Should I start studying with Kaplan?

[jungjh9001]

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I want to start studying for PCAT soon, but I'm not sure what book I should use first..
I think a lot of people recommend Dr.Collins and Pearson. But I think Dr.Collins is a little expensive, and since I have quite a bit of time left before I take my first PCAT, I want to use Dr.Collins little later. (should I start with Dr.Collins anyway?)
and I don't really know much about Pearson. I searched on google, I couldn't find that much information about it.
So, should I start with Kaplan?
Please share your thoughts..

 

[hwaiting]

I want to start studying for PCAT soon, but I'm not sure what book I should use first..
I think a lot of people recommend Dr.Collins and Pearson. But I think Dr.Collins is a little expensive, and since I have quite a bit of time left before I take my first PCAT, I want to use Dr.Collins little later. (should I start with Dr.Collins anyway?)
and I don't really know much about Pearson. I searched on google, I couldn't find that much information about it.
So, should I start with Kaplan?
Please share your thoughts..

i took the june pcat, and before, i posted all the things i studied, but not many pcat testers would comment...so i'd like to help those who are studying get advised from someone who took it:

I used kaplan, examcracker biology (mcat), cliffnotes, barons, pcat destroyer, and pcat.com program.

If you have not taken microbiology or ecology/evolution. i would suggest doing whatever you can do get as much information on those as you can. if you look at kaplan, thats a good review for biology, but not the best. examcracker biology was a review as well, but it had a microbio section that helped me very little. so i suggest you supplement ur biology with a lot of university txtbooks or like some ppl say, use dr.collins (i haven't used, but heard it was great)

for chem, kaplan was enough for me. but i think I'm pretty good at chemistry, so i guess it depends.

organic chemistry, everybody says look at basic stuff, which is true.

math, i thought was pretty easy. at first when i was studying this was one of my hardest sections because i had no time, but for actual test i had 5 minutes remaining after one completion.

if english is a second language for you (like me) use GRE and SAT vocab to study!!! I studied 10 words a day for a month, and I was able to identify more than half the words!!! (which is pretty good for international student)

use barons, cliffnotes for practice test.

anything specific you have to ask?

 

[jungjh9001]

Are GRE and SAT words similar to PCAT words?
(are there a lot of overlaps?)
I was not sure if I should use examcracker biology because it is for MCAT.
How in depth does it go into?
Thank you so much for the reply and the help!
I should start with Kaplan 🙂

 

[hwaiting]

Are GRE and SAT words similar to PCAT words?
(are there a lot of overlaps?)
I was not sure if I should use examcracker biology because it is for MCAT.
How in depth does it go into?
Thank you so much for the reply and the help!
I should start with Kaplan 🙂

For me it was...a lot of people say use GRE vocab, so off of exp. this has helped.

Although examcracker is for mcat, its still a good review. although they dont have good sections for plants/bacteria/etc. (basically not good for non-animal overviews)

if you don't mind me asking, what biology courses have you taken in college so far?

 

[UFKOIVY]

and I don't really know much about Pearson. I searched on google, I couldn't find that much information about it.

Pearson is actually the company for the PCAT and they do provide practice exams. You can go to their website and purchase their practice exams.

 

[jungjh9001]

I took biology I (general biology) and I'm going to take biology II this fall.
but I took AP biology in high school, and I'm hoping I will be familiar with the biology II topics.
Thank you 🙂

 

[bottlecap1990]

For me it was...a lot of people say use GRE vocab, so off of exp. this has helped.

Although examcracker is for mcat, its still a good review. although they dont have good sections for plants/bacteria/etc. (basically not good for non-animal overviews)

if you don't mind me asking, what biology courses have you taken in college so far?

Hi, I am actually almost in the same boat as the OP. I have taken Chem 1 & 2, Bio 1, and Trig. This fall I am taking orgo I, Precalc, Bio II. And in spring Orgo II, Microbio, A&P I, and Calc. I am planning on taking the 2011 june PCAT. I just started studying verbal a couple of days ago. Do you have any tips for the analogies section? I have dr. collins notes and they have a list of 146 analogies and some words. Should I try to memorize them all? I actually took the pearson practice test and scored horrible on them (20-30 composite, with chem at 30-40 composite and RC at 1-20 composite 🙁

And I actually saw some questions from dr collins similar to the ones on the pearson practice test.
english is also a 2nd language to me and Im not very good at math either.

 

[diastole]

Hi, I am actually almost in the same boat as the OP. I have taken Chem 1 & 2, Bio 1, and Trig. This fall I am taking orgo I, Precalc, Bio II. And in spring Orgo II, Microbio, A&P I, and Calc. I am planning on taking the 2011 june PCAT. I just started studying verbal a couple of days ago. Do you have any tips for the analogies section? I have dr. collins notes and they have a list of 146 analogies and some words. Should I try to memorize them all? I actually took the pearson practice test and scored horrible on them (20-30 composite, with chem at 30-40 composite and RC at 1-20 composite 🙁

And I actually saw some questions from dr collins similar to the ones on the pearson practice test.
english is also a 2nd language to me and Im not very good at math either.

In the Dr. Collins analogies, do they explain the how to make the bridges? There are a handful that come up again and again like part:whole, synonyms, antonyms, etc. You should at least be comfortable with that part so you know what kind of word you are looking for. You may not know what all the words mean but if you are good at figuring out the relationships that alone should give you a chance to guess.

Next, it looks like you are going to have to spend time on your RC. Unfortunately, that is one of the toughest things to improve. If you are running out of time, I suggest spending the next year practicing reading. Read online newspaper articles or science magazines. That practice will help with speed and understanding. Some people have had good results with the Examcracker Verbal. It is for the MCAT and they say it is difficult but if you can learn that, I suspect you should see an improvement in your score.

I would make an effort in your upcoming classes to really learn the material in your classes. Don't just do enough to get the grade you want. That means try to minimize cramming. If you know you are likely to see something on the PCAT, review it from time to time even though the exam has passed. Get it into your long term memory. If you work really hard and don't lose focus, you can see a big improvement in your scores. Fortunately, you have nearly a year before your exam.

 

[bottlecap1990]

In the Dr. Collins analogies, do they explain the how to make the bridges? There are a handful that come up again and again like part:whole, synonyms, antonyms, etc. You should at least be comfortable with that part so you know what kind of word you are looking for. You may not know what all the words mean but if you are good at figuring out the relationships that alone should give you a chance to guess.

Next, it looks like you are going to have to spend time on your RC. Unfortunately, that is one of the toughest things to improve. If you are running out of time, I suggest spending the next year practicing reading. Read online newspaper articles or science magazines. That practice will help with speed and understanding. Some people have had good results with the Examcracker Verbal. It is for the MCAT and they say it is difficult but if you can learn that, I suspect you should see an improvement in your score.



I would make an effort in your upcoming classes to really learn the material in your classes. Don't just do enough to get the grade you want. That means try to minimize cramming. If you know you are likely to see something on the PCAT, review it from time to time even though the exam has passed. Get it into your long term memory. If you work really hard and don't lose focus, you can see a big improvement in your scores. Fortunately, you have nearly a year before your exam.

Thanks for your advice diastole I really appreciate it. The funny thing is that when I read the passages and went on to answer the question, I felt SUPER confident with my answer. I totally understood what I read and it always came down two two answers(I always picked the one that is wrong with the other one being the correct answer ALWAYS.
I understand that for the analogy section you need to figure out the relationship between the first and the second word initially. But do you think it is better to actually learn what the words mean or just memorize the analogies? When I took the SAT i learned like 60 something vocab words and only 2 came up on the test.😳

I agree that I should try to DEEPLY undertand the concepts that my teacher are trying to teach. (all I care about is to make that A , I know this is bad). However, one or two of my teachers only taught me how to SOLVE problems with very little concepts.

How do you think I should study for the chem part? I know that this section should be pretty easy (mostly concept with very few calculations) I have yet to take organic I and II so I hope I will score better on this sect once I finished both courses.

The math was a disaster also, I got close to my CR score. I actually consider myself pretty good at math but I am not sure why I didn't do very well. I don't think it is the fact that I have yet to take precalculus and calculus(I think there are only few questions on them). I got most of the basic math correct (4 out of 6, 3 out of 5 for data analysis i think).

Man, I guess I got a lot of studying to do...