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I have been reading this forum on PCAT and other stuff for a while. Just finished my first real PCAT test yesterday. I did ok, got a composite 94%. Not great compared to others who did better. I believe I can definitely improve if I study more and retake. But I don't want to waste the time and money, so I will hold on to this one.
Since some asked about how to prep and what materials to use, and there are several posts covering this topic. I will just give my two cents here.
I used Kaplan, Dr. Collins 2011, Barrons, and Mcgraw (Barrons and Mcgraw are free given by a fellow student who finished PCAT before me). Studied for about 4 months, with more intense studying 4-6hr a day in the first two months, and more relaxed studying later. I also purchased all three pearson practice tests. I will go over how I prep each subtests and how I use the material on each as well. You may extract whatever you think useful for your own study.
Verbal- I mainly rely on Dr. collins. You know your vocab is built gradually throughout your life time, so it is hard to improve greatly in a short time. Although I remember every analogy from Dr. Collins and the words I don't know from sentence completion and reading, I was still greeted with a lot of words I don't know. Being English is my second language, I know my 63% PCAT verbal score is rooted from my small vocab. Sentence completion is more of logical thinking than testing your vocab, although you still need to know the meaning of the words, but they are more common ones.
Reading- I only did Dr. Collins and pearson practice tests. Make sure you study the pattern of the question. After practicing a couple of passages, you should know what kind of questions to expect, so make sure try to think of these questions such as main idea, opinion, support, bias, etc. during the reading. Reading is similar to verbal, hard to improve in a short time. I don't think I can give much advice since I didn't do well neither. Just 76%
Biology- I didn't use Dr. Collins, mainly used Kaplan. I have a degree major in Molecular biology. So I didn't study too much on the basics. I focus on physiology since that is my weakest link. I think Kaplan is great, lots of info, maybe too much info for the test. However, you should read it, these extra info help you to establish a base and you know knowledge are interconnected, you can't just pick out the ones necessary for the test. I read the Kaplan book inside out for Biology and Chemistry for at least 3 times, and at last I can just flip the pages through in less than an hour because I am very familiar with the info. On the real test, my score reflected my strength and weakness, there are a few question I wasn't not sure about physiology, so I think that is why I got 94%, otherwise I expect it would be a higher score.
Chemistry- This is my weakest part at the beginning, but after putting the majority of my afford to study, I got an 99% on the test, which also surprised me quite a bit. On the Chemistry, I first used Kaplan. Since I took chemistry more than ten years ago in Other language. The first time I read it in Kaplan, I had no idea what it was talking about. So I got the text book, spent two weeks read through the materials covered in Kaplan. Then read again. Man the second time was alot easier, along with which I did the questions after each chapter; then move on to Dr. Collins, then Barron and Mcgraw, finishing all the practice questions. When I did the tests, I will circle out the ones I missed and the ones I have doubts, putting into my study note. I then focus my study on those topic and questions. (I didn't the same thing for biology) On organic chemistry, I used similar strategy, got the textbook, read at least till chapters covering SN1 SN2, E1, E2 reactions.
So my suggests on Chem prep, don't just rely on study materials, go back to your textbook for detailed explanation, because review books are good to refresh memories, but sometimes too abstract.
Math- I mainly used Kaplan and Dr. Collins. As most agreed. All questions are not hard, just not enough time. So practice made it perfect. I didn't practice much, being too confident on my math, I bombed it somehow, getting 88% (yep, I didn't have time to finish, looking at the last a few questions knowing I can do it, but there are only 30sec left on the timer,
you got the feeling~)
Two weeks before the test, I will do the Kaplan online test and Pearson practice test, each every 3-4 days, finished all 3 days before test day. So I take notes on the ones I missed and focus my study on those as well. I do think the real test is harder than the practice test, but it is the closest thing to the real one you can get, so definitely get it.
Overall, everyone has their own strength and weakness. So allocate your effort smart will help you improve the most. On test day, don't get too stressed if think the questions are too hard. If it is hard too you, likely it is hard to others as well. If you think from a test makers view. A good test should separate test takers distribution. Only the ones that are really good can finish and score high, the majority shouldn't. A test is useless if everyone can score every point on it.
Since some asked about how to prep and what materials to use, and there are several posts covering this topic. I will just give my two cents here.
I used Kaplan, Dr. Collins 2011, Barrons, and Mcgraw (Barrons and Mcgraw are free given by a fellow student who finished PCAT before me). Studied for about 4 months, with more intense studying 4-6hr a day in the first two months, and more relaxed studying later. I also purchased all three pearson practice tests. I will go over how I prep each subtests and how I use the material on each as well. You may extract whatever you think useful for your own study.
Verbal- I mainly rely on Dr. collins. You know your vocab is built gradually throughout your life time, so it is hard to improve greatly in a short time. Although I remember every analogy from Dr. Collins and the words I don't know from sentence completion and reading, I was still greeted with a lot of words I don't know. Being English is my second language, I know my 63% PCAT verbal score is rooted from my small vocab. Sentence completion is more of logical thinking than testing your vocab, although you still need to know the meaning of the words, but they are more common ones.
Reading- I only did Dr. Collins and pearson practice tests. Make sure you study the pattern of the question. After practicing a couple of passages, you should know what kind of questions to expect, so make sure try to think of these questions such as main idea, opinion, support, bias, etc. during the reading. Reading is similar to verbal, hard to improve in a short time. I don't think I can give much advice since I didn't do well neither. Just 76%
Biology- I didn't use Dr. Collins, mainly used Kaplan. I have a degree major in Molecular biology. So I didn't study too much on the basics. I focus on physiology since that is my weakest link. I think Kaplan is great, lots of info, maybe too much info for the test. However, you should read it, these extra info help you to establish a base and you know knowledge are interconnected, you can't just pick out the ones necessary for the test. I read the Kaplan book inside out for Biology and Chemistry for at least 3 times, and at last I can just flip the pages through in less than an hour because I am very familiar with the info. On the real test, my score reflected my strength and weakness, there are a few question I wasn't not sure about physiology, so I think that is why I got 94%, otherwise I expect it would be a higher score.
Chemistry- This is my weakest part at the beginning, but after putting the majority of my afford to study, I got an 99% on the test, which also surprised me quite a bit. On the Chemistry, I first used Kaplan. Since I took chemistry more than ten years ago in Other language. The first time I read it in Kaplan, I had no idea what it was talking about. So I got the text book, spent two weeks read through the materials covered in Kaplan. Then read again. Man the second time was alot easier, along with which I did the questions after each chapter; then move on to Dr. Collins, then Barron and Mcgraw, finishing all the practice questions. When I did the tests, I will circle out the ones I missed and the ones I have doubts, putting into my study note. I then focus my study on those topic and questions. (I didn't the same thing for biology) On organic chemistry, I used similar strategy, got the textbook, read at least till chapters covering SN1 SN2, E1, E2 reactions.
So my suggests on Chem prep, don't just rely on study materials, go back to your textbook for detailed explanation, because review books are good to refresh memories, but sometimes too abstract.
Math- I mainly used Kaplan and Dr. Collins. As most agreed. All questions are not hard, just not enough time. So practice made it perfect. I didn't practice much, being too confident on my math, I bombed it somehow, getting 88% (yep, I didn't have time to finish, looking at the last a few questions knowing I can do it, but there are only 30sec left on the timer,
you got the feeling~)Two weeks before the test, I will do the Kaplan online test and Pearson practice test, each every 3-4 days, finished all 3 days before test day. So I take notes on the ones I missed and focus my study on those as well. I do think the real test is harder than the practice test, but it is the closest thing to the real one you can get, so definitely get it.
Overall, everyone has their own strength and weakness. So allocate your effort smart will help you improve the most. On test day, don't get too stressed if think the questions are too hard. If it is hard too you, likely it is hard to others as well. If you think from a test makers view. A good test should separate test takers distribution. Only the ones that are really good can finish and score high, the majority shouldn't. A test is useless if everyone can score every point on it.
