Pcat books

[saranghee820]

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Hi I was wondering what are the best books to prepare for the pcat. I looked at Kaplan but it seemed to be a water down version of the mcat review book. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[fenixtnlfan]

Moved to PCAT forum because of topic.

 

[islandboy401]

I believe Kaplan is the best overall out of the lot...

I've heard Examcrakers is good for Orgo Preparation...

 

[thephoenician88]

I'm taking the january pcat for 1 more school. I really need help with orgo. I like to work out the reactions for orgo but i don't have nearly enough time.

 

[dianaish]

I used Kaplan and they have good reviews for biology and chemistry that are around the same level as the questions on the real PCAT. However, the Kaplan reading and verbal sections are not as great. I used Barron's as a supplement for that. Barron's, however, just has the practice tests and not a comprehensive review like Kaplan does. I think the best thing to do is pick up a few books, Kaplan being one for sure.

Finishing ochem and math are always the most difficult. Nobody ever really finishes the whole thing without making some wild guesses to stay under time limit. Because everybody's on the same boat, not getting to a whole lot of questions does not prevent you from doing well. So don't stress toooo much. The best thing to do is to look for the easier problems and do those first because most likely you will get those correct while other people miss them just because they ran out of time.

 

[avuong]

Hi I was wondering what are the best books to prepare for the pcat. I looked at Kaplan but it seemed to be a water down version of the mcat review book. Any advice would be appreciated.

Saranghee, sadly the pcat itself may be a watered down version of the mcat. However, I highly recommend the kaplan book. I bought the 2007 version and it really helped me prepare for bio and chem. I got very good scores in those sections. Verbal and reading are not harder than SAT verbal.
The best practice for the pcat is to continue to take challenging bio and chem courses at your school. Endocrinology, molecular bio, physiology, and anatomy courses will be extremely helpful, possibly more so than the Kaplan book.
Dont stay on hard questions, just skip them do the easy ones and come back to them afterwards. All questions are weighted equally so it is in your best interest to finish as much as possible. Using this technique I was able to get high 90s in math and chem even though I completely skipped 2 question in math and 1 in chem. Guess when time is called.
Also, drink a green tea before you take the exam. I was a little jittery before the test, but during I zoomed through.
Best of Luck!

 

[hardrunner]

I agree the kaplan book is a good review for the bio and chem. part. With orgo you need to know the concepts and the mechanisms; there is no way around that!

 

[hardrunner]

MCAT kaplan review is good for organic chemistry.

 

[stealthy1]

I agree with the organic chem opinions, the organic parts are really annoying, I took one intro organic course (at my school, Biochem and chem students are required to take two organic courses in their 2nd year, but all other biology related majors need only take one). In a nutshell, the other course is more comprehensive and encompasses all one needs to know about the reactions. I'm still puzzled over the aldol condensations and whatnot, we never got that far.

The books I'm using at the moment is the Kaplan, and Cliff's 5 practice PCATs. I'm also using a lot of the knowledge I learned through my courses.