MCAT similar to PCAT

[airbornemedic]

Hi guys

I wrote the PCATs this February and did ok on it (90 percentile for sciences portion)

anyhow I was wondering if there is any similarities between the two, and if there is, should I focous on one section more than the other (for example I'm starting to study for the MCATs now and I choose to study physics first cause PCATs didn't have a physics section)

If anyone has taken the PCATs and MCATs and have some advice, let me know

PS: i used the kapalan book for PCATs if that helps

thank you

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[millepora]

Take a practice test. There are lots of free ones avaliable online, either kaplan, princeton, or AAMC.

Anyway, the content is similar, but unless you have good reasoning and critical thinking skills, it doesn't matter how well you know the content.

 

[rockaction]

The MCAT and PCAT are two completely different tests. Some of the science may overlap, but the whole mindset is completely different. The PCAT is all discretes for biology and chemistry, and most of the MCAT is passage based. There's physics on the MCAT too, which I'm not sure is on the PCAT. The "Reading Comphrension" section of the PCAT can loosely be analogous to the Verbal Reasoning section of the MCAT, but VR in the MCAT has passages on humanities and social sciences, not just natural sciences. Also, there is no 'math' section on the MCAT.

Take-home message: the PCAT and the MCAT are way different. The MCAT is more of a critical thinking test. Because you have passages to work with most of the time, you have to infer a lot of information and be really good on your feet. The PCAT tests specific knowledge.