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Overall feelings towards PCAT?
Started by donflo79
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Overall, I just felt the time constraints got to me.
I did hafta xmas tree maybe 5-9 problems on Quant, 2-3 on Chem.
I agree now that Kaplan was overkill for the test; but better to be overprepared than not.
Rushed through the reading comp. but had enough time to reread every passage & fix anything if needed.
Verbal wasn't too wild; the Kaplan review on word roots helped Alot.
Bio was a breeze; but considering my background as a nurse, it should have been.
Everyone else?
I did hafta xmas tree maybe 5-9 problems on Quant, 2-3 on Chem.
I agree now that Kaplan was overkill for the test; but better to be overprepared than not.
Rushed through the reading comp. but had enough time to reread every passage & fix anything if needed.
Verbal wasn't too wild; the Kaplan review on word roots helped Alot.
Bio was a breeze; but considering my background as a nurse, it should have been.
Everyone else?
The time constraint is what killed me! The Quantitative ability section I had to bubble in at leat 12 answers! The ones I did answer I was like what????? I studied Kaplan but, the calculus, which I took last semester was a big BLUR! The reading and vocab were fine and I felt I did well on the biology. The chemistry was horrible for me too! I don't know what to say overall I think I did not do well. 😕 😡 😱 😱 😱 😱
I think I christmas treed at least 10 questions at the end of the chemistry section. I couldn't believe I ran out of time. I'm in biochemistry right now.. I know this stuff! I had to christmas tree the end of the quantitative section too. Although, I'm very confident about the biology, reading comprehension, verbal and essay.
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i actually thought it was easier than the online Harcourt practice pcats. maybe i was just because i was concentrating harder. the first section, verbal, omggg i lost track of time. i thought biology was easy except for a couple. i surprisingly didn't have too much trouble with the math. of course i guessed on some but they made sense. oh and the ochem. i'm taking ochem one right now and my teacher has like a weird way of teaching things. so i either really knew them or didn't at all.
overall i thought it was ok. watch me jinx myself..
overall i thought it was ok. watch me jinx myself..
The Kaplan book practice test was overkill for all the heavy subjects, lolx --> biol, math, chem. But pleasantly surprised b/c of Kaplan. a lOT of little ochem problems 0_o... but didn't find too much calculus on the quantitative section luckily=) How were the essay prompts for ppl? i finished my concluding sentence (haha, i love those) like 2 min before time was called.
Ugh, I agree, I really thought the Math was HARD. I did a lot of "educated guessing" and didn't finish the section either. Chem wasn't bad, I skipped maybe 3 or 4 questions but then didn't have enough time to go back so I guessed on those few. The Chem questions were overall pretty easy though. Bio was fine, I didn't have time to really go back and look over anything though. Same with Verbal. On my practice exams I always finished Verbal with time to spare, but I think the sentence completions were wordier (is that a word?) and longer on this test. Reading Comp was sooo easy. It was the only section I finished and had at least 5 mins to go back through things. Overall, I think I did well on Reading Comp, Verbal, and Bio, pretty decent on Chem, and horrible on Math. I'm just hoping my scores balance out to give me a good composite. I'm so glad that you guys thought the Math and Chem were kinda tough! At least we're all on the same page. If anyone else has any comments I'd like to know what you felt about the test! I'm just glad its behind me for now! 😎
nonyagirl said:
I spent waaaaaaaay too much time studying every detail of the bio section of kaplan and most of the crap i studied wasnt even on the test. I thought the chem would be a breeze for me...but now i know i should have studied for it more.
I think I did pretty good on everything but the math section, which i'm pretty sure i did terrible on. And it wasn't even the higher math that was tough for me, it was all the freakin weird arithmetic and algebra problems. I skipped over a lot of math questions to go to the ones I knew, so I ended up just filling in circles at the end for a lot of the math. I was expecting the Bio section to go into a LOT more detail than it did, but hey i'm not gonna argue, lol.
yea the math wasnt hard..but it was so long and tedious...damn i hope it was hard for everyone else so my % wont be as bad...and the bio was so easy and i didnt even study for the damn test..just went with what i learned in prepharm...the chem was ok..but i didnt finish like 15 problems.so i filled in c for all of them..i actually didnt finish for the math either..that one too i had about 15 left..and the reding comp. was way harder than the damn practice tests in the book...do they actually use past tests? if they do then the damn thing got hard as hell..i am gonna study like a mofo for the next test so youall better be ready to have your % drop like a bomb in afghani
Verbal Ability: easier than expected....but not actually "easy"
Quantitative ability: Easy, but loooooong....did not finish, Xmas treed many.
Biology😀id not finish, Xmas treed, upset cuz I'm a biology senior!!!!!
Reading Comp: read 4 out of 6 essays...Xmas treed the rest, worried about that...Many school take this section very seriously because it measures your ability to read and learn all the stuff they'll be shoving down your throat in Pharmacy School!!!!!!!!!
Chemistry: easy...but once again...looooooong...Xmas treed.
All in all, not a hard test but soooo little time, I cristmas treed so much, I should be loaded with crap on december 25th.
Quantitative ability: Easy, but loooooong....did not finish, Xmas treed many.
Biology😀id not finish, Xmas treed, upset cuz I'm a biology senior!!!!!
Reading Comp: read 4 out of 6 essays...Xmas treed the rest, worried about that...Many school take this section very seriously because it measures your ability to read and learn all the stuff they'll be shoving down your throat in Pharmacy School!!!!!!!!!
Chemistry: easy...but once again...looooooong...Xmas treed.
All in all, not a hard test but soooo little time, I cristmas treed so much, I should be loaded with crap on december 25th.
First off, I would like to say that the test was not that difficult in terms of material, but the time constraints affected me. I needed about 5 minutes in every section to completely finish and check those I was unsure about.
Verbal: I thought it was easier than I was suspecting. But, with it being the first section, I was not warm up yet and luckly I did finish it with five minutes to go and got to check some of my unsure and did find obvious mistakes. Missed somewhere around 10 probably.
Biology: I do not think I did bad in this section; however, I know I could have done better with more time. I know I missed a couple because of stupid mistakes under the time pressure. Missed about 10-12.
Reading Comp: I got tired in this section and missed more than I should have. I thought there was only 4 paragraphs not 6 going in so I just got sick of reading and guessed on a few; especially the last one of the mind. The questions were a little more detailed and harder thann I was suspecting. Missed maybe 10-15.
Quantitative Reasoning: Going in, this is where I thought I was going to get killed. I knew almost no calculus and suck at geometry. However, I worked about 45 out of the 58 and had reasonable guesses on several others. I saw few calculus problems and alot of alegebra and trig. Wished I studied the circle with the radius, chords, and diameter, archs, etc. Missed about 10-12.
Chemistry: I know if I had more time I could have gotten almost every question right. When five minutes was called, I had like 10 more questions including the organic chem equations that were not in equation form where you can see the interactions of the molecule. Instead, they were written out in nomenclature. I skipped those and worked the last page first and came back. I think I guessed two of the four org chem equations right and got most on the last page right but I had to striaght bubble two questions I skipped earlier that I wanted to come back to. Therefore, I think I missed maybe 10.
Writing sample was easy. I had several ideas in my head before taking the test and I guessed right about the life on another planet somewhere. I did not brainstorm and started writing. I got two and half pages. A intro, three main ideas with scientific support, and a conclusion. I even got in correct grammatical sentence structure and was concise. I thought this was my best performance on the test and probably will not count at the school I want to go to because all they care about is a decent composite score. Science GPA is more important than the test at Univ of SC.
Overall not that bad. Could have done better with more time and studying. I studied about a week before the test. Mostly science with a little math. Should have taken a glance at the reading comp and brushed up. But, if I did bad there is always next year, I only need a 75 so I hope I got that. It all depends on the intelligence and test taking skills of those that took it that day. Good luck to everyone presently and in the future.
PS: Dont worry about the calculus. There was so little that you can still score well if you know algebra, geometry, and trig.
Verbal: I thought it was easier than I was suspecting. But, with it being the first section, I was not warm up yet and luckly I did finish it with five minutes to go and got to check some of my unsure and did find obvious mistakes. Missed somewhere around 10 probably.
Biology: I do not think I did bad in this section; however, I know I could have done better with more time. I know I missed a couple because of stupid mistakes under the time pressure. Missed about 10-12.
Reading Comp: I got tired in this section and missed more than I should have. I thought there was only 4 paragraphs not 6 going in so I just got sick of reading and guessed on a few; especially the last one of the mind. The questions were a little more detailed and harder thann I was suspecting. Missed maybe 10-15.
Quantitative Reasoning: Going in, this is where I thought I was going to get killed. I knew almost no calculus and suck at geometry. However, I worked about 45 out of the 58 and had reasonable guesses on several others. I saw few calculus problems and alot of alegebra and trig. Wished I studied the circle with the radius, chords, and diameter, archs, etc. Missed about 10-12.
Chemistry: I know if I had more time I could have gotten almost every question right. When five minutes was called, I had like 10 more questions including the organic chem equations that were not in equation form where you can see the interactions of the molecule. Instead, they were written out in nomenclature. I skipped those and worked the last page first and came back. I think I guessed two of the four org chem equations right and got most on the last page right but I had to striaght bubble two questions I skipped earlier that I wanted to come back to. Therefore, I think I missed maybe 10.
Writing sample was easy. I had several ideas in my head before taking the test and I guessed right about the life on another planet somewhere. I did not brainstorm and started writing. I got two and half pages. A intro, three main ideas with scientific support, and a conclusion. I even got in correct grammatical sentence structure and was concise. I thought this was my best performance on the test and probably will not count at the school I want to go to because all they care about is a decent composite score. Science GPA is more important than the test at Univ of SC.
Overall not that bad. Could have done better with more time and studying. I studied about a week before the test. Mostly science with a little math. Should have taken a glance at the reading comp and brushed up. But, if I did bad there is always next year, I only need a 75 so I hope I got that. It all depends on the intelligence and test taking skills of those that took it that day. Good luck to everyone presently and in the future.
PS: Dont worry about the calculus. There was so little that you can still score well if you know algebra, geometry, and trig.
This is my first post but I have been surfing this site for some time. I am a senior at USF. I took the KAPLAN course to prep me for pcat. Going in, I was aiming for 80th perc but I think I did worse that I expected. Here are my thoughts on the PCAT:
The Kaplan course was too detailed and very high level. Most of the complex math and science did not show up on the PCAT. Thus I was prepared for high level stuff and skipped over the basics which constituted most of the test. Thus I think I missed my mark.
I would say the verbal section was quite fair. It was OK. Not too scorable. Not too easy. Unfortunately, I did not finish 2 sentence completion questions.
The Biology section was a little harder than what I had expected from hearsay. Bio section was definately NOT easier than Kaplan or other preps. Nonetheless, the bio was streightforward and based on how much you read.
The reading Comprehension, contrary to what most people say, was super-easy in my opinion. A Definately easier than expected. I had 6 paragraphs, I finished them all. The paragraphs were all Very Easy, I cant comprehend how any1 couldnt have finished these. 3 of the 6 paragraphs were on the topic of cancer and very easy. I usually never finish reading comp but this time I ended up with 10 minutes in hand. May be it was just my test.
Did anyone else feel the same??
The math was unbelievably easy stuff.. stuff that you learn in high school. There were 5 questions about the number line and such. I wasnt prepared for this kinda stuff. Disappointingly, there were almost no calculus questions.
I did finish it and think I did OK on this section.
Chemistry section was time-consuming and like what everybody here has said. I think I finished 90% of it and did relatively OK.
I was surprised at the high number of organic question on the chemistry section. My theory is that testmakers put relatively high % of one kind of question on one test and relatively none on the other. For example, from hear-say I was expecting about 10% organic questions. But on this one, there were about 30% organic questions in the chem section. So the next two tests must have a very low number of organic qs??
I believe test makers test versatility of the test-takers i.e. expect you to know a wide array of subjects and put an unusually high number of questions of one type on the test, to punish those who havent studied it.
I found the math section to be similar, too much basic math and no calculus???
The essay was a repeat of last year. I had the "life outside earth" question and was quite prepared for it bc my friend had the same question last year. I do think this is kinda unfair and punishes those who dont ask around?? 😕
Before taking the test, I thought I wasnt prepared enough but after taking it, I am glad that I didnt study as much seeing that it wouldnt have helped me much anyway.
If i get below 80 on this, I will take it again in January.
The Kaplan course was too detailed and very high level. Most of the complex math and science did not show up on the PCAT. Thus I was prepared for high level stuff and skipped over the basics which constituted most of the test. Thus I think I missed my mark.
I would say the verbal section was quite fair. It was OK. Not too scorable. Not too easy. Unfortunately, I did not finish 2 sentence completion questions.
The Biology section was a little harder than what I had expected from hearsay. Bio section was definately NOT easier than Kaplan or other preps. Nonetheless, the bio was streightforward and based on how much you read.
The reading Comprehension, contrary to what most people say, was super-easy in my opinion. A Definately easier than expected. I had 6 paragraphs, I finished them all. The paragraphs were all Very Easy, I cant comprehend how any1 couldnt have finished these. 3 of the 6 paragraphs were on the topic of cancer and very easy. I usually never finish reading comp but this time I ended up with 10 minutes in hand. May be it was just my test.
Did anyone else feel the same??
The math was unbelievably easy stuff.. stuff that you learn in high school. There were 5 questions about the number line and such. I wasnt prepared for this kinda stuff. Disappointingly, there were almost no calculus questions.
I did finish it and think I did OK on this section.
Chemistry section was time-consuming and like what everybody here has said. I think I finished 90% of it and did relatively OK.
I was surprised at the high number of organic question on the chemistry section. My theory is that testmakers put relatively high % of one kind of question on one test and relatively none on the other. For example, from hear-say I was expecting about 10% organic questions. But on this one, there were about 30% organic questions in the chem section. So the next two tests must have a very low number of organic qs??
I believe test makers test versatility of the test-takers i.e. expect you to know a wide array of subjects and put an unusually high number of questions of one type on the test, to punish those who havent studied it.
I found the math section to be similar, too much basic math and no calculus???
The essay was a repeat of last year. I had the "life outside earth" question and was quite prepared for it bc my friend had the same question last year. I do think this is kinda unfair and punishes those who dont ask around?? 😕
Before taking the test, I thought I wasnt prepared enough but after taking it, I am glad that I didnt study as much seeing that it wouldnt have helped me much anyway.
If i get below 80 on this, I will take it again in January.
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The only section I kinda had trouble finishing was quant. Isn't it supposed to be 20% calc. I studied all those derivatives / intergrals for nothing! Instead they ask lots of trig? Anyways, I don't think many ppl finished the math, and seems like math was harder this time than in June based on ppl I spoke with who took it back then. Anyone notice how A) seemed to be the answer for alot of the chem, verbal and bio sections?
starsweet said:
depends on the school...you better check it out to make sure. the school i'm applying to takes the January score eventhough the score would be available after their application deadline. i already registered for the jan. exam in case i need to take it again.
Ok Guys, this is killing me...
What the heck is X-mas treeing a test?????
What the heck is X-mas treeing a test?????
DownonthePharm said:
I was wondering that too but I guess it is when you just bubble in answer because you are running out of time. I guess, I don't know, if I am wrong, someone please correct me
