June 19 pcat

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omg!! what is wrong with this june pcat! what could be taking so long to just send the grades out....
 
I just received my scores in the mail today (I live in NY surprised it came that fast from texas).

Verbal: 413 69%
Biology: 411 66%
RC: 407 57% 🙂()
Quant: 425 80%
Chemistry 439 91% 🙂))
Composite: 419 79%

Writing 3/3

Do you think these scores are competitive enough for some pharmacy schools (not looking for the top ones).
 
I just received my scores in the mail today (I live in NY surprised it came that fast from texas).

Verbal: 413 69%
Biology: 411 66%
RC: 407 57% 🙂()
Quant: 425 80%
Chemistry 439 91% 🙂))
Composite: 419 79%

Writing 3/3

Do you think these scores are competitive enough for some pharmacy schools (not looking for the top ones).

A 79 isn't bad, but for most schools around an 80-85 is the "magic number". Although, one school I'm applying to only requires a 50, so theoretically, yeah, you could get in as long as your GPA is strong and you have a strong application in other areas, such as personal statement and LoRs.
 
To yellowori,
I live in Arkansas and am waiting for my scores to come in the mail too. I didn't get them today. I was aggravated and felt like i might as well fork over the $20 so I know how i did and so i will know if i need to sign up for the October test or not. I went on the site to buy the scores and i enter in all of the credit card information and hit purchase and the screen said that the site was down for maintenance. This is always how my luck goes I am sure a dog will chase down the mail man as he is about to deliver my scores and chew them up to nothing.
 
I am writung the pcat in August, so worried about the verbal and reading.
PPL who got high scores,tell me how you prepared for the verbal section?
is there anything that I can do for that?
thanks
 
INsane.
I caved and bought my scores online tonight even though I'll prolly get the report in the mail tomorrow.. but I was instantly blown away out of my mind to see my comp score of 99!!!
I posted on here june 19th, the day of my PCAT, about 1 hour afterward talking about how I felt I didn't perform very well... that the real deal was way harder than the Pearson practice test, but damn! I still cant believe it, I'm so happy!! 🙂

Verbal Ability 437 - 92%
Biology 430 - 88%
Reading Comprehension 435 - 90%
Quantitative Ability 455 - 97%
Chemistry 505 - 99%

Composite 452 - 99% 😀


I was expecting in the 70s% for verbal and reading....
80s% for bio
maybe mid 80s% for quant
possibly a 90% for chem
and I guess around an 80% for comp, based on what people were saying on here and based on the scores I got back on all three pearson practice tests.... I still cant believe it. :idea:

But anyway, I very much want to pass of my good fortune to anyone who might be retaking and am more than willing to provide info for ppl on strategies for preparation. I prepared a little differently than most people I read about here on SDN. I have posted on some other threads about my strategies/opinions of preparation if anybody wants to look just click to my other posts.
Or.. please feel free to ask me questions via personal message, that is the best way I believe. Or could get in touch via email, just ask over personal message. I feel very blessed to be in this position. I tutor students here in Austin, TX for chem/bio/math and PCAT and would like to extend a hand to students on here. I am confident I can help. 👍
congrats on your score! What sources did you use to study for this? I'm using kaplan, cliff notes and dr collins right now and i find that their practices are all so different. I just don't know which one represents the real exam the most.
 
Sure, it helps for me to know if you are a first time taker, what your goal score range is give or take, and what areas you are struggling with, but here is what i generally did:

Dr. Collin's with Kaplan exclusively (self-studying, no class) + the 3 pearson practice tests

I began about ~30 days out and spent roughly an hour of medium-intense prep per day every day, taking one timed section (bio, chem etc..) per study session, so one timed section per day, which I scored and reviewed also. This is HUGE, I attribute my score to finishing EVERY section with over 10 minutes to spare everytime. all the time. this gives you time ro review marked questions what were more difficult. and the speed comes with practice taking timed sections, one at a time, dont worry about full length tests untill about 15 days out.
I also studied one section of material each day from either Dr. Collins/Kaplan big book. Def purchase the Dr. Collins materials now now now! if you havent already and go to barnes&noble and pick up a kaplan book

Verbal - studied collins word lists/some of kaplans - this is section that is hard to 'improve on' persay unless it is your priority, simply bc most of our vocabularies are 'set' at least 90% by now. The chance of finding and remembering one little word from studies on the real PCAT are low, and for this reason I probably spent the least time preparing for this section, however! do prepare for this section, as it can be finished very quickly with practice and provide you much time to review your verbal answers. so i high score is likely for the reason of it not taking as long. the sentence completion aspects were more challenging than the analogies for me, but with practice working many problems, they become easier.

bio-the big kaplan book has an unbelievable amount of bio info, if you knew all of it, you would get 99% on bio everytime, and probably get an honorary bio Ph.D. from a prestigious university haha... point is, there is wayy more info that is necessary to study i.e. intense details on plant vasculature.... so dont get sucked in to this massive tome of information/intimidated by it either. Dr. collins does have all the necessary information but in slightly different presentation. *important* spend time with both collins and kaplan bio info and see what presentation suits you the best. I examined one section of the kaplan bio big book every day in addition to me daily timed section, this allowed me to at least be exposed to all of the material in the kaplan big book, also it helps to review the post section quizzes in the kaplan big book. for collins bio, aim for one section every few days, bc the sections are far more dense and long.

reading comp - this is another one of those where practice taking times sections will get you the farthest. i improved alot after my first 3 or so timed sections. dr collins rc questions are too easy compared to the real PCAT by FAR. but they are good to begin studying with. Kaplans are slightly more realistic, the best are the ones in the three pearson practice tests. on the real PCAT i was blown away by the difficulty of the rc passages/questions compared to collins, which i had spent most of my time prepping with. dont do that, rely more on the kaplan rc passages and pearons practice exams

quant- collins collins collins, wouldnt mess with kaplan here, their calc prep was insufficient. i realllllly needed calc help coming in and with the collins calc, although pretty intense to get a grip on, i became a calc legend haha... maybe.. point is if you can perform well on the collins calc, then you are in good shape, id check out kaplan to but dont rely on it or feel as safe if you are scoring well on it but not collins quant sections. every once and a while there will be a integrative calc/trig word problem that would just blow my face off, but other than that this prep method helped me (97%)

chem- alot to say here. this is prob the most importnt section on the exam. based on my statistical analysis of 21 full scores ive analyzed, this is the section with the most scaled score points per percentile rank (SS/PR) what does this mean? it means there is the biggest spread in the distribution here, meaning it makes/breaks alot of ppl bc the scaled score from here typically affects the comp % a little more bc of the higher range (ppl making sub 400s to above 500). so focus on thie section, also bc it is maybe the most important for consideration by schools. its huge, and its hard. Gen chem is tested about 75% to ochem at about 25%, so first off know gen chem. collins is the best in my opinion for chem, their practice sections were excellent prep, the best prep of kaplan/collins for any discipline on the PCAT in my opinion, if anything get collins just for chem (and kaplan for bio)
i was scoring in the high 90s consistently (this is raw percentile as in 46/48 q's correct) on the collins practice tests and i beat the cutoff for the 99%ile on real PCAT chem by more than 50 points (highest ive ever seen 🙂) so it def works and can get you there. also as an aside, beating a 99%ile cutoff for a section helps out your composite score with those extra points i.e. i had an 88%ile in bio but my comp was still 99%.... back to chem, most important gen chem concepts: thermochemistry, periodic table trends, orbital shapes/configurations, GAS LAWS!! mult. questions always!, and nuclear isotopes. these are the topics i would stress. use collins, go over a new section of material in it each day so you cover it a few times total in its entirety, take all the practice timed sections and you will be at your max im confident. for organic chemistry, you will have to know reactions, and this scares the **** out of ppl i know. but you need to. every practice section/exam ive ever seen had at least one organic reaction. know naming as well, as well as functional groups. collins does a great job with this, kaplans organic chem is insufficient when it comes to reactions, and collins is a little bit also, ive yet to come across a great PCAT organic chem reactions prep system. I was helped by the fact that ive been an ochem tutor for 2 years now, so i honestly probably cannot accurately judge how well collins/kaplan prepare one for organic chem. but the collins naming stuff looked the easiest to grasp as far as presentation style.

essay: zero prep. but collins has awesome prompts that seemed right in line with what i saw on the real PCAT.

overall: dont kill yourself, i was studying for max 1.5 hours a day, sometimes less, usually less but did so consistantly, HARD, every single day for about ~30 days.

everyday:
- ~30 pages in kaplan bio big book ~15 minutes
- 1 collins timed practice section, scored, reviewed, alternated topics each day to stay fresh ~45minutes
- ~2-3 various sections in the collins packets as review ~20minutes

last ~15 days or so:
-I took a pearson practice PCAT every 5 days
-stressed lingering doubts i had on specific subjects (calc for me)
-finished off all the collins timed sections until I had done all of them
-finished the kaplan big bio book
-finished all collins materials

after the real PCAT: i thought id severely bungled rc, and verbal, done not great on bio, decent on quant and ok on chem. dont be discouraged if you thought the test was savage. i did and came out fine.

please let me know any other questions
 
Sure, it helps for me to know if you are a first time taker, what your goal score range is give or take, and what areas you are struggling with, but here is what i generally did:

Dr. Collin's with Kaplan exclusively (self-studying, no class) + the 3 pearson practice tests

I began about ~30 days out and spent roughly an hour of medium-intense prep per day every day, taking one timed section (bio, chem etc..) per study session, so one timed section per day, which I scored and reviewed also. This is HUGE, I attribute my score to finishing EVERY section with over 10 minutes to spare everytime. all the time. this gives you time ro review marked questions what were more difficult. and the speed comes with practice taking timed sections, one at a time, dont worry about full length tests untill about 15 days out.
I also studied one section of material each day from either Dr. Collins/Kaplan big book. Def purchase the Dr. Collins materials now now now! if you havent already and go to barnes&noble and pick up a kaplan book

Verbal - studied collins word lists/some of kaplans - this is section that is hard to 'improve on' persay unless it is your priority, simply bc most of our vocabularies are 'set' at least 90% by now. The chance of finding and remembering one little word from studies on the real PCAT are low, and for this reason I probably spent the least time preparing for this section, however! do prepare for this section, as it can be finished very quickly with practice and provide you much time to review your verbal answers. so i high score is likely for the reason of it not taking as long. the sentence completion aspects were more challenging than the analogies for me, but with practice working many problems, they become easier.

bio-the big kaplan book has an unbelievable amount of bio info, if you knew all of it, you would get 99% on bio everytime, and probably get an honorary bio Ph.D. from a prestigious university haha... point is, there is wayy more info that is necessary to study i.e. intense details on plant vasculature.... so dont get sucked in to this massive tome of information/intimidated by it either. Dr. collins does have all the necessary information but in slightly different presentation. *important* spend time with both collins and kaplan bio info and see what presentation suits you the best. I examined one section of the kaplan bio big book every day in addition to me daily timed section, this allowed me to at least be exposed to all of the material in the kaplan big book, also it helps to review the post section quizzes in the kaplan big book. for collins bio, aim for one section every few days, bc the sections are far more dense and long.

reading comp - this is another one of those where practice taking times sections will get you the farthest. i improved alot after my first 3 or so timed sections. dr collins rc questions are too easy compared to the real PCAT by FAR. but they are good to begin studying with. Kaplans are slightly more realistic, the best are the ones in the three pearson practice tests. on the real PCAT i was blown away by the difficulty of the rc passages/questions compared to collins, which i had spent most of my time prepping with. dont do that, rely more on the kaplan rc passages and pearons practice exams

quant- collins collins collins, wouldnt mess with kaplan here, their calc prep was insufficient. i realllllly needed calc help coming in and with the collins calc, although pretty intense to get a grip on, i became a calc legend haha... maybe.. point is if you can perform well on the collins calc, then you are in good shape, id check out kaplan to but dont rely on it or feel as safe if you are scoring well on it but not collins quant sections. every once and a while there will be a integrative calc/trig word problem that would just blow my face off, but other than that this prep method helped me (97%)

chem- alot to say here. this is prob the most importnt section on the exam. based on my statistical analysis of 21 full scores ive analyzed, this is the section with the most scaled score points per percentile rank (SS/PR) what does this mean? it means there is the biggest spread in the distribution here, meaning it makes/breaks alot of ppl bc the scaled score from here typically affects the comp % a little more bc of the higher range (ppl making sub 400s to above 500). so focus on thie section, also bc it is maybe the most important for consideration by schools. its huge, and its hard. Gen chem is tested about 75% to ochem at about 25%, so first off know gen chem. collins is the best in my opinion for chem, their practice sections were excellent prep, the best prep of kaplan/collins for any discipline on the PCAT in my opinion, if anything get collins just for chem (and kaplan for bio)
i was scoring in the high 90s consistently (this is raw percentile as in 46/48 q's correct) on the collins practice tests and i beat the cutoff for the 99%ile on real PCAT chem by more than 50 points (highest ive ever seen 🙂) so it def works and can get you there. also as an aside, beating a 99%ile cutoff for a section helps out your composite score with those extra points i.e. i had an 88%ile in bio but my comp was still 99%.... back to chem, most important gen chem concepts: thermochemistry, periodic table trends, orbital shapes/configurations, GAS LAWS!! mult. questions always!, and nuclear isotopes. these are the topics i would stress. use collins, go over a new section of material in it each day so you cover it a few times total in its entirety, take all the practice timed sections and you will be at your max im confident. for organic chemistry, you will have to know reactions, and this scares the **** out of ppl i know. but you need to. every practice section/exam ive ever seen had at least one organic reaction. know naming as well, as well as functional groups. collins does a great job with this, kaplans organic chem is insufficient when it comes to reactions, and collins is a little bit also, ive yet to come across a great PCAT organic chem reactions prep system. I was helped by the fact that ive been an ochem tutor for 2 years now, so i honestly probably cannot accurately judge how well collins/kaplan prepare one for organic chem. but the collins naming stuff looked the easiest to grasp as far as presentation style.

essay: zero prep. but collins has awesome prompts that seemed right in line with what i saw on the real PCAT.

overall: dont kill yourself, i was studying for max 1.5 hours a day, sometimes less, usually less but did so consistantly, HARD, every single day for about ~30 days.

everyday:
- ~30 pages in kaplan bio big book ~15 minutes
- 1 collins timed practice section, scored, reviewed, alternated topics each day to stay fresh ~45minutes
- ~2-3 various sections in the collins packets as review ~20minutes

last ~15 days or so:
-I took a pearson practice PCAT every 5 days
-stressed lingering doubts i had on specific subjects (calc for me)
-finished off all the collins timed sections until I had done all of them
-finished the kaplan big bio book
-finished all collins materials

after the real PCAT: i thought id severely bungled rc, and verbal, done not great on bio, decent on quant and ok on chem. dont be discouraged if you thought the test was savage. i did and came out fine.

please let me know any other questions
wow thanks wmw! that was the longest post i've ever read. definately great advice. just wonderin,g for Dr collins, alot of the questions are like "when the virus that causes chicken pox is reactivated, what does it cause" i've never learned this kind of detail in any of my classes so woud this type of question ever appear on the exam? I find that when I'm doing dr collins bio, I get in the high 70s just because I always get these type of questions wrong. othewise, i can easily get over 80 or even 90. any suggestions there?
 
Hm, the chicken pox thing is basic Microbio. When it's re-activated, the person gets Shingles, so I would say it's fair game for it to appear on the exam. I would definitely go over your basic microbes from things like shape to disease before the exam.
 
Hey I was just wondering If anyone could help me interpret my scores. This is the first time I took the PCAT. I got my scores yesterday.

The break down of my pcat was:
verbal: 427- 86%
Bio: 421- 80%
Reading: 419- 75%
Quantitative ability: 416- 69%
Chem: 409- 59%
Composite: 418- 77%
Writing: 2.5/3.0


I studied relatively little (maybe 4 days a week) for about 3 weeks before the test. I know I messed up on chem really bad because I wasted a lot of time on a problem. My GPA is about a 3.75 (all A's and A-'s). I've only completed one year of undergrad and hopefully I'm planning to apply this fall. Do u think I should retake it? Do you think my chances of getting in are good? I haven't taken ochem 2, microbio, or calc yet, but I'm planning to next year. I won't have a degree when I apply, I'm only going to fulfill the pre-reqs and apply.
 
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Hey I was just wondering If you (or anyone reading this) could help me interpret my scores. This is the first time taking PCAT. I got my scores yesterday. I'm applying to University of Houston, so if anyone is familiar with their program, please help!

The break down of my pcat was:
verbal: 427- 86%
Bio: 421- 80%
Reading: 419- 75%
Quantitative ability: 416- 69%
Chem: 409- 59%
Composite: 418- 77%
Writing: 2.5/3.0


I studied relatively little (maybe 4 days a week) for about 3 weeks before the test. I know I messed up on chem really bad because I wasted a lot of time on a problem. My GPA is about a 3.75 (all A's and A-'s). I've only completed one year of undergrad (I'm 19) and hopefully I'm planning to apply this september. Do u think I should retake it? Do you think my chances of getting in are good? I haven't taken ochem 2, microbio, or calc yet, but I'm planning to next year.

I'm not very familiar with University of Houston... but just based on your Chem, I would probably really consider re-taking, also especially since you only have one year of undergrad so I'm assuming that there aren't really any upper division classes, nor will you have a bachelors before attending.
It also sounds like you're sure you will be able to perform better since it was a timing problem this time.

Maybe you can boost your quant above at least 75 also to further increase your chances. Besides like 200 bucks, what have you got to lose?
 
Yea both the chem and quant were messy because I took up most of the time to solve like one or two problems. I honestly thought I failed haha...(i had almost 10 problems that I randomly bubbled for chem and math).. I was pretty shocked with a 77% composite. I agree with you, I don't have much to loose besides the money involved haha. I just gotta study more and try to hit at least 90% on a couple subjects.

I'm planning to get in some upper level science classes (I finished most standard ones like bio1&2,genchem1&2,ochem1) last year... Do you really think it makes a difference if I take upper level science classes? I was thinking about immunobiology? maybe anatomy and physiology also?
 
I definitely think that it'll make a difference taking a few upper levels. A good majority of schools actually require classes like anatomy and physiology or microbiology so I'm fairly positive that it'll benefit you and will only hurt you if you happen to perform horribly in them. It'll provide them with information that you can do well in upper level coursework and thus hopefully, be able to handle pharmacy school coursework. It'll also make you look like a much more serious and competitive applicant imo.
 
wow thanks wmw! that was the longest post i've ever read. definately great advice. just wonderin,g for Dr collins, alot of the questions are like "when the virus that causes chicken pox is reactivated, what does it cause" i've never learned this kind of detail in any of my classes so woud this type of question ever appear on the exam? I find that when I'm doing dr collins bio, I get in the high 70s just because I always get these type of questions wrong. othewise, i can easily get over 80 or even 90. any suggestions there?

Well you question is a bit vague, but yes, there are application questions that will require you to apply microbio topic, sometimes several at a time. the shingles questions is a 'either know it of you dont' question, the pcat has alot of those, whereas a test like the mcat has less of these type. Cover as much ground in the kaplan bio book as you can for these types of questions.
 
Hey I was just wondering If anyone could help me interpret my scores. This is the first time I took the PCAT. I got my scores yesterday.

The break down of my pcat was:
verbal: 427- 86%
Bio: 421- 80%
Reading: 419- 75%
Quantitative ability: 416- 69%
Chem: 409- 59%
Composite: 418- 77%
Writing: 2.5/3.0


I studied relatively little (maybe 4 days a week) for about 3 weeks before the test. I know I messed up on chem really bad because I wasted a lot of time on a problem. My GPA is about a 3.75 (all A's and A-'s). I've only completed one year of undergrad and hopefully I'm planning to apply this fall. Do u think I should retake it? Do you think my chances of getting in are good? I haven't taken ochem 2, microbio, or calc yet, but I'm planning to next year. I won't have a degree when I apply, I'm only going to fulfill the pre-reqs and apply.

For petes sake, at least finish ur junior year before applying. College has a lot of good opportunities to build a strong networks with other friends, and to get the basicas down for upper level science classes. I find that people who apply with just pre reqs struggle in pschool because they only have the basics down. If u want to apply early, go for it. but I wouldn't

hahah me: COLLEGE=FUN why let the fun end 2 years earlier?😀
 
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