this post.
3. Inorganic Chemistry - This portion is where most of my studying was dedicated because I haven't touched inorganic in 4 years. Just because I mentioned how they conceptualize the math does not mean there will be no math. Although there is no calculator, you will be responsible for calculating. This will involve simple math that you can easily work out with a scratch pad. A few big concepts that you should keep in mind are listed below [Note: there is more material that you absolutely need to learn but for the purpose of this post I'm focusing on big concepts that I found to be imperative]
3a. Trends - Understand how these work. This includes *electronegativity, ionization energy, atom size, electron affinity, *valence electrons, metallic/nonmetallic. These trends led to the creation of the periodic table and they explain a lot about individual elements and how they interact (i.e. chemical properties). Really understanding how these work is crucial and will allow you to grasp other, more difficult, concepts.
3b. Constants and solutions - This is chemistry. Chemistry is involved with a great deal of solutions and with that comes your constants. I'm talking about the solubility product constant and the equilibrium constant. Know what they mean, how the expressions are defined, and how to manipulate them. This involves understanding how they relate to solutions. Really try to grasp how solutions work, types of concentrations, and their respective formulas (molarity, molality, etc). Colligative properties and knowing how acids/bases behave in solution is important as well.
3c. Gases - Don't need to say much here. Know how gases behave. Kinetic molecular model will say it all. PV = nRT and make sure you understand that this is an ideal gas law. There are deviations and they regularly manipulate gases in this non-ideal world.
3d. Thermodynamics - Entropy (S), enthalpy (H), and Gibbs free energy (G). Exothermic/endothermic reactions, activation energies, spontaneity, non-spontaneity, their respective sign conventions, and how they appear on graphs. Know it. It's one of the less difficult concepts and absolutely worth spending some time on.
4. Organic Chemistry - I'm sure you can imagine that this is where most will feel intimidated, but have no fear! I found that the orgo questions didn't go into nearly as much depth as you would in say an O.Chem course. Be aware that the o.chem is based off what you learned in orgo 1 NOT 2. This section is the textbook definition of simply knowing the core concepts. This part will sound like a lot but it's really not. The pcat generally scratches the surface concept of organic. Please don't take that statement with a grain of salt, however, as O.chem is inherently dense and challenging. (Tip: Notecards excel the most here)3b. Constants and solutions - This is chemistry. Chemistry is involved with a great deal of solutions and with that comes your constants. I'm talking about the solubility product constant and the equilibrium constant. Know what they mean, how the expressions are defined, and how to manipulate them. This involves understanding how they relate to solutions. Really try to grasp how solutions work, types of concentrations, and their respective formulas (molarity, molality, etc). Colligative properties and knowing how acids/bases behave in solution is important as well.
3c. Gases - Don't need to say much here. Know how gases behave. Kinetic molecular model will say it all. PV = nRT and make sure you understand that this is an ideal gas law. There are deviations and they regularly manipulate gases in this non-ideal world.
3d. Thermodynamics - Entropy (S), enthalpy (H), and Gibbs free energy (G). Exothermic/endothermic reactions, activation energies, spontaneity, non-spontaneity, their respective sign conventions, and how they appear on graphs. Know it. It's one of the less difficult concepts and absolutely worth spending some time on.
4a. Reactions - So I could have mentioned reactions in inorganic but I decided to tie it all together here. Know your inorganic reactions (acid/base, double/single displacement, oxidation/redox rxns, etc). As for O.chem, this is huge. Don't bother worrying over how to synthesize using alkynes, alkenes, etc. That leans more towards orgo 2. Don't get this confused with not fully grasping the different types of reactions, the reagents and conditions they react under. This will include Sn1, Sn2, E1, E2, *Addition, Oxidative Cleave, *Oxidation/Reduction, Anything involving carboxylic acids and the carboxylic acid derivatives, Esterification/**Condensation, **Acid/Base Hydrolysis (ties into carboxylic acid). Sounds like a lot but like I said, Dr. Collins really does a good job at explaining these to the degree of which you'll need to understand them for the exam. I recommend knowing your oxidizing/reduction agents, the regents that are involved with their respective reactions, reactivity trends (i.e. sn2 = methyl group), and markovnikov/anti-markovnikov. The questions are generally structured as "predict the product" or "name the missing regent or reactants".
4b. Nomenclature - Shouldn't really have to say nearly as much here. If you don't know what you're working with, then you simply cannot do the reactions. Know it. Dr. Collins also does a good job here and so does Khan Academy, which goes a little deeper than necessary, nonetheless, useful. You MUST be familiar with your functional groups. It wouldn't hurt to do a few practice problems found online to get your nomenclature down quick.
4c. Properties of Compounds - This will include your bond angles, molecular/electronic geometry, s/p bonds, how solubility/boiling points are defined with respect to organic compounds (carbon based), nucleophiles/electrophiles, and different definitions of what an acid/base it. Generally, this is the least likely to give you much trouble. Although important to thoroughly understand for the tougher material found in an o.chem course, I noticed that the concepts don't carry over to the reaction side nearly as profoundly. Be aware of your small here and there things though. An example would be Cl3-C-CH2OH vs. CH3CH2OH - which is the strong acid; it would be the first option because of the electronegativity of Cl making it easier to ionize hydrogen.
5. Biochemistry - No need to go into great detail here so I'm going to keep it short. If you use the Dr. Collin and study the biology section efficiently, you will notice many reoccurrences here. I would say this holds true most significantly for the Nucleic acid portion. There are 4 main categories: Proteins, Carbohydrates, Lipids, and Nucleic acids. Since we're talking about the chemistry aspect of biology here you will have to be familiar with your condensation/hydrolysis reactions. They are the main rxns in forming the key bonds in said categories. For nucleic acids, pinpoint the differences between their structures (AGCTU). As I said, this is a short category and fairly straight forward. Out of the four I would say your Proteins and Carbs are the most important with Proteins slightly reigning over Carbs. Please don't underestimate the latter, however, because it's all important and, to be quite honest, this is what you're going to be learning in Pharm school. 4b. Nomenclature - Shouldn't really have to say nearly as much here. If you don't know what you're working with, then you simply cannot do the reactions. Know it. Dr. Collins also does a good job here and so does Khan Academy, which goes a little deeper than necessary, nonetheless, useful. You MUST be familiar with your functional groups. It wouldn't hurt to do a few practice problems found online to get your nomenclature down quick.
4c. Properties of Compounds - This will include your bond angles, molecular/electronic geometry, s/p bonds, how solubility/boiling points are defined with respect to organic compounds (carbon based), nucleophiles/electrophiles, and different definitions of what an acid/base it. Generally, this is the least likely to give you much trouble. Although important to thoroughly understand for the tougher material found in an o.chem course, I noticed that the concepts don't carry over to the reaction side nearly as profoundly. Be aware of your small here and there things though. An example would be Cl3-C-CH2OH vs. CH3CH2OH - which is the strong acid; it would be the first option because of the electronegativity of Cl making it easier to ionize hydrogen.
6. Good luck! - As I mentioned before, if there is anything that you feel I missed, should omit/revise, or just general questions you have, don't hesitate to message or reply.
