PCAT - verbal/math sections

[pharmd2008]

I take the PCAT this October.

I am good to go as far as biology and chemsitry are concerned(I have the Barron's book and Audio Learn tapes).

However, the Barron's book isn't very good for the verbal/math stuff. The math seems too easy.

What resources do you guys reccomend in preparing for the verbal and math portions of the PCAT because these are my weaker areas, especially the verbal stuff??

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[dgroulx]

The math on the PCAT isn't hard, so you should be fine with any general review. However, there is not enough time to get through all of the problems. Go through the test and answer anything that doesn't require calculations, then go back through again. I also ran out of time on the general chemistry portion of the test. I answered all the conceptual stuff first, then went back through. I left gas law equations for last, because they are time consuming.

I didn't study for the verbal section. It was pretty much the same as the Barron's PCAT practice test. The analogy stuff is the same as any IQ test. The words aren't hard, they just want to see if you can make logical connections. I'm not sure that you can study something like that.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

When I took the Math section, about 10 people out of 60 were done in time. Imagine doing 60 problems in your head without a calculator in 40 minutes (i think.) I completed it by the skin of my teeth.

Don't stress out over one section though, the cool thing about the PCAT is that it is scored in this odd way that if you do very well on one or two sections you are guaranteed to get a higher score than what you probably deserve. For example, I got a score in the 40s in Biology, in the (low) 60s for Chemistry and Reading, but 90s in Math and Verbal; I ended up with an 83 overall. I didn't prepare for the thing and deserved a lower score, but if the corporation administering the exam wanted to give me that score, I was not going to complain.

 

[dgroulx]

The PCAT percentile scores are rankings of how you placed in the applicant pool. All your individual points are added up into one total and then that score is used to get your overall ranking percentile. So, you could do really crappy in one subject, like a score under 50% and still end up with a higher score.

Some schools look at your individual subject scores as well as the overall ranking, so you should try your best on all the subjects. My school looks at your science scores, overall score and the number of times you've taken the test. So, if it took you two tries to get in the 90's, they won't rate you as high as a person who got in the 90's on the first try.