Hey guys, just wanted to leave my two cents and hopefully it helps....
Ready for a really long post????
To prepare for the test, I used 4 main resources:
1.
Kaplan 2010-2011 PCAT practice book. I went through the entire book, focusing mainly on chemistry and math. I had to really focus on Gen Chem stuff because a lot of those rules seem to fade from the mind after 2 semesters of Orgo (and Im glad I did because most of the chemistry section was Gen Chem rather than Orgo). The majority of Orgo questions were nomenclature-related or acid-base questions where you could easily rule answers out. As far as the quantitative section-- its a doozy!! Unless you're just naturally really good at math, you're probably going to be stressed during this section of the actual PCAT, but don't beat yourself up because its mostly due to the time constraint. Practicing from a book does not really help, unless you're very disciplined about timing yourself. For Bio--- just memorize whatever you can. If you have taken A&P and Genetics, you will be at advantage. Lastly, in my opinion, verbal and reading comp skills are something that you acquire over a lifetime and are not something that you can teach yourself in a few months. Im sure some people would disagree with me, of course.
2.
MCAT practice book. I used one of these because it contains the same topics (minus physics) but different questions, so it was just more exposure to test problems.
3.
Youtube. I really feel like I graduated from Youtube University. For Gen Chem, I went back to the basics (and a high school teacher!!) with:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bannanaiscool?feature=watch
If you have the time to watch this guy, I recommend it because he really breaks it down for even the simplest of folks (me!).
For calculus, I used PatrickJMT:
http://www.youtube.com/user/patrickJMT?feature=watch
4.
The Pearson Practice Tests. This was probably the most beneficial study aid because of the timing. I bought 3 tests, one by one, which I don't recommend-- just buy them all because you will want them and you'll save money that way. If you don't practice the timing for the quantitative section, you will bomb it. As far as my practice test scoring compared to my actual PCAT test-- my actual scores did fall within the ranges, although on the high end of them. You can trust those percentile ranges.
Like many of you have mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the trick really is to skip the Quantitative questions that you don't know. They will give you scrap paper, so jot down the number of the questions that you think you might be able to answer correctly if you have time at the end (but also guess an answer for that question before moving on so it is answered just in case you don't get back to it). If you have no idea, or its the kinda calc question that takes a whole page of scrap paper to answer, just guess and move on. Im really not sure why they put those questions on there, except maybe to weed out the people dumb enough to spend 5 minutes on a question! Just to give you an idea of how depressing the math section was for me.... I would say that I felt confident about MAYBE half of my answers (which we all know means I didn't get near as many correct). And I probably guessed on half of all total questions.....but I scored a 71 percentile on the section. As dumb as I felt, I was definitely in the majority because the test compares your score to the norm group, and they obviously had just as much trouble on it!! My moral here is, don't get discouraged while you're taking the test. Just keep forging ahead and unless you're a cocky bastard, you will probably be pleasantly surprised at your score.
So, heres my percentile scores in case anyone was wondering:
Composite= 95
Chemistry= 96
Quantitative= 71
Reading Comp= 98
Biology= 84
Verbal= 86
Writing= 3.0 (but who cares about that?!)
Last piece of advice---- make sure you eat before the test-- some protein or something filling. Its a long test, that seems even longer when you're taking it, and you don't want to be distracted by a grumbling tummy.
Ok, Good luck folks!!! You'll do great!!!
😀😀😀
Lindsay
