PCAT today, good luck all!

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bozeefus

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today is the big day so best of luck to everyone!

i'll be at IIT chicago for the 2pm session. if you see an asian guy rocking a women's watch (since there might be a chance that my digital watch won't be allowed), you'll know it's me!

once again, good luck 🙂
 
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The quant. part is what I think will kill me come October. I bought a Calculus for Dummies book since I don't start Calc until next semester😱. I am studying from the Kaplan book and the whole theory behind DNA and RNA gets me confused. I need a tutor.
 
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NOTHING.

That's the only thing killing me right now. I signed up for the PCAT like 3 weeks ago, and only finished my O-Chem II class a week ago. I basically gave myself 9 real days of "intense" studying.

I think I referenced my bio textbook twice when something in the Kap book was off.
 
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I just finished the test. Not that bad though. Verbal was okie, did quite well in chem, math and so bio. Not have time to finish the reading. and I didn't do well on writings section. Hate essays! I am going to give myself another try on October jk
 
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pr33st said:
NOTHING.

That's the only thing killing me right now. I signed up for the PCAT like 3 weeks ago, and only finished my O-Chem II class a week ago. I basically gave myself 9 real days of "intense" studying.

I think I referenced my bio textbook twice when something in the Kap book was off.
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Ok. I haven't done any bio courses in like a year so I gotta refresh my memory. So far I am a little worried about the Chem and Quant. sections
 
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Essay- 2nd one better, 1st one I couldn't think that early in the morning LOL
Verbal- Good
Biology- Good
Reading- OK
Chem- No Clue
Quant- I got my ass handed to me

Re-taking in October!!
 
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I really don't know how I did. Guess I'll find out in 6 weeks. Ya know what I really don't like? Is how I won't know if I need to retake it or not until AFTER the October registration deadline....
 
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PrePharmGirl said:
I really don't know how I did. Guess I'll find out in 6 weeks. Ya know what I really don't like? Is how I won't know if I need to retake it or not until AFTER the October registration deadline....
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I'm convinced that is by design so they can get extra money out of people.
 
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delano2000 said:
Wow. A pharmacist and a lawyer in the same household...Sounds nice.
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NICE? You're kidding, right? I can only imagine the friction when we're both in school and working on exams and stuff. It is going to be a nightmare, but we've been through worse, so I'm sure we're going to be fine.

From a monetary perspective it seems totally awesome, but then you think about double the student loans too. =-P Unless she goes to a university, like #5 UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall) with loan forgiveness and works 2 years in a pro-bono capacity with whatever cause they're doing at the time. Then the massive student loans are forgiven and essentially, the education was free.

It's a nice though, I guess. And can you imagine the problems if we fail NAPLEX or CPJE/ Bar exam? Oh my. Probably won't happen, but ayyy!
 
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Passion4Sci said:
NICE? You're kidding, right? I can only imagine the friction when we're both in school and working on exams and stuff. It is going to be a nightmare, but we've been through worse, so I'm sure we're going to be fine.

From a monetary perspective it seems totally awesome, but then you think about double the student loans too. =-P Unless she goes to a university, like #5 UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall) with loan forgiveness and works 2 years in a pro-bono capacity with whatever cause they're doing at the time. Then the massive student loans are forgiven and essentially, the education was free.

It's a nice though, I guess. And can you imagine the problems if we fail NAPLEX or CPJE/ Bar exam? Oh my. Probably won't happen, but ayyy!
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I was thinking 10 years down the road and I doubt y'all will fail 😀. Money wise, once all the loans are repaid, you guys will be doing really well as a family.
 
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delano2000 said:
I was thinking 10 years down the road and I doubt y'all will fail 😀. Money wise, once all the loans are repaid, you guys will be doing really well as a family.
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Especially since there will be 0 kids, just dogs.

But, I try not to think about it. A lot goes into it... whether she is on the track of getting a partnership, whether her chosen field (she's pretty much focused on intellectual property law) is as prosperous as it sounds, etc. Hard to tell the future, you know?

The important thing for us is that we're both going after our dreams, and like a very wise person I know once told me, "To live, is to live chasing your dreams." As long as you can more or less reasonably agree to being able to one day catch them, is my only caveat. 👍
 
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Passion4Sci said:
Especially since there will be 0 kids, just dogs.

But, I try not to think about it. A lot goes into it... whether she is on the track of getting a partnership, whether her chosen field (she's pretty much focused on intellectual property law) is as prosperous as it sounds, etc. Hard to tell the future, you know?

The important thing for us is that we're both going after our dreams, and like a very wise person I know once told me, "To live, is to live chasing your dreams." As long as you can more or less reasonably agree to being able to one day catch them, is my only caveat. 👍
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Hey I'm with you on that. As long as you both attain your goals, then the sky is the limit. If you don't mind me asking, why no kids?
 
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hehe don't think i will start a topic without providing my own input.

verbal was not as difficult as i expected. that doesn't mean i did better; my vocab is so poor, i sometimes need to use the dictionary when reading the newspaper 🙁

bio - meh. a lot of random questions that were either too specific or off-topic. remember, 8 of the 48 questions are samplers that aren't counted. some were like, an animal has short legs and sharp claws. is it best suited as a runner, digger, hater, etc? <-- i they these were the samplers

chem - not a lot of calculations. a lot more theoretical stuff. i don't remember any questions regarding atomic theory which was weird. very little orgo as far as rxns were concerned

essays - w/e, i'm just shooting for a 3

reading - it seemed okay but reading comprehension has always been a hit or miss, at least for me. sometimes, i get like a 90% on a diagnostic test and than i get a 65% when i take another diagnostic. weird.

quantitative - out of the 48, i probably did not get 8 of them. guessing on the last 8 ftw


-------

overall, i'm fairly satisfied. i think if you can study well on your own, you should save the money and not attend an expensive KAPLAN course.

i took the kaplan course in fall 2008 while i was a full-time student. my priorities were all on my schoolwork. i did not do ANY of my kaplan assignments. when oct 2008 test date came around, i just told myself, i'll do this again next year...

and here i am! my friend let me get access to his kaplan online materials so i did a majority of the assignments; i pretty much studied by myself for today/yesterday's test.

i'm shooting for an 80%. if i get that, i don't plan on taking it again in oct 2009. 🙂
 
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PrePharmGirl said:
oh yeah i forgot how 8 of each section are samplers...that makes me feel a little better : )
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Haha I missed some gimme questions. I immediately looked them up when I got home, and I'm pissed at myself! They were way too cookie cutter to be test questions.
 
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delano2000 said:
It will take roughly 6 weeks to get your results.
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Right, but the other poster on here said that it'd be alright... that is, that taking the October PCAT would not be a problem for November deadline schools. Personally, I could see either answer being true, though I suppose this means I'm going to have to do some research myself. Guess I can just e-mail a school advisor.
 
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PonderingChoice said:
Right, but the other poster on here said that it'd be alright... that is, that taking the October PCAT would not be a problem for November deadline schools. Personally, I could see either answer being true, though I suppose this means I'm going to have to do some research myself. Guess I can just e-mail a school advisor.
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You got it. I think it should be ok though, but it's always best to get the info from the horse's mouth.
 
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delano2000 said:
You got it. I think it should be ok though, but it's always best to get the info from the horse's mouth.
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Why would you need the PCAT by then anyway? All the November deadlines I am aware of are CA schools, who don't even require the PCAT.
 
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The last time I took the test was 0ct 2006 - I did bad in bio (66th percentile) and great on chem (93rd percentile)

This time I think they flipped. I felt really good on the bio, verbal and reading comprehension

I got my ass handed to me on chem and calc. It wasn't that it was necessarily hard - I was hard pressed on time. I did notice that pretty much everyone else was also pressed for time so hopefully it didn't turn out quite as bad as I am thinking.

The essays - I only finished the second one and I really hope that essay 2 is the one that is scored. (Though essays have always been hit or miss for me. I took the GRE twice and the first time my writing percentile was a 22 and the second time a 77 :laugh:)

I am worried about the chem/math scores. (which is the opposite of how I did last time I took it - those two were my highest scores). I know there were quite a few I did not get to and just randomly guessed. It went a lot worse for those two sections than I htought it would. I do not know how I finished the chem section the last tiem I took it. I think I might end up taking it again🙁

I really wish we got our scores before 6 weeks so I could have an easier time deciding on whether to take the oct pcat. the deadline is sept 4 and we will not have out scores by then.

What will schools do if we take both the August PCAT and the Oct one - some schools advise you to take the august one at the latest. I put off sending in pharmcas for right now because schools require pcat scores before they look at your app (since I don't have them it would just sit somewhere and not be considered so why bother). But since I have taken the pcat, will they still not consider my app until the oct scores come in or will they look at my app?
 
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AnhPhung310 said:
I just finished the test. Not that bad though. Verbal was okie, did quite well in chem, math and so bio. Not have time to finish the reading. and I didn't do well on writings section. Hate essays! I am going to give myself another try on October jk
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Really? I finished the reading like 12 minutes early. Of course I was rushing for chem and math...
 
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I just took the PCAT yesterday. My proctor didn't call five minutes on the QA part...so I have 10++++++ questions unbubbled....should I report that she forgot to call five minutes?
 
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I did REALLY crappy on the essays! I didn't know they would be so real-life complicated. How do you study for essays? Seriously, I need the help for when i retake it.
 
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MaaarieG45 said:
I just took the PCAT yesterday. My proctor didn't call five minutes on the QA part...so I have 10++++++ questions unbubbled....should I report that she forgot to call five minutes?
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If you want to. In all reality I don't think anythings going to happen. I'm sure Pearson gets tons of complaints about testing conditions, and unless something greatly violates one of their rules, I don't think they do anything.
 
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MaaarieG45 said:
I just took the PCAT yesterday. My proctor didn't call five minutes on the QA part...so I have 10++++++ questions unbubbled....should I report that she forgot to call five minutes?
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That's why I always take a watch, and keep an eye on it. Yea, it might take 5 seconds from your exam here or there, but it really helps you pace yourself thru the exam.
 
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MaaarieG45 said:
I just took the PCAT yesterday. My proctor didn't call five minutes on the QA part...so I have 10++++++ questions unbubbled....should I report that she forgot to call five minutes?
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Your fault that you didn't keep track of the time. You can try emailing Pearson about this but realistically, what do you expect them to do about it? Give you a redo on QA?

Next time, wear a watch, and work faster.
 
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No I really didn't think they'd do anything about it either. All my friends and family think I should call and complain but I wanted to make sure it would actually make a difference. It was my first experience with the PCAT so I didn't know if it was a big deal or not that she forgot to call 5 minutes. Just wanted to check and make sure....I will do my best to work faster...
 
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MaaarieG45 said:
I just took the PCAT yesterday. My proctor didn't call five minutes on the QA part...so I have 10++++++ questions unbubbled....should I report that she forgot to call five minutes?
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my test was held on the 6th floor. you had to take an elevator to get to it. once you get off the elevator, you see rooms - some students would be testing in these rooms.

just down the hall is the cafeteria. that's where i tested. guess what else is in the cafeteria. vending machines. LOUD soda vending machines. ones with see-thru glass and hum continuously to keep the pepsi/vitamin water cool. i mean, wtf. seriously?

that's not even the worst part. some lady actually had the audacity to get food in the middle of our test. she took her damn time too. you could hear her change falling down the machine, her dollar bills getting rejected, the food hitting the bottom, etc etc.

but i'm not bitter.

us cafeteria testers finished about 3 minutes earlier than the rest of the rooms across from the elevators. when we were officially dismissed, we complained. we groaned. we complained. we chatted loudly. IN FRONT of the elevators. IN FRONT of the rooms that were still in testing. the proctor in the room came out to hush us up but those who were less considerate decided that loud whispering would solve the issue. lol.

then there were the miscellaneous distractions. an ambulance passing by (when this happen, all i could think about was the doppler effect (major ADD keeping in). oh yeah, almost forgot. fireworks were sent off @ cellular field. nicee. i think they were congratulating us on the pcat but the celebration was a tad bit too soon.


EDIT: LOL. so i ranted and completely forgot why i posted this (FAIL_). anyway, all i am saying is that there are no perfect conditions. when i was prepping for pcat, i did most of my studying at the library where there was complete silence. when i got home, every time i attempted a practice test, i would get annoyed by every little noise. as a result, i decided to study in places with background noise. that ice cream truck that keeps coming by? zone it out. neighbor's dog barking? zone it out. focus on the question and you can block pretty much anything out
 
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I'm surprised some people have the time to take a restroom break while taking the test. Not one time but several times. This guy who sat across from me went to the restroom two times during testing. Not only that, he came back from the break hella late-one of the proctors has to go search his body. Well, I wasn't distract by him or anything, but just admiration for his carefree action. I bet he aced that test w/o a sweat, or (nah he looks smart).
 
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fujitsux said:
I'm surprised some people have the time to take a restroom break while taking the test. Not one time but several times. This guy who sat across from me went to the restroom two times during testing. Not only that, he came back from the break hella late-one of the proctors has to go search his body. Well, I wasn't distract by him or anything, but just admiration for his carefree action. I bet he aced that test w/o a sweat, or (nah he looks smart).
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I definitely could have during the reading (I actually contemplated it). Def not the other sections though.
 
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