September 2016 PCAT Preliminary Score

[Ti1407]

Hi, I just took the PCAT the second time today and to be honest I'm pretty ok with what it turned out

Bio: 82
Chem: 96
CR: 7
QA: 86

Overall 72

I'm not a native English speaker, I tried so hard, but I cannot make it any better. so my CR score is painful to look at.

Feel free to share your scores up here.

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[gogoldylocks]

hey guys! i got a 92 composite and i was wondering if there was any change** (not chance) in this score report and the official score report or if you guys had any idea when the official score report comes out? thanks!!

 

[ABHrx]

What version of collins do you have? You may have deterred me from purchasing it :X

i had his 2015's version. My friends only studied from Collin's guide and did really well on previous years. but i heard recently PCAT has changed. Due to this reason,it really doesn't correspond much as collin's guide. The chemistry was all orgo 2 that i had no idea. Only very few questions came from bio collins practice exam. So i am looking for other materials instead of collins guide. Any help out there ?

 

[howtobecool]

hey guys! i got a 92 composite and i was wondering if there was any chance in this score report and the official score report or if you guys had any idea when the official score report comes out? thanks!!

28-32 days

 

[Lightningdo]

Hey,

So I used dr Collins 2016-17 self study booklets. I studied for about a month and a half, at the beginning I did like 5-7 hours of studying each day. Started memorizing everything and finished learning everything after 2 weeks. I used Kaplan for biology, and annotated with Dr. Collins notes on top of kaplans. After I did the a couple bio tests, everyday. I always had the most difficulty with microbiology and AP because I haven't taken any coures for it. I used khan academy and crash course ( as a fun review).

for organic chem I used dr Collins and a bit of Kaplan for some reactions. I already have a pretty strong general Chen background so I went though the stuff I hadn't learned like nuclear chem. I also have a pretty decent math background but I used dr. Collins for statistics. And Kaplan for probability. The last month I just reviewed all the material everyday and did practice tests up until the exam. I used the Kaplan practice tests and the 3 Pearson tests.

Personally I didn't think the critical reading from Kaplan or Collins was super relevant. The actual pcat passages were a lot longer.

Personally I thought The 2016-17 Collins package was really useful and I wouldn't have gotten my mark without it. Hope that helps!

Hey, did you take the PCAT on september, 2016? Hey, I took PCAT this septermber, 2016 and i did horrible in the exam. Nothing was from Collins study guide. i studied his 2015's guide i believe but nothing was from there. it was my first time taking it. Any suggestions what years study guide did you study with all the details ?? since, you did so well. pls pls share what did you used to study. i am planning to retake mine end of the year. i don't wanna rush myself.

 

[pchen66]

Hey guys! Sorry if I'm late but I took my PCAT in September and here are my prelim scores:
Biology: 63
Chemistry: 98
RC: 87
Quantitative: 99

Overall: 97th

I studied for about a month and a half for it but I did spend quite a lot of different forms of study guides and would like to share some advice.

I personally felt like Princeton Review was the best book for chemistry. Honestly, the PCAT focused heavily on basic general chemistry and basic basic organic chemistry (E1, E2, Sn1, Sn2 reactions). Princeton Review explains the chemical principles really well and covers basically all of the gen chem/ochem topics. The only thing that it lacks in is biochem (but the PCAT doesn't really emphasize that). I thought Kaplan was the best for bio because it's so detailed but the rest was average. It really explained very little in chemistry and the quantitative reasoning too easy compared to the real thing. I didn't focus that much on Bio and took general biology almost two years ago (which is why I struggled).

As for study prep/test taking, BUY THE PEARSON TESTS. They're $90 for three multiple choice tests and they, in my opinion, were very similar in terms of both difficulty and the types of questions asked on the PCAT. Do those in a actual test format and you will be fine. The Kaplan tests were much more difficult in both the biology and chemistry sections (especially the reading parts) and they focused too much on random organic chemistry reactions and anatomy/physiology. Also, a lot of universities (Penn State, University of Kentucky, University of Wisconsin, Texas AM) have general chemistry exams you can take online as well as powerpoint lectures from professors for review if you're looking for something free. Just type in General Chemistry Past Exams and say for instance Penn State and you can get a lot of past exams. University of Wisconsin also has organic chemistry tests available online for review.

You may have heard about things like PCAT Cracker and Crack the PCAT. Well I bought both and they both really suck. The questions are ridiculously hard and the explanations are even worse. They often times use the same explanations for different questions and the video explanations often times don't match up with the questions. For instance, if asked a question about acidity, the explanation you'll get is basically "we know it is an acid because it is an acid". Also, they advertise things like 10 practice tests or 2000 problems but often times, they're the same problems over and over again. So in reality, you get like 100 problems per section. In addition, the programs often times glitch and they calculate your scores wrong.

When I took practice tests on Kaplan, I scored in the mid 80th most of the time, but as you can see, I scored in the high 90s (again not to brag) on the actual thing. Again, Pearson's practice tests are the best, the only problem is that there are only 3 you can choose from.

I hope this helps! I'll definitely be posting more!

Thanks!

 

[ABHrx]

Hey guys! Sorry if I'm late but I took my PCAT in September and here are my prelim scores:
Biology: 63
Chemistry: 98
RC: 87
Quantitative: 99

Overall: 97th

I studied for about a month and a half for it but I did spend quite a lot of different forms of study guides and would like to share some advice.

I personally felt like Princeton Review was the best book for chemistry. Honestly, the PCAT focused heavily on basic general chemistry and basic basic organic chemistry (E1, E2, Sn1, Sn2 reactions). Princeton Review explains the chemical principles really well and covers basically all of the gen chem/ochem topics. The only thing that it lacks in is biochem (but the PCAT doesn't really emphasize that). I thought Kaplan was the best for bio because it's so detailed but the rest was average. It really explained very little in chemistry and the quantitative reasoning too easy compared to the real thing. I didn't focus that much on Bio and took general biology almost two years ago (which is why I struggled).

As for study prep/test taking, BUY THE PEARSON TESTS. They're $90 for three multiple choice tests and they, in my opinion, were very similar in terms of both difficulty and the types of questions asked on the PCAT. Do those in a actual test format and you will be fine. The Kaplan tests were much more difficult in both the biology and chemistry sections (especially the reading parts) and they focused too much on random organic chemistry reactions and anatomy/physiology. Also, a lot of universities (Penn State, University of Kentucky, University of Wisconsin, Texas AM) have general chemistry exams you can take online as well as powerpoint lectures from professors for review if you're looking for something free. Just type in General Chemistry Past Exams and say for instance Penn State and you can get a lot of past exams. University of Wisconsin also has organic chemistry tests available online for review.

You may have heard about things like PCAT Cracker and Crack the PCAT. Well I bought both and they both really suck. The questions are ridiculously hard and the explanations are even worse. They often times use the same explanations for different questions and the video explanations often times don't match up with the questions. For instance, if asked a question about acidity, the explanation you'll get is basically "we know it is an acid because it is an acid". Also, they advertise things like 10 practice tests or 2000 problems but often times, they're the same problems over and over again. So in reality, you get like 100 problems per section. In addition, the programs often times glitch and they calculate your scores wrong.

When I took practice tests on Kaplan, I scored in the mid 80th most of the time, but as you can see, I scored in the high 90s (again not to brag) on the actual thing. Again, Pearson's practice tests are the best, the only problem is that there are only 3 you can choose from.

I hope this helps! I'll definitely be posting more!

Thanks!

I am trying to order online the princeton review for chemistry . But there is nothing out there for PCAT chemistry review. I see that there is one for MCAT or DAT . Which one should i choose ?

 

[ABHrx]

So I've been reading up on many pcat discussions and decided to post mine to help others out
Today was my first time taking the PCAT and I was so scared that I did horrible because the bio had many random questions that Ive never come across while studying Kaplan. Chem was mostly organic 2 and a few basic principles. The passages for both bio and chem were short compared to Pearson practice tests. Be prepared for critical reading, the passages are too long! And math was just like the Pearson practice tests. Good luck fellow test takers

You are not the only one. I took pcat next day and i had same experience as you. It was horrible. I studied collin's 2015-2016 guide. It helped like just a little and chemistry was hard as anything.