PCAT study tips from "the 99%ile club"

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sorry about the lame title..
anyway I scored well on the PCAT, and I want to pass on my advice to as many as possible :)

verbal 437/92%
bio 430/88%
reading 435/90%
quant 455/97%
chem 505/99%

comp 451/99%


Sure, it helps for me to know if you are a first time taker, what your goal score range is give or take, and what areas you are struggling with, but here is what i generally did:

Dr. Collin's with Kaplan exclusively (self-studying, no class) + the 3 pearson practice tests

I began about ~30 days out and spent roughly an hour of medium-intense prep per day every day, taking one timed section (bio, chem etc..) per study session, so one timed section per day, which I scored and reviewed also. This is HUGE, I attribute my score to finishing EVERY section with over 10 minutes to spare everytime. all the time. this gives you time ro review marked questions what were more difficult. and the speed comes with practice taking timed sections, one at a time, dont worry about full length tests untill about 15 days out.
I also studied one section of material each day from either Dr. Collins/Kaplan big book. Def purchase the Dr. Collins materials now now now! if you havent already and go to barnes&noble and pick up a kaplan book

Verbal - studied collins word lists/some of kaplans - this is section that is hard to 'improve on' persay unless it is your priority, simply bc most of our vocabularies are 'set' at least 90% by now. The chance of finding and remembering one little word from studies on the real PCAT are low, and for this reason I probably spent the least time preparing for this section, however! do prepare for this section, as it can be finished very quickly with practice and provide you much time to review your verbal answers. so i high score is likely for the reason of it not taking as long. the sentence completion aspects were more challenging than the analogies for me, but with practice working many problems, they become easier.

bio-the big kaplan book has an unbelievable amount of bio info, if you knew all of it, you would get 99% on bio everytime, and probably get an honorary bio Ph.D. from a prestigious university haha... point is, there is wayy more info that is necessary to study i.e. intense details on plant vasculature.... so dont get sucked in to this massive tome of information/intimidated by it either. Dr. collins does have all the necessary information but in slightly different presentation. *important* spend time with both collins and kaplan bio info and see what presentation suits you the best. I examined one section of the kaplan bio big book every day in addition to me daily timed section, this allowed me to at least be exposed to all of the material in the kaplan big book, also it helps to review the post section quizzes in the kaplan big book. for collins bio, aim for one section every few days, bc the sections are far more dense and long.

reading comp - this is another one of those where practice taking times sections will get you the farthest. i improved alot after my first 3 or so timed sections. dr collins rc questions are too easy compared to the real PCAT by FAR. but they are good to begin studying with. Kaplans are slightly more realistic, the best are the ones in the three pearson practice tests. on the real PCAT i was blown away by the difficulty of the rc passages/questions compared to collins, which i had spent most of my time prepping with. dont do that, rely more on the kaplan rc passages and pearons practice exams

quant- collins collins collins, wouldnt mess with kaplan here, their calc prep was insufficient. i realllllly needed calc help coming in and with the collins calc, although pretty intense to get a grip on, i became a calc legend haha... maybe.. point is if you can perform well on the collins calc, then you are in good shape, id check out kaplan to but dont rely on it or feel as safe if you are scoring well on it but not collins quant sections. every once and a while there will be a integrative calc/trig word problem that would just blow my face off, but other than that this prep method helped me (97%)

chem- alot to say here. this is prob the most importnt section on the exam. based on my statistical analysis of 21 full scores ive analyzed, this is the section with the most scaled score points per percentile rank (SS/PR) what does this mean? it means there is the biggest spread in the distribution here, meaning it makes/breaks alot of ppl bc the scaled score from here typically affects the comp % a little more bc of the higher range (ppl making sub 400s to above 500). so focus on thie section, also bc it is maybe the most important for consideration by schools. its huge, and its hard. Gen chem is tested about 75% to ochem at about 25%, so first off know gen chem. collins is the best in my opinion for chem, their practice sections were excellent prep, the best prep of kaplan/collins for any discipline on the PCAT in my opinion, if anything get collins just for chem (and kaplan for bio)
i was scoring in the high 90s consistently (this is raw percentile as in 46/48 q's correct) on the collins practice tests and i beat the cutoff for the 99%ile on real PCAT chem by more than 50 points (highest scaled score ive ever seen :)) so it def works and can get you there. also as an aside, beating a 99%ile cutoff for a section helps out your composite score with those extra points i.e. i had an 88%ile in bio but my comp was still 99%.... back to chem, most important gen chem concepts: thermochemistry, periodic table trends, orbital shapes/configurations, GAS LAWS!! mult. questions always!, and nuclear isotopes. these are the topics i would stress. use collins, go over a new section of material in it each day so you cover it a few times total in its entirety, take all the practice timed sections and you will be at your max im confident. for organic chemistry, you will have to know reactions, and this scares the **** out of ppl i know. but you need to. every practice section/exam ive ever seen had at least one organic reaction. know naming as well, as well as functional groups. collins does a great job with this, kaplans organic chem is insufficient when it comes to reactions, and collins is a little bit also, ive yet to come across a great PCAT organic chem reactions prep system. I was helped by the fact that ive been an ochem tutor for 2 years now, so i honestly probably cannot accurately judge how well collins/kaplan prepare one for organic chem. but the collins naming stuff looked the easiest to grasp as far as presentation style.

essay: zero prep. but collins has awesome prompts that seemed right in line with what i saw on the real PCAT.

overall: dont kill yourself, i was studying for max 1.5 hours a day, sometimes less, usually less but did so consistantly, HARD, every single day for about ~30 days.

everyday:
- ~30 pages in kaplan bio big book ~15 minutes
- 1 collins timed practice section, scored, reviewed, alternated topics each day to stay fresh ~45minutes
- ~2-3 various sections in the collins packets as review ~20minutes

last ~15 days or so:
-I took a pearson practice PCAT every 5 days
-stressed lingering doubts i had on specific subjects (calc for me)
-finished off all the collins timed sections until I had done all of them
-finished the kaplan big bio book
-finished all collins materials

after the real PCAT: i thought id severely bungled rc, and verbal, done not great on bio, decent on quant and ok on chem. dont be discouraged if you thought the test was savage. i did and came out fine.

please post any other questions, I will try my best to reply as soon as possible

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Don't lose hope, I was personally aiming for a 90+ comp score considering that a score in the upper 80s is considered competitive.
I studied for the 7/18/2012 test using a 05-06 Kaplan Pcat book, the 4th edition Barron's, and 2/3 Pearson Vue practice exams.

I started studying on the 18th of June. For me, my plan was simply to review what I knew as I had taken all the core prereqs, Bio, A@P, Chem, OChem, Calc I &II

I finished around 11:20 A.M., today and am so relieved of not having to take a standardized test again for at least a year. My plan now = :sleep:

At the end of barely finishing the QA section(not able to review answers), I had to exit the exam and felt as if I had scored at least an 85

To my delight, my imaginary score was way off!

Preliminary Score Report
VA- 432, 91
Bio- 466, 99
RC- 409, 68
QA- 447, 97
Chem- 463, 99

Comp- 443,99

Hello 99th percentile club, I never thought I would be eligible :smuggrin:
 
Don't lose hope, I was personally aiming for a 90+ comp score considering that a score in the upper 80s is considered competitive.
I studied for the 7/18/2012 test using a 05-06 Kaplan Pcat book, the 4th edition Barron's, and 2/3 Pearson Vue practice exams.

I started studying on the 18th of June. For me, my plan was simply to review what I knew as I had taken all the core prereqs, Bio, A@P, Chem, OChem, Calc I &II

I finished around 11:20 A.M., today and am so relieved of not having to take a standardized test again for at least a year. My plan now = :sleep:

At the end of barely finishing the QA section(not able to review answers), I had to exit the exam and felt as if I had scored at least an 85

To my delight, my imaginary score was way off!

Preliminary Score Report
VA- 432, 91
Bio- 466, 99
RC- 409, 68
QA- 447, 97
Chem- 463, 99

Comp- 443,99

Hello 99th percentile club, I never thought I would be eligible :smuggrin:

Would you mind sharing your approach to the QA section? :) I'm going waaay over even on the practice tests...Do you work a lot the problems in your head? I'm frantically trying to find a way to cut my time down :(
 
Don't lose hope, I was personally aiming for a 90+ comp score considering that a score in the upper 80s is considered competitive.
I studied for the 7/18/2012 test using a 05-06 Kaplan Pcat book, the 4th edition Barron's, and 2/3 Pearson Vue practice exams.

I started studying on the 18th of June. For me, my plan was simply to review what I knew as I had taken all the core prereqs, Bio, A@P, Chem, OChem, Calc I &II

I finished around 11:20 A.M., today and am so relieved of not having to take a standardized test again for at least a year. My plan now = :sleep:

At the end of barely finishing the QA section(not able to review answers), I had to exit the exam and felt as if I had scored at least an 85

To my delight, my imaginary score was way off!

Preliminary Score Report
VA- 432, 91
Bio- 466, 99
RC- 409, 68
QA- 447, 97
Chem- 463, 99

Comp- 443,99

Hello 99th percentile club, I never thought I would be eligible :smuggrin:

Oh wow, so the preliminary score report gives percentiles? That's awesome!
And well done!!

If you don't mind me asking, how did you do on the pearson practice tests? and did you think they were comparable, in terms of difficulty?
 
Would you mind sharing your approach to the QA section? :) I'm going waaay over even on the practice tests...Do you work a lot the problems in your head? I'm frantically trying to find a way to cut my time down :(

I reviewed and practiced math the most of all subjects for the PCAT, and in that, I think I improved the speed at which I do problems.

For the exam, I went through each question and made sure I had an answer in each.
I flagged all the questions I came across that made me doubt my answer or required lengthy work, and hoped to review them at the end, I missed that as I barely finished problem 48 as time ran out

So as a tip, I guess your best bet is to practice common math problems, not only basic math, but trig/calc and the word problems.

Hopefully everyone left to take the test manages their time much better than I did


Oh wow, so the preliminary score report gives percentiles? That's awesome!
And well done!!

If you don't mind me asking, how did you do on the pearson practice tests? and did you think they were comparable, in terms of difficulty?


Thanks!

The Pearson practice tests gave me similar results, but the ranges were 80-99% which was much more broad, on reading in those, I performed much better.
The passages on the actual PCAT are much more difficult and boring, which really toughens things up and I was not so smart with my time in the either, I had to go Tebow Time for the last 2 or 3 passages.

The pearson tests are easier, not necessarily because of the material, but simply because you are at the comfort of your home, or non-pressure situation during the practice exams and on test day, I was worrying about time and overall score much more.
 
Last edited:
Thanks!

The Pearson practice tests gave me similar results, but the ranges were 80-99% which was much more broad, on reading in those, I performed much better.
The passages on the actual PCAT are much more difficult and boring, which really toughens things up and I was not so smart with my time in the either, I had to go Tebow Time for the last 2 or 3 passages.

The pearson tests are easier, not necessarily because of the material, but simply because you are at the comfort of your home, or non-pressure situation during the practice exams and on test day, I was worrying about time and overall score much more.

Good deal. I think I usually anticipate RC passages to be extremely boring on the tests, but knowing that it REALLY counts will hopefully help me pay attention. I've been finishing that section with like fifteen minutes to spare on practice tests, too. But test day conditions are obviously different.
Thanks for the input, though!
 
Don't lose hope, I was personally aiming for a 90+ comp score considering that a score in the upper 80s is considered competitive.
I studied for the 7/18/2012 test using a 05-06 Kaplan Pcat book, the 4th edition Barron's, and 2/3 Pearson Vue practice exams.

I started studying on the 18th of June. For me, my plan was simply to review what I knew as I had taken all the core prereqs, Bio, A@P, Chem, OChem, Calc I &II

I finished around 11:20 A.M., today and am so relieved of not having to take a standardized test again for at least a year. My plan now = :sleep:

At the end of barely finishing the QA section(not able to review answers), I had to exit the exam and felt as if I had scored at least an 85

To my delight, my imaginary score was way off!

Preliminary Score Report
VA- 432, 91
Bio- 466, 99
RC- 409, 68
QA- 447, 97
Chem- 463, 99

Comp- 443,99

Hello 99th percentile club, I never thought I would be eligible :smuggrin:

Congratulations!! It must feel amazing! I will take it tomorrow.
 
I had 80-99 ranges in my composite on my last practice tests. Got a 79 today....quant killed me because of time and material. Chem and bio was good though.
 
Thanks for all the advices, I used Dr. Collins and Kaplan to study and here is my score

Verbal 22%
Biology 91%
Reading 6%
Math 96%
Chem 97%
Comp 78%

English is my second language so i know I cannot do anything more about reading and verbal. Do you think i should retake it? since 6% i know is a really bad score. Please give me some advices. Do you think its ok to apply? Will the school consider that acceptable since english is not my native language?
 
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I only used Kaplan and I felt VERY UNPREPARED. There was a lot more microbiology than I thought... and I mean very detailed questions. If you don't know microbiology I insist you take the class or buy a book or something. The math was somewhat easy but there was stuff I never saw in Kaplan's course (yes I took the course). I did okay... but I really wanted to be in the 99th percentile club :(!

Verbal 416 74%
Biology 430 89%
Reading 402 54%
Math 423 85%
Chemistry 438 93%
Composite 422 88%

I was scoring 90%~ on practice tests so it was pretty right on
 
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Where do the I should study vocabulary from. Its a big obstacle for me I studied Dr. collins VOCAB LIST and I did not help me much I got 27 in the vocab..........
 
Don't lose hope, I was personally aiming for a 90+ comp score considering that a score in the upper 80s is considered competitive.
I studied for the 7/18/2012 test using a 05-06 Kaplan Pcat book, the 4th edition Barron's, and 2/3 Pearson Vue practice exams.

I started studying on the 18th of June. For me, my plan was simply to review what I knew as I had taken all the core prereqs, Bio, A@P, Chem, OChem, Calc I &II

I finished around 11:20 A.M., today and am so relieved of not having to take a standardized test again for at least a year. My plan now = :sleep:

At the end of barely finishing the QA section(not able to review answers), I had to exit the exam and felt as if I had scored at least an 85

To my delight, my imaginary score was way off!

Preliminary Score Report
VA- 432, 91
Bio- 466, 99
RC- 409, 68
QA- 447, 97
Chem- 463, 99

Comp- 443,99

Hello 99th percentile club, I never thought I would be eligible :smuggrin:
where do you think I should study the vocab from
 
where do you think I should study the vocab from

Kaplan's math and verbal book has a list of 1600 words. Some ppl say studying for the sat vocab works too. There are still word you're never going to have seen before but learning roots is a huge help
 
I did not use this so called "Dr. Collins". I recommend doing the 3 Pearson practice tests. You'll know which areas you are weak in. Look in a text book or use Kaplan.
 
I have read all the posts concerning the Bio section and I see that it covers portions of Biochem/Molecular Bio, and almost exclusively tests General Biology.

Yet I wonder why there was no mention of Anatomy and physiology questions:confused:
Are the questions you ran into so general that it needed no mention on this thread? What sections from A&P do you recomend focusing on? Bones, Muscles, Tissues, Circulatory Systems (VAN=Veins Arteries Nerves) kidneys, Heart, Pituatary gland, Brain, Skull, distal, proximal, Fossa, epicondyle, articulations, etc..?
 
this is my 3rd time taking the exam I used the Dr Collins review both times and it did not help so I decided to take a different approach and use the Kaplan this time around. Where should I start, or should I still use the Dr Collins review still?
 
Try and work on your weakest scores (unless it's RC because that is really hard to study for in my opinion), but your lowest scores lower your composite score especially since they might be significantly lower- Chem, Bio, & Math are what the pharmacy schools really care about so I'd try and master those (they're also the easiest to study for).
 
Try and work on your weakest scores (unless it's RC because that is really hard to study for in my opinion), but your lowest scores lower your composite score especially since they might be significantly lower- Chem, Bio, & Math are what the pharmacy schools really care about so I'd try and master those (they're also the easiest to study for).

Thank you so much, yea the math and the reading were my lowest scores. I got the kaplan book so I am going to start on the two parts today
 
Don't lose hope, I was personally aiming for a 90+ comp score considering that a score in the upper 80s is considered competitive.
I studied for the 7/18/2012 test using a 05-06 Kaplan Pcat book, the 4th edition Barron's, and 2/3 Pearson Vue practice exams.

I started studying on the 18th of June. For me, my plan was simply to review what I knew as I had taken all the core prereqs, Bio, A@P, Chem, OChem, Calc I &II

I finished around 11:20 A.M., today and am so relieved of not having to take a standardized test again for at least a year. My plan now = :sleep:

At the end of barely finishing the QA section(not able to review answers), I had to exit the exam and felt as if I had scored at least an 85

To my delight, my imaginary score was way off!

Preliminary Score Report
VA- 432, 91
Bio- 466, 99
RC- 409, 68
QA- 447, 97
Chem- 463, 99

Comp- 443,99

Hello 99th percentile club, I never thought I would be eligible :smuggrin:


Great Job!!!!! Could you share how you prepare for the VA section? Is there a set of flashcards for the vocabulary? Please PM me!! :laugh:
 
I forgot to mention this earlier, but I did use this website to help study vocab

http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1448

its a study method, and does not promote learning, rather it promotes memorization of words and similar words, which helped to some degree

but for VA and RC I did not really study, I just used the pearson practice tests to help me on the approach to the sections and I did improve on the VA but struggled on RC as did I on practice exams
 
Honestly, you cannot really improve on reading or verbal in such a short amount of time and see significant results on a test like the PCAT. Like the op said, your vocabulary is pretty much set in stone at this point. You will continue to increase it, but don't expect to see that on the test.

As for reading, same thing. You can't just expect to start reading a bunch of articles months before the test and expect results. People who do well on reading sections actually enjoy reading to an extent and have been doing so since they first learned to read.
 
sorry about the lame title..
anyway I scored well on the PCAT, and I want to pass on my advice to as many as possible :)

verbal 437/92%
bio 430/88%
reading 435/90%
quant 455/97%
chem 505/99%

comp 451/99%


Sure, it helps for me to know if you are a first time taker, what your goal score range is give or take, and what areas you are struggling with, but here is what i generally did:

Dr. Collin's with Kaplan exclusively (self-studying, no class) + the 3 pearson practice tests

I began about ~30 days out and spent roughly an hour of medium-intense prep per day every day, taking one timed section (bio, chem etc..) per study session, so one timed section per day, which I scored and reviewed also. This is HUGE, I attribute my score to finishing EVERY section with over 10 minutes to spare everytime. all the time. this gives you time ro review marked questions what were more difficult. and the speed comes with practice taking timed sections, one at a time, dont worry about full length tests untill about 15 days out.
I also studied one section of material each day from either Dr. Collins/Kaplan big book. Def purchase the Dr. Collins materials now now now! if you havent already and go to barnes&noble and pick up a kaplan book

Verbal - studied collins word lists/some of kaplans - this is section that is hard to 'improve on' persay unless it is your priority, simply bc most of our vocabularies are 'set' at least 90% by now. The chance of finding and remembering one little word from studies on the real PCAT are low, and for this reason I probably spent the least time preparing for this section, however! do prepare for this section, as it can be finished very quickly with practice and provide you much time to review your verbal answers. so i high score is likely for the reason of it not taking as long. the sentence completion aspects were more challenging than the analogies for me, but with practice working many problems, they become easier.

bio-the big kaplan book has an unbelievable amount of bio info, if you knew all of it, you would get 99% on bio everytime, and probably get an honorary bio Ph.D. from a prestigious university haha... point is, there is wayy more info that is necessary to study i.e. intense details on plant vasculature.... so dont get sucked in to this massive tome of information/intimidated by it either. Dr. collins does have all the necessary information but in slightly different presentation. *important* spend time with both collins and kaplan bio info and see what presentation suits you the best. I examined one section of the kaplan bio big book every day in addition to me daily timed section, this allowed me to at least be exposed to all of the material in the kaplan big book, also it helps to review the post section quizzes in the kaplan big book. for collins bio, aim for one section every few days, bc the sections are far more dense and long.

reading comp - this is another one of those where practice taking times sections will get you the farthest. i improved alot after my first 3 or so timed sections. dr collins rc questions are too easy compared to the real PCAT by FAR. but they are good to begin studying with. Kaplans are slightly more realistic, the best are the ones in the three pearson practice tests. on the real PCAT i was blown away by the difficulty of the rc passages/questions compared to collins, which i had spent most of my time prepping with. dont do that, rely more on the kaplan rc passages and pearons practice exams

quant- collins collins collins, wouldnt mess with kaplan here, their calc prep was insufficient. i realllllly needed calc help coming in and with the collins calc, although pretty intense to get a grip on, i became a calc legend haha... maybe.. point is if you can perform well on the collins calc, then you are in good shape, id check out kaplan to but dont rely on it or feel as safe if you are scoring well on it but not collins quant sections. every once and a while there will be a integrative calc/trig word problem that would just blow my face off, but other than that this prep method helped me (97%)

chem- alot to say here. this is prob the most importnt section on the exam. based on my statistical analysis of 21 full scores ive analyzed, this is the section with the most scaled score points per percentile rank (SS/PR) what does this mean? it means there is the biggest spread in the distribution here, meaning it makes/breaks alot of ppl bc the scaled score from here typically affects the comp % a little more bc of the higher range (ppl making sub 400s to above 500). so focus on thie section, also bc it is maybe the most important for consideration by schools. its huge, and its hard. Gen chem is tested about 75% to ochem at about 25%, so first off know gen chem. collins is the best in my opinion for chem, their practice sections were excellent prep, the best prep of kaplan/collins for any discipline on the PCAT in my opinion, if anything get collins just for chem (and kaplan for bio)
i was scoring in the high 90s consistently (this is raw percentile as in 46/48 q's correct) on the collins practice tests and i beat the cutoff for the 99%ile on real PCAT chem by more than 50 points (highest scaled score ive ever seen :)) so it def works and can get you there. also as an aside, beating a 99%ile cutoff for a section helps out your composite score with those extra points i.e. i had an 88%ile in bio but my comp was still 99%.... back to chem, most important gen chem concepts: thermochemistry, periodic table trends, orbital shapes/configurations, GAS LAWS!! mult. questions always!, and nuclear isotopes. these are the topics i would stress. use collins, go over a new section of material in it each day so you cover it a few times total in its entirety, take all the practice timed sections and you will be at your max im confident. for organic chemistry, you will have to know reactions, and this scares the **** out of ppl i know. but you need to. every practice section/exam ive ever seen had at least one organic reaction. know naming as well, as well as functional groups. collins does a great job with this, kaplans organic chem is insufficient when it comes to reactions, and collins is a little bit also, ive yet to come across a great PCAT organic chem reactions prep system. I was helped by the fact that ive been an ochem tutor for 2 years now, so i honestly probably cannot accurately judge how well collins/kaplan prepare one for organic chem. but the collins naming stuff looked the easiest to grasp as far as presentation style.

essay: zero prep. but collins has awesome prompts that seemed right in line with what i saw on the real PCAT.

overall: dont kill yourself, i was studying for max 1.5 hours a day, sometimes less, usually less but did so consistantly, HARD, every single day for about ~30 days.

everyday:
- ~30 pages in kaplan bio big book ~15 minutes
- 1 collins timed practice section, scored, reviewed, alternated topics each day to stay fresh ~45minutes
- ~2-3 various sections in the collins packets as review ~20minutes

last ~15 days or so:
-I took a pearson practice PCAT every 5 days
-stressed lingering doubts i had on specific subjects (calc for me)
-finished off all the collins timed sections until I had done all of them
-finished the kaplan big bio book
-finished all collins materials

after the real PCAT: i thought id severely bungled rc, and verbal, done not great on bio, decent on quant and ok on chem. dont be discouraged if you thought the test was savage. i did and came out fine.

please post any other questions, I will try my best to reply as soon as possible
I was looking for any books written by Dr. Collin but I was not able to find anything. Could you please post the title of the PCAT books by Dr. Collin as well as the other ones you mentioned in your posy.
 
they have their own website. google pcatprepclass.

click on the first link they have self study guide i think its worth it.
 
did you say you study 30 pages of the bio section in the Kaplan book in 15 minutes everyday? How can you read so fast?
 
Guys, and girls, just remember: it is in no way, shape, or form ALL about the score/GPA. I indirectly know a guy who scored in the 90s on his PCAT and had a pretty good GPA, but still didn't get accepted for this year.

So it's really not all about the scores and grades. It's not. Trust me.
 
what is the best strategy on the reading. Should I read the whole passage and then try to answer the question?
 
I think that only makes me even more scared. If a person have a good percentile on the PCAT and also a decent GPA did not get in. What makes me qualified?
 
I think that only makes me even more scared. If a person have a good percentile on the PCAT and also a decent GPA did not get in. What makes me qualified?
Some schools really value your work experience, LORs and your essay more than grades and PCAT. It depends on the school. But there is the possibility that you are the perfect applicant on paper, but you fail in the interview.
 
I just finished the PCAT and got my preliminary scores back. While I didnt score in the 99%ile my percentile rank was a 95%! :) I started studying a month and a half from the test date and used the Kaplan PCAT book, dr collins study guide, and the pearson practice tests--basically what the OP of this thread did.

I took the first Pearson practice test before I started studying to get a sense of where I was at and what I needed to focus on. But the results were abysmal. Here is my percentile score ranges the first Pearson practice test:
Verbal ability: 1-20
Biology: 20-40
Chemistry:50-70
Reading Comp: 50-70
Quant: 1-20
Overall: 20-40 :eek:

So I studied my ass off for the next month and took the second Pearson practice test and this is what I got:
Verbal: 20-40
Bio: 50-70
Chem: 70-90
Reading Comp: 50-70
Quant: ~70-90
Overall: ~50-70 :)

Pleased with my improvement I spent the next two weeks going over the stuff that didnt make sense to me. So I took the third Pearson Practice Test
Verbal: 40-60
Bio: 70-90
Chem: 80-99
Reading: 50-70
Quant: 60-80
Overall: 70-90 :)

I spent the last few days developing testing strategies, reviewing stuff that I couldn't remember, going over the Pearson practice tests, collins tests, and the kaplan bio book. Then today I took my PCAT and got the following scores:
Verbal: 409/63%
Bio: 440/95%
Chem: 472/99%
Reading: 413/75%
Quant: 423/85%
Composite: 431/95% :soexcited:

I know my score isnt perfect and there are other people with better scores, but I just wanted to post and tell everyone that you can really improve your scores by studying. Going from an overall of 20-40 to a 95% really proves that. The Dr. Collins stuff is really helpful as a tool to help you review, especially for verbal, chem, and quant. The Kaplan book is really helpful for bio.
 
what is the best strategy on the reading. Should I read the whole passage and then try to answer the question?
Do as follows:
Number
P1
P2
P3
For your paragraphs and then right the most important points in each paragraph then after write a quick summary sentence then answer the questions. No need to read the whole thing :)
 
I was looking for any books written by Dr. Collin but I was not able to find anything. Could you please post the title of the PCAT books by Dr. Collin as well as the other ones you mentioned in your posy.
DO NOT BUY DR. COLLINS
It's a rip off and you will spend more time searching for the missing pages than studying. Spend the money and buy the Kaplan book or spend a little more for the Kaplan class; those instructors have taken the PCAT and gotten better than 95%; the class is worth it because you learn a lot of time saving tips.
 
I just finished the PCAT and got my preliminary scores back. While I didnt score in the 99%ile my percentile rank was a 95%! :) I started studying a month and a half from the test date and used the Kaplan PCAT book, dr collins study guide, and the pearson practice tests--basically what the OP of this thread did.

I took the first Pearson practice test before I started studying to get a sense of where I was at and what I needed to focus on. But the results were abysmal. Here is my percentile score ranges the first Pearson practice test:
Verbal ability: 1-20
Biology: 20-40
Chemistry:50-70
Reading Comp: 50-70
Quant: 1-20
Overall: 20-40 :eek:

So I studied my ass off for the next month and took the second Pearson practice test and this is what I got:
Verbal: 20-40
Bio: 50-70
Chem: 70-90
Reading Comp: 50-70
Quant: ~70-90
Overall: ~50-70 :)

Pleased with my improvement I spent the next two weeks going over the stuff that didnt make sense to me. So I took the third Pearson Practice Test
Verbal: 40-60
Bio: 70-90
Chem: 80-99
Reading: 50-70
Quant: 60-80
Overall: 70-90 :)

I spent the last few days developing testing strategies, reviewing stuff that I couldn't remember, going over the Pearson practice tests, collins tests, and the kaplan bio book. Then today I took my PCAT and got the following scores:
Verbal: 409/63%
Bio: 440/95%
Chem: 472/99%
Reading: 413/75%
Quant: 423/85%
Composite: 431/95% :soexcited:

I know my score isnt perfect and there are other people with better scores, but I just wanted to post and tell everyone that you can really improve your scores by studying. Going from an overall of 20-40 to a 95% really proves that. The Dr. Collins stuff is really helpful as a tool to help you review, especially for verbal, chem, and quant. The Kaplan book is really helpful for bio.

How did the chem compare with the pearson practice tests?
 
Hi there, I also took my pcat today but I don't quite understand the score. You posted that you have 431/95%, what does those two scores mean? I got 399/43% for comp, so depress...
 
Hi there, I also took my pcat today but I don't quite understand the score. You posted that you have 431/95%, what does those two scores mean? I got 399/43% for comp, so depress...

The percentile represents the percentage of norm group who scored less than you did.
 
kaplan in my opinion sucks! i have the kaplan book and went through it, it has a lot of really detailed explanations and its overwelhming. The math review in there sucks, verbal there is nothing, organic chem there is 2 pages total waste of money, Dr collins on the other hand the biology is compressed, and the way you use it is you go through each section on his bio handout look at the main idea and add other details to it if needed to do so.
 
Just so you are aware, about 401 composite gets you to 50%tile. 407= 61%tile, 411=70%tile, 417=81%tile, and 424=90%tile. The lowest composite you can receive and still get 99%tile is 442.

I got this from some Pearson Pcat file I came across online.
 
Just so you are aware, about 401 composite gets you to 50%tile. 407= 61%tile, 411=70%tile, 417=81%tile, and 424=90%tile. The lowest composite you can receive and still get 99%tile is 442.

I got this from some Pearson Pcat file I came across online.

I am extremely depressed after reading this. I got a composite 441 (98%). If only I had gotten one more question correct. should I take it over? Also, my lowest score was 78% on the verbal ability.
 
I am extremely depressed after reading this. I got a composite 441 (98%). If only I had gotten one more question correct. should I take it over? Also, my lowest score was 78% on the verbal ability.

Wow! Crap! Same here! I got 441 (98%) too. I shouldn't complain, but I really wanted to join the club... Still happy with my score though.

Congrats on the 99% guys!
 
Didn't get a 99, but I did get a 90.

For me, I used Princeton Review for verbal, reading comp, and bio. Yes, the bio stuff is a lot and it's dense, but the amount of information it has is great for studying and the reason why I got a 91 on it.

For math and chem, I used Dr. Collins. I didn't believe people here at first but damn, Dr. Collins is the way to go for those two sections. Not only does it teach you what you have to know, but the questions on them accurately reflect the question types that will be seen on the exam.
 
I am extremely depressed after reading this. I got a composite 441 (98%). If only I had gotten one more question correct. should I take it over? Also, my lowest score was 78% on the verbal ability.
Youre depressed because you got a 98%? I think youre a little crazy. There are thousands of people who wouldve loved to get a 98%. Literally, THOUSANDS
 
I think you did a really good job. I think it's either you were not trying enough on the first practice test or you had a really good strategy for studying. I did pretty well on all the other sections on the practice test besides the verbal since I am from another country. But looking at you improvement definitely gives me hope.
 
WOW is all that I can say after taking the PCAT today. Man I was nervous as **** before the test but starting out the writing section definitely helped calm my nerves. I know a lot of people come to these posts looking for advice. The best advice that can I give is to do the PEARSON’S PRACTICE TESTS! ALL OF THEM! It’s definitely worth the investment. A lot of people think that the PCAT is hard, the actual material on the PCAT is not hard, it’s the time constraints that make it hard. And what is the best way to get used to dealing with time constraints? Practice, practice, practice! As for the individual sections, nothing really out of the ordinary, the practice tests really help guide you as to where you need to focus your studying. In a lot of the previous posts I see just about every says the reading comp is hard. This is true to a degree but it’s only hard in the sense that you really have to focus on what the questions are asking. It’s not impossible to do well on the reading comp, I got a 91 on the reading section and I am far from an avid reader. Some of the questions might be tricky but remember the answers are right there for you in the passage, you just have to pay attention to detail. The key for me was the break after the Chemistry section. Really take this time to refresh and clear your mind. Leave the testing center and walk around a little bit, go to the bathroom and splash some water on your face. After all remember that you have been sitting down for over 2 hours at this point, this mini break it much needed. Any who, I hopes this helps you guys. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!
 
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