PCAT verbal and RC

[Prospective_Pharm_Student]

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Hello,
I am studying for the PCAT, and I'm wondering how to do well on the verbal and RC. I am currently studying Dr. Collins. I don't think Dr. Collins prepares you for the RC.

Does anyone who has done well in these sections have advice?
Thanks.

 

[UTautomer]

These are probably the hardest sections to improve on. Especially the verbal section, by this point you've pretty much developed the majority of your vocabulary. The best thing I can offer in that regard is vocabulary memorization. Magoosh GRE Vocab List is a pretty good introduction to the words you should be familiar with. Of course, there will always be words you don't know, unless you're a dictionary. In any case, you should be familiar with how to decide which answers don't make sense. A 50% chance of getting it right is a lot better than a 25% chance.

As for Reading Comp, your best bet is to practice. Pearson offers practice tests (you have to pay for them) as well as a study guide. Each question has a certain identifier. Read the selection and determine basic things like the gist, the tone, etc. Obviously, if it asks about a words in paragraph 3, find the word and reread the sentence. Make sure you understand context. If it asks for the main idea of a paragraph, refresh your memory on the paragraph.

 

[Prospective_Pharm_Student]

Thank you for being helpful! For the reading comprehension, do you recommend that I read the entire passage first, and then answer the questions? or should I look at the questions and then try to answer them by just going to the paragraph it asks me to look at. I took the PCAT in July and I didn't do well on the RC or verbal. I noticed on the RC it mostly directs you on which paragraph to look at. I studied analogies before the exam, and I also seen a few that were on the exam, I think I was mostly panicking and that's why I did poorly on that section. I scored 80th percentile in Chemistry, and Quant using just Dr. Collins. Biology didn't go as well as I anticipated. What did you use to study the Biology portion?

 

[UTautomer]

Thank you for being helpful! For the reading comprehension, do you recommend that I read the entire passage first, and then answer the questions? or should I look at the questions and then try to answer them by just going to the paragraph it asks me to look at. I took the PCAT in July and I didn't do well on the RC or verbal. I noticed on the RC it mostly directs you on which paragraph to look at. I studied analogies before the exam, and I also seen a few that were on the exam, I think I was mostly panicking and that's why I did poorly on that section. I scored 80th percentile in Chemistry, and Quant using just Dr. Collins. Biology didn't go as well as I anticipated. What did you use to study the Biology portion?

The order you go in is entirely up to you and can be determined by your practice. Personally, I read the entire selection before answering the questions because many questions are too hard to answer without going through it (main idea, tone, etc.) The question types are similar among all passages, so eventually you know what to look out for. Verbal and RC are my lowest scores as well generally, but unless you take a lot of time out to memorize vocab words your verbal won't budge much, and RC has a lot to do with practice and focus.

For Biology, I've self studied using a Kaplan MCAT 2015 Biology Review. I haven't taken an A&P class, and I took AP Bio in highschool so I've received little to no practice in that area in college and had to relearn a lot of it. It's important to understand each system of the body, but it seems like their favorite system is excretory (kidney) and endocrine system (hypopheseal portal system, adrenal glands, etc. and their hormones). Of course, any system is free game, but there seem to always be several questions pertaining to each of the previously mentioned systems. Or maybe I just notice those because there's a lot of info for each of those systems. They rarely ask microbio questions aside from bacterial shapes (cocci, bacilli, spirilla, etc.) and maybe a virus question. A lot of the genetics questions seem to be in the chemistry section because they fall under biochem. Anyways, every practice test I've taken after doing that MCAT Review has been a 90%+. I used it for Chem and OChem as well, and consistently score +90% on the Chem section. Math I didn't study for because at my school we had to take a lot of calculus (so none of that is new) and my old GRE study book helped with a lot of the simpler math (probability, statistics, etc.)

 

[Thestrugglez]

The Princeton Review MCAT prep prepares you extremely well for RC. They come with a lot of practice passages as well as pretty good strategies for tackling the questions.

 

[Prospective_Pharm_Student]

The Princeton Review MCAT prep prepares you extremely well for RC. They come with a lot of practice passages as well as pretty good strategies for tackling the questions.

I'm going to look into that! Thank you.