January 2017 PCAT

[franfranny]

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Anyone taking the January PCAT for the Fall 2017 cycle? I chose January so I could get more extracurriculars in before submitting my application around early December, and I'm only applying to schools that have February and March deadlines. Is anyone else in the same boat? Or do you think I should take an earlier PCAT date? 😱

 

[d[n_n]b]

Anyone taking the January PCAT for the Fall 2017 cycle? I chose January so I could get more extracurriculars in before submitting my application around early December, and I'm only applying to schools that have February and March deadlines. Is anyone else in the same boat? Or do you think I should take an earlier PCAT date? 😱

I'm taking PCAT January 2017 too! Been studying since late october and I feel like I don't have enough time. What are your study materials? I have kaplan, REA flashcard book (I have not use this), and princeton.

 

[franfranny]

I'm taking PCAT January 2017 too! Been studying since late october and I feel like I don't have enough time. What are your study materials? I have kaplan, REA flashcard book (I have not use this), and princeton.

Right?! Lol. I'm using the 2016-2017 Kaplan book and Dr. Collins

 

[lc1102002]

are there online courses that can be taken to prepare? and do these study guides also guide you through the essay portion?

 

[aar44]

are there online courses that can be taken to prepare? and do these study guides also guide you through the essay portion?

I believe they have an online course to prepare for the exam, they are very pricey so just practicing is enough for some people. I bought Kaplan, Dr. Collins and PCAT Destroyer but felt that Dr. Collins was the most effective. I took the exam for the first time in November and I give you some pointers. One thing I regret the most is re-learning the content when you can just study smart. Kaplan is amazing for Biology but is disappointing when it came to math, reading comprehension, and chemistry. For Chemistry, I would use Dr. Collins. If you do not know your content then I would just open an Chemistry textbook for clarity but if you do not have time just go with Dr. Collins. For Math, I used princeton review to go over some math concepts. I do realize it is VERY old but I thought it was helpful in brushing on calculus. I didn't have any problems with Calculus on the PCAT only because in college I had to take up to Calculus III and that helped prepared me. I did have some issues with timing myself on the math section especially. Nonetheless, Princeton, Dr. Collins and the Pearson practice exams were really good for the math section. For CR, just honestly practice as much from Kaplan and their GRE books. I use the Manhattan book just to get more practice. As for the essay, the study guide shows you what is an excellent essay. I bought this book call Master the PCAT Essay and it really helped me structure my essay and I would suggest it especially if you are lost on where to start.

I'm also taking the January 2017 PCAT exam so we all got this!! I am going to take the Kaplan practice exam and see if the questions are similar. I believe we all can do this. Just study smart. If you have one month left, just practice off exams.

 

[d[n_n]b]

Right?! Lol. I'm using the 2016-2017 Kaplan book and Dr. Collins

I heard good thing about dr Collins book and classes- it's just so expensive!

 

[d[n_n]b]

are there online courses that can be taken to prepare? and do these study guides also guide you through the essay portion?

I've also been watching YouTube videos for PCAT essay portion, maybe that would help a little bit too?

 

[d[n_n]b]

I believe they have an online course to prepare for the exam, they are very pricey so just practicing is enough for some people. I bought Kaplan, Dr. Collins and PCAT Destroyer but felt that Dr. Collins was the most effective. I took the exam for the first time in November and I give you some pointers. One thing I regret the most is re-learning the content when you can just study smart. Kaplan is amazing for Biology but is disappointing when it came to math, reading comprehension, and chemistry. For Chemistry, I would use Dr. Collins. If you do not know your content then I would just open an Chemistry textbook for clarity but if you do not have time just go with Dr. Collins. For Math, I used princeton review to go over some math concepts. I do realize it is VERY old but I thought it was helpful in brushing on calculus. I didn't have any problems with Calculus on the PCAT only because in college I had to take up to Calculus III and that helped prepared me. I did have some issues with timing myself on the math section especially. Nonetheless, Princeton, Dr. Collins and the Pearson practice exams were really good for the math section. For CR, just honestly practice as much from Kaplan and their GRE books. I use the Manhattan book just to get more practice. As for the essay, the study guide shows you what is an excellent essay. I bought this book call Master the PCAT Essay and it really helped me structure my essay and I would suggest it especially if you are lost on where to start.

I'm also taking the January 2017 PCAT exam so we all got this!! I am going to take the Kaplan practice exam and see if the questions are similar. I believe we all can do this. Just study smart. If you have one month left, just practice off exams.

Thank you for all of these pointers! This is very helpful. One question, I've been studying biology on Kaplan for 2 weeks now do you think that PCAT goes on little details? Or is it mostly knowing concepts?

 

[aar44]

Thank you for all of these pointers! This is very helpful. One question, I've been studying biology on Kaplan for 2 weeks now do you think that PCAT goes on little details? Or is it mostly knowing concepts?

Knowing your concepts will help you on the questions because for the biology section there was a lot of passage based questions which were conceptual. Some questions were directly from knowing the endocrine system for example. It varied a little bit but I think if you know your concepts you will so great. Just use the practice exams to your advantage(I know they are pretty expensive but getting one is so worth it)

 

[d[n_n]b]

Knowing your concepts will help you on the questions because for the biology section there was a lot of passage based questions which were conceptual. Some questions were directly from knowing the endocrine system for example. It varied a little bit but I think if you know your concepts you will so great. Just use the practice exams to your advantage(I know they are pretty expensive but getting one is so worth it)

Cool! Sound so great! I actually bought the practice test from Pearson but not the dr Collins

 

[laDemoiselle]

Hi, just took my PCAT yesterday and from my personal experience (only seriously studied for it for 3 weeks), I highly recommend doing the free timed practice exams Kaplan offers (with their book) for Critical Reading and Quantitative Reasoning. The level of difficulty is pretty similar to the actual PCAT IMO. Doing the Pearson practice tests also helps.

 

[d[n_n]b]

Hi, just took my PCAT yesterday and from my personal experience (only seriously studied for it for 3 weeks), I highly recommend doing the free timed practice exams Kaplan offers (with their book) for Critical Reading and Quantitative Reasoning. The level of difficulty is pretty similar to the actual PCAT IMO. Doing the Pearson practice tests also helps.

How was the math portion? Is it almost the same as kaplans practice test?

 

[laDemoiselle]

How was the math portion? Is it almost the same as kaplans practice test?

Pretty similar...maybe just a tad bit easier? The biggest thing is to manage your time wisely and go through the section quickly but as accurately as you can, which Kaplan is good for.

 

[doctortp]

I took the PCAT on Friday Nov.4, advice: buy the Pearson Practice Exams! Also, I had the newest version of Dr.Collins, in had 2 exact chemistry passages from it. About 5 single questions from Biology and a few quantitative questions (I was burnt out by then, didn't remember how many). I did rush through Math though, surprising I didn't have too many long word problems (maybe 5). But there were quite a few integral/derivative questions.

For the Pearson Practice Exams, you really can guess how some questions are asked and it's great for timing yourself. I went to the library in a small corner, put on headsets and pretended like I was taking the actual PCAT and timed it. Helped a lot.

Also, I noticed some people who got the newest version of Dr.Collins didn't bother to look at the updates. I received the January 2016 and July 2016 updates with all the previous updates too, and I thought it helped A LOT. Some of the questions that were repetitive in his practice tests on the updates were because they were on the actual PCAT.

For reference my score was:
Chem: 97 (Dr. Collins was the best for this)
Bio:85 (Dr. Collins helped, but I have an okay background in bio, didn't really study too much)
Quant: 77 (Dr. Collins helped and the pearson practice exams)
Reading: 70 (not sure how I managed this, I guess on the last 2 passages, each one had like 8 questions I think, seem like forever)
Comp: 92

Hope this helps the future test takers!

 

[d[n_n]b]

Pretty similar...maybe just a tad bit easier? The biggest thing is to manage your time wisely and go through the section quickly but as accurately as you can, which Kaplan is good for.

Sounds great! Thanks! I'll do the practice test on Kaplan