For future PCAT takers... I'd like to tell you what I went through.
Overall, I'm pretty happy how things went. I certainly don't expect a 99% because I'm horrible at standardized tests. But compared to the first two times I took this thing 😳 this time I was prepared.
The following material helped me tremendously:
CliffsQuickReview for Chemistry, Biology and CALCULUS. You can burn through these things fairly quickly. Reserve a day to a day and a half for each small book. And that calculus quickreview helped me sooooooo much. It refreshed all of the basic calculus I had 3 years ago.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), I severely overprepared for the Organic Chemistry on the exam. Over Christmas break, I read the entire 459 page Organic Chemistry book by J. Wm. Suggs. It's a book from 'Barron's College Review Series'. I SHOULD have read the much smaller book next to it in Booksamillion. It was called "ORGANIC CHEMISTRY I" !!!!! 😱 I highly suggest getting any review book that's specifically titled "Organic chemistry I". 😳 I think there's a cliffsquickreview for orgo but I couldn't find it.
Anyways, I found the Kaplan book to be waaaaaaaay too detailed for any type of quick review. And the quantitative section of Kaplan was a joke. I would personally suggest Kaplan only if you have an entire summer or winter vacation to study that monstrous thing.
And lastly, pray you get the 2PM scheduled exam! I don't know if I got it at 2PM because I applied early or what... but I'm so grateful because I got 9 hours of sleep, got to review some last minute junk and got to eat lunch before the exam. 🙂
Feel free to post your own lessons learned!
Overall, I'm pretty happy how things went. I certainly don't expect a 99% because I'm horrible at standardized tests. But compared to the first two times I took this thing 😳 this time I was prepared.
The following material helped me tremendously:
CliffsQuickReview for Chemistry, Biology and CALCULUS. You can burn through these things fairly quickly. Reserve a day to a day and a half for each small book. And that calculus quickreview helped me sooooooo much. It refreshed all of the basic calculus I had 3 years ago.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), I severely overprepared for the Organic Chemistry on the exam. Over Christmas break, I read the entire 459 page Organic Chemistry book by J. Wm. Suggs. It's a book from 'Barron's College Review Series'. I SHOULD have read the much smaller book next to it in Booksamillion. It was called "ORGANIC CHEMISTRY I" !!!!! 😱 I highly suggest getting any review book that's specifically titled "Organic chemistry I". 😳 I think there's a cliffsquickreview for orgo but I couldn't find it.
Anyways, I found the Kaplan book to be waaaaaaaay too detailed for any type of quick review. And the quantitative section of Kaplan was a joke. I would personally suggest Kaplan only if you have an entire summer or winter vacation to study that monstrous thing.
And lastly, pray you get the 2PM scheduled exam! I don't know if I got it at 2PM because I applied early or what... but I'm so grateful because I got 9 hours of sleep, got to review some last minute junk and got to eat lunch before the exam. 🙂
Feel free to post your own lessons learned!
