M
MRSA Sucks
I'm doing the practice exam in Kaplan 2010-11 workbook and although the math section is not that hard, I can never finish within the 40 minutes allowed. Does anybody else have this problem? Thanks.
-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
I've taken several Kaplan tests, as well as one of the Pearson practice PCATs, and I've never been able to finish the math section without having to completely guess on 5-10 questions due to running out of time. I'm a pretty good math student, mostly A's but I have a lot of trouble doing math QUICKLY.
People say you should skip the tough questions and do the easy ones first but that doesn't seem to help me. I'm hoping to eke out a 50% on the math :-(.
People say you should skip the tough questions and do the easy ones first but that doesn't seem to help me. I'm hoping to eke out a 50% on the math :-(.
M
MRSA Sucks
Hey thanks for your reply. Did you guess on 5 questions in math? Guessing on only 5 math questions is still pretty good for the 40 minutes.
Best advice here would be to skip any question that you can't answer right away. The math, for the most part, is so elementary that you don't want to have to end up blind guessing the last few questions if they're ones you definitely would know otherwise.
The first time I took the PCAT, I thought I was on really good pace but I still ran out of time. I randomly bubbled all B's on the last 5 questions and somehow wound up with 95. I'm guessing very few people can finish all the questions, so don't sweat it.
This time, however, I'm going to guess any question that I can't think of a solution immediately.
The first time I took the PCAT, I thought I was on really good pace but I still ran out of time. I randomly bubbled all B's on the last 5 questions and somehow wound up with 95. I'm guessing very few people can finish all the questions, so don't sweat it.
This time, however, I'm going to guess any question that I can't think of a solution immediately.
M
MRSA Sucks
That happened to me too when I took the PCAT.
I answered the first 20 and then went to the end and worked backwards. I heard they have easier questions there as a reward for people who finish. I'm not sure that is true but I bubbled B on more than five questions and got a 92.
Good luck to anyone taking the PCAT. The math section is probably good for your mental toughness but I wouldn't want to repeat the experience.
Good luck to anyone taking the PCAT. The math section is probably good for your mental toughness but I wouldn't want to repeat the experience.
i forgot where i read this but are you suppose to bubble B for the guesses because B is more frequent?
i can just be making this up in my head.
i can just be making this up in my head.
So umm I'm for sure guessing B when I don't know the answers...95 or 92?...yes please. But yeah when I was doing the practice tests if you skip the ones that you read through and have to think too much about, which for me was about 5 questions, I went through the other ones in enough time. Hopefully I do the same when taking the actual test on...SATURDAY. YIKES.
If you run out of time, just bubble "B" on everything and then go back to see the ones you can do. I didn't realize that until AFTER I did the chemistry section, so my chemistry was way lower than all the rest (I left about 9 blank).
Look what Pearson's says about this:
(emphasis mine)
That just seems like a bizarre reason to cancel an exam when there is no penalty for guessing. I don't see the difference if you guess all A's or you guess with random choices.
I heard people say that so I did it. Really, I think it is an urban legend but I did get a pretty good score in a section where I guessed a lot so I'm not complaining.
Seriously??!!
Yeah, Math is hard to finish on time..but honestly speaking, the Kaplan Math section just sucks. They cover so little and when I sat down to give a practice pearson test yesterday I was amazed as to how Kaplan covers nothing but basic math in its book. Ridiculous in my opinion.
I got the info from the Candidate Booklet.
Can anyone confirm whether they've decided to introduce any Trig or Geometry?
And regarding the "B guess", one of my highschool teachers actually showed us an article about research that was done on MC tests which showed B's having a slight edge! How slight? Probably miniscule, but hey!
And regarding the "B guess", one of my highschool teachers actually showed us an article about research that was done on MC tests which showed B's having a slight edge! How slight? Probably miniscule, but hey!
Oh yeah, I remember that. I went into the practice test feeling moderately confidence because of Kaplan. I ended feeling panicked. So much material I wasn't expecting. Fortunately, I still had time to review some old math I hadn't seen in years.
