Wow! Great scores! May I ask what did you use to study for the PCAT? How was the math and chemistry portion?
Sure I would love to share my experience with all of you. First I want to make it clear that I am not showing off or being arrogant anyway, just give a accurate, objective description of my background and how I prepared.
My background: I already had a chemistry master degree and worked for several years in China. Couple of years ago I moved to US with my family,and I found it was impossible to find a decent chemistry job without an advanced American chemistry degree. Yes, maybe I can find some QA job for $15/hr, but do you really want to do that for the rest of your life? After talking with someone already in graduate school majoring in chemistry (Ivy league), I felt it won't be easy even with a chemistry Ph.D. degree. Therefore I decided to have a career switch. I choose Pharmacy because the promising job market future, and my chemistry background would still be helpful.
Therefore I really have nothing to say about how to prepare for chemistry. Everything is so easy for me, I hope this is not offending anyone. Since I had a master degree and read lots of English chemistry papers for my research, chemistry English is not a problem for me either. I just went over the Collins, and of course I got 3-5 questions wrong out of 48 each time. I just make sure I understand these questions I missed.
I also have not much to say about Math, since Chinese are all math geeks (just kidding...
). It is a little bit harder than chemistry because I needed to get familiar with those English math terms, and some Calculus which I took 10 years ago. The funny part is, until two weeks ago I thought the time for math is only also 30 min, so I have been practicing that way and got frustrated since it was a mission impossible. When I found out actually it is 40 min, I felt so released. The math I have today is kind of like Collins practical test 4-7, not very hard but very time consuming.
Biology is a totally different story, since I had no biology education at all after high school. I take biology and A&P at a community college, since they are not only are required as pre-pharmacy courses but also would help my PCAT. Actually I am still taking the 2nd semester of each courses now. The good thing is,that means my memory about biology is really fresh. I would like to say, anyone got a A or high B from your college biology and A&P courses, you should have no problem to get 50% of questions (24/48) on Collins correct. Otherwise your biology professor didn't do his job and you should ask for a tuition refund. Collins would help you to get the rest 50%.
I used both Collins and Kaplan, as well as my notes from my class. For using collins, make sure you know why wrong answer is wrong, and think as the test maker how I can modify this question to another one. For example, one of the Collins question is showing a synapse between two neurons and the neuron transmitters is diffusing. The question asks if a drug is an receptor inhibitor, in which part of the picture should this drug work. Of course the answer is the receptors on post synapse neuron. In my test this question has been modified as the drug can inhibit the enzyme that degrades the transmitter. I am happy I got with one very easily.
Since I am not a native speaker,I don't think I can give much useful advice about verb and reading. For verb I believe it is a "high cost , lower reward", especially for me. I just used collins. I used GMAT to prepare reading, but only look at those science related articles.
At the end, several general suggestions/tricks.
I think many of you are already using some i phone or ipad APP for study. What I found is this flashcardtogo dot com. It is extremely helpful. You can download tons of PCAT flashcards from website like quizlet dot com, someone put the whole set of Collins analogy and biology there. You can also create your own flash cards.
Some test taking strategy. skip any math question if it takes more than 1 minute and you still have no clue. On the contrary, if you just finished the question but you feel it is likely you might made some careless mistake, review it right away. It takes longer if you review it after you finish all questions. If possible, write the calculation process on your board (or scratch paper) nicely and clearly. It might take longer time but there are two advantages: (1) the chance you will make some stupid mistakes is much lower. Trust me, when you are nervous you might read b as 6 even it is your own handwriting, (2) when you are reviewing the question, you just need to review you board instead of doing it all over again.
There is another test taking trick I think it is kind of risky. The trick is, generally they test maker will evenly distribute answers among A, B, C, and D, to prevent us being lucky to guess. However we could used their strategy to fight back. I made I table with four columns for A-D. After I finish a question I am pretty sure, I would mark the answer on the table.
I only recommend it if (1) you are positively sure about > 90% questions, and only a few unsure, otherwise you will mislead yourself. (2) you have enough time to make that table and mark every answer. For me I used it for chem and bio. I didn't have enough time to try this trick in math, and got too many not sure foe verb. For example at the end of section I am pretty sure 43 out of 48. In these 43, I got 10 A, 7 B, 12 C and 14 D. I will choose B for all of the 5 questions I am not sure. Maybe I will only guess right 2 out of 5, but it still better than random guess every question of 5.