So How Was the July 21st PCAT?

[inquirer89]

Hope everyone did well! Please discuss any feelings or thoughts that you had about the July PCAT. (Did you find it easy or hard? Were there more problems of a particular area than you expected? etc.)

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[medicalCPA]

Umm, last I checked, it was the month of June.

 

[babakpharm]

Just got back from the pcat and overall it was ok. Here is what I thought of the sections and on a scale of 1-10 (1-easiest, 10-hardest)


Math--I did ok, but i ran out of time so i guessed on a few--6
Chemistry--Too Easy, my best section--9
Biology--I thought it was difficult--4
Reading Comp--Easy i think, but thats what i thought last October and my score proved otherwise--7
Verbal--Not bad at all--7.5

 

[medicalCPA]

If Chemistry was "too easy," why did you give it a 9 (if your scale is to be believed)?

 

[Narrowstairs]

I would have to agree that chemistry was very easy compared to the practice tests that I've taken. Math was an entirely different beast though, I had to guess on several as I ran out of time, luckily I went for the ones I knew right away first.

 

[homeslice]

I would have to agree that chemistry was very easy compared to the practice tests that I've taken. Math was an entirely different beast though, I had to guess on several as I ran out of time, luckily I went for the ones I knew right away first.

Yeah if I remember right the chemistry section had hardly any calculations.

 

[bkiskadd]

Ya, I was actually really surprised the chemistry had so few calculations. I had been expecting the worst from the Kaplan book I was studying.

Overall, I didn't think it really to bad at all except the Math. It was killer. I finished every section except that one and had to guess at quite a few. I'm not sure many people actually finished that one though. I couldnt really think of a lot to write for the second essay either, so I'm really hoping they score the first essay!

 

[manutdmax]

who ever says that math part was easy ..he should go check his brain coz there is somthing wrong...give me a break the whole test center was crying from math..no time and was hard...chemistry was easy.. i am biology major and thought biology was hard..verbal not bad..reading too..

math guessed maybe 15 qs...
biology 11 qs....

the biology section looks like the MCAT with no paragraphs...the qs are getting realy specific...

 

[Farcus]

so what kind of question was on the math section? was it like stuff you learn in classroom? I mean I'd figure a lot if calculus and such. Is it like find the derivative or integral or something?

For people who took the the january's test and this one what do you think compared to this one.

How is Chemistry compared to kaplan's course? How much Ochem 2 material was on there? I only taken Ochem 1

 

[homeslice]

so what kind of question was on the math section? was it like stuff you learn in classroom? I mean I'd figure a lot if calculus and such. Is it like find the derivative or integral or something?

For people who took the the january's test and this one what do you think compared to this one.

How is Chemistry compared to kaplan's course? How much Ochem 2 material was on there? I only taken Ochem 1

Like other posters have said, the chemistry section was fairly easy...I don't think there's any Ochem2 material on it. As for the math, make sure you know the properties of logs...

 

[Farcus]

not much calculus? So was it mostly pre-cal now or what

 

[dandanar]

It wasn't HORRIBLE overall, but MATH was ATROCIOUS!!! I guessed on a lot. But it's my first time taking it, so I guess we'll see what I get this time around I'm so nervous and anxious to get my scores!!!!

In other news, my day started off horrible! I'm in Maryland and I took the test in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University. Tell me why the city marathon was today and they had the almost ALL roads to the university blocked!!!?!?! I was panicking and crying because I had no access to the parking garages. I ended up talking to a police officer watching the marathon, and she told me to park on the street in a no stopping zone, but couldn't guarantee my car wouldn't get towed or ticketed! THANK GOODNESS it was still there, without a ticket, when I was done!

 

[homeslice]

not much calculus? So was it mostly pre-cal now or what

I don't remember there being a ton of calculus (maybe 6 or 7 questions?), a few of them seemed like they were pretty involved though so I just immediately guessed instead of wasting time on them when I could get to questions that were just adding fractions or something.

 

[pkp]

Chem wasn't nearly as bad as Cliffs or even the Harcourt practice. I had to guess on a few though.

Bio was more difficult than Harcourt practice, but not too bad.

Math was brutal.

 

[clee18]

The math definately sucked, I was running out of time with half of the questions scattered that I hadn't answered, so a lot of guessing was done lol

 

[canucks]

My thoughts:
Math=super easy
Chemistry=Easy
Reading Comp=Easy/some were difficult
Biology=Hated it, way to much detail for certain things
Verbal=Well the fill in the blanks were easy but the other ones were super hard (yes english is my first language).
Essays=The school I am applying for doesn't count them, so I wasn't too stressed about it. The first topic was easy to write about, but the same can not be said about the second one.

 

[mug3n]

There wasn't much calculus on the quantitative part at all - in fact, I distinctly only remember one question where you explicitly had to evaluate an integral (there was another question about area under the curve using the bar method but you can do it w/o calc, although it is a longer runaround but still works). But it was quite tough, like everyone else here, I was so pressed for time - had to end up guessing 5-6 questions, not that great. At times like these I wished I would've reviewed my precalculus because I did most questions in a long and stupid way. If only I could've allotted my surplus time from the writing parts and add it onto my quantitative - I had like 10 minutes left from each writing part just twiddling my thumbs.

(Side note: Stupid empirical system - no I am not American . I had no freaking clue how many ounces were in 1 gallon and I had to throw a question)

I regretted chem the most because I knew I could've done well in that but I didn't. I probably did better on the practice exam - maybe because it's so heavily based on calculations whereas the June PCAT wasn't. Quite a few of the reactions caught me by surprise even though they probably shouldn't have - I blame myself for not spending enough time reviewing reactions, typical ones that I saw before but just glanced over so I didn't have a good grasp on my answers. So there were a few question marks here and there in chem.

Bio was probably the most straightforward part for me on this PCAT - there weren't too many difficult anatomy questions, and the details weren't that bad - nothing about increase this and decrease this types of questions. Although they did ask you to identify several oddball diseases.

Reading comp=easy, maybe 2-3 unsures other than that, it was alright. I actually did quite well for time on this section, better than I expected because I ran out of time in both my practice tests. Had about 5 minutes to spare at #48. Maybe because the passage and questions were side-by-side. The online tests, I had a hard time following and maybe that's why I ran out of time. Being able to underline stuff and jot notes with minimal page flipping really helped.

Verbal=some of the analogies were a pain in the butt. I'd say maybe 2-3 troublesome ones. Sentence completion was easy. This section was easier than some of the Harcourt tests and definitely easier than Kaplan's.

Essays=I hope my marker likes my essays. That is all. 1st topic was great but 2nd topic ehhhhh I hated it. Drew a blank as soon as I put the pencil to the paper.

 

[ryce4u]

I thought the biology section was pretty easy this time. It seem like there was more human phy and genetics questions. I just finished taking human phy 2 and taking genetics right now. All the genetics questions on the pcat was covered on last week genetic's test .

 

[june 8th]

verbal ability: analogies really tough, sentence completion was alright.. probably got around a 60

bio section: very specific.. it was challenging to me

chem: needed more time but very easy

math: needed more time but also easy

reading: easy

writing: i hope i made sense lol

not bad for my first time though.. i will definitely bring a watch next time. the proctor didn't even put how much time was left on the board. next thing i heard.. "5 minutes left"

 

[apteryx]

I thought the Bio was easy, since it seemed to be mostly A&P, which I love. However, I couldn't believe how much Org. Chemistry was in the chemistry section! I haven't taken it yet, so I'm pretty sure I'll be taking this test again. Seriously, 80% of the chem was organic. Thanks, stupid Kaplan. Oh well, my fault for not taking it yet. Why couldn't the math be mostly calculus? I can't even remember most of that pre-calc stuff, sheesh. At least the reading sections are score boosters. And maybe I got really lucky on some guesses.

My tip for future test-takers: study your org. chem and pre-calc!

Yeah, my proctor didn't even say anything except for "5 minutes left!" Were you 1 of the 9 people at SAGE by any chance?

 

[Farcus]

I thought the Bio was easy, since it seemed to be mostly A&P, which I love. However, I couldn't believe how much Org. Chemistry was in the chemistry section! I haven't taken it yet, so I'm pretty sure I'll be taking this test again. Seriously, 80% of the chem was organic. Thanks, stupid Kaplan. Oh well, my fault for not taking it yet. Why couldn't the math be mostly calculus? I can't even remember most of that pre-calc stuff, sheesh. At least the reading sections are score boosters. And maybe I got really lucky on some guesses.

My tip for future test-takers: study your org. chem and pre-calc!

Yeah, my proctor didn't even say anything except for "5 minutes left!" Were you 1 of the 9 people at SAGE by any chance?

Ochem 2 or Ochem 1 stuff?

I'm taking calculus right now guess I should of taken a pre-cal class for enrichment lol? So more pre-cal for math this time? Was there a lot of quesiton about probablity and like chances? And word problems for math? specifically different kind of rate problems.

 

[phuang06]

I thought the Bio was easy, since it seemed to be mostly A&P, which I love. However, I couldn't believe how much Org. Chemistry was in the chemistry section! I haven't taken it yet, so I'm pretty sure I'll be taking this test again. Seriously, 80% of the chem was organic. Thanks, stupid Kaplan. Oh well, my fault for not taking it yet. Why couldn't the math be mostly calculus? I can't even remember most of that pre-calc stuff, sheesh. At least the reading sections are score boosters. And maybe I got really lucky on some guesses.

My tip for future test-takers: study your org. chem and pre-calc!

Yeah, my proctor didn't even say anything except for "5 minutes left!" Were you 1 of the 9 people at SAGE by any chance?

My proctor didn't say anything except "5 minutes left!" too! It was such a hurried thing to have to speed up overclocking when you're taking your time and suddenly there's only 5 minutes left lol.

 

[rmishra2]

Hey, I'm taking the test next week in iowa city--postponed due to flood. any tips/suggestions?

 

[mug3n]

It probably won't be the same seeing as how there are like 11 test versions circulating around ... lol. Anyways.

• Don't try to skip ahead or go back to a previous section. The proctors take it seriously. A girl in our exam room got warned because she was reading the wrong page of the instructions and the proctors said they'll have to report it.
• order: writing - verbal - bio - chem - break - writing #2 - reading - quantitative
• Start racking up ideas to write in your head as soon as you read the instructions. The proctors have to wait for everyone to finish reading the instructions before starting the test, so think during that time! You only have 30 minutes to put your thoughts to paper and that basically means you'll need to get to writing something when the clock starts.
• To answer a previous poster, the Chemistry section was all OChem I. I don't believe anything required OChem II for you to do, which is expected. CliffsNotes' PCAT tests went a bit overboard with the chem if you ask me.
• Chem: know the reactions - eg: dehydration. There was a lot more "figure out this reaction" type of questions than calculation types. Which kind of figures. OChem is a big part of the PCAT.
• Bio: Ummm... if you study off Kaplan you'll do fine in this section. Most of the stuff on bio was covered there. Though they did ask you questions about diseases (eg: Alzheimer's - that wasn't one of the ones they asked on the June PCAT, I don't want to give specifics away, but there were questions pertaining to disease names and you basically have to figure out what they are lol). I wouldn't worry about them too much, either you know 'em or you don't, you can't control it.

Fortunately our exam group was small. We had a clock right in front of the room. There were maybe ~20 people writing in the same room.

 

[Prepharm1214]

Hey, I'm taking the test next week in iowa city--postponed due to flood. Anyone know if i will be taking the same test that u guys just took? any tips/suggestions from those of u who just took it?

That kind of ruins the integrity of the test...

 

[june 8th]

just know your reactions from ochem, mainly hydrolysis

so reading kaplan helps for bio? kaplan didnt really help for the math part.

 

[Farcus]

for people who took the Harcourt Practice test, how would you guys rank the real thing today? Like each section breakdown if you dont mind.

 

[eviltwin]

It was okay overall for my first time writing it... i found chem to be hardest as im takin orgo1 right now .... but any of you writing it again? of course it depends on what you get though lol..

 

[lepamplemousse]

The PCAT was easier than I expected, but that doesn't mean I did great on it.

Verbal: fairly easy, but few tricky ones
Biology: also fairly easy, but im a biology major
Chemistry: halfway into the test, i accidentally skipped a question so i was filling in all the wrong bubbles. i finally noticed ~10 questions later and had to go back to fix it. i wanted to shoot myself. because of that, i didnt finish the chem section. the questions were all right though... lots of orgo which sucked because i took orgo over a year ago, and kaplan didn't help me review at all.
Reading Comp: not bad, but some tricky questions
Quantitative: finished ~2/3 of it, before running out of time
Writing: the first essay was fine, but i couldn't think of a good answer for the 2nd essay

So we will get our scores in 6 weeks! Doesn't that seem a bit long? Is there another way of getting our scores earlier (like paying a special fee)? I just want to know in time before the registration for August PCAT.

 

[homeslice]

Comparing the practice test from Harcourt and the actual PCAT (in my opinion):

Reading Comp.- same for both
Verbal- actual PCAT seemed to be harder, there were more tricky analogies
Quantitative- I thought the practice test was a lot harder, there was more calculus and what not on it
Biology- this isn't my strongest field, both seemed to be about the same...several tricky questions, for me at least
Chemistry- I do better on calculation type questions, which the practice test had a lot more of (the actual PCAT had almost none I think). I'm a chem major and think I could have done a lot better on this section, even though it still wasn't too difficult.

I hope they grade the first writing section, my second essay was trash compared to the first.

As for the length of time it takes to get the scores back, I always figured it was like that on purpose so they can make more money from people registering for the next PCAT before they know their scores from the previous one.

 

[kizlam]

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[sideeffect]

math section killed me...
Did anyone else notice that there were some of the same questions from previous PCAT ? yay

 

[ffpickle]

math section killed me...
Did anyone else notice that there were some of the same questions from previous PCAT ? yay

you mean the practise test?

 

[ffpickle]

Hi Everyone,

Please suggest how you found the test compared to Harcourt's Practise Ones?

 

[najeroni]

.

 

[samfromVA]

Ok, well where do I start.

Essay I- Awesome, EssayII-Good
Verbal - Not sure how it went
Chem - Fine, but needed more time (guessed in couple of questions-out of time)
Math - Fine, Needed more time
Bio - Was easy, nothin more, just easy...

Bottom line beside Virbal, rest I thought were easy enough, just not enough time.

Another bottom line, I might have to take it again owing to the GPA that I have, I need more than 85% in PCAT.

Last Bottom line, PEOPLE LEARN TO MANAGE TIME...IT IS IMPORTANT AND PLEASE TAKE A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP BEFORE THE EXAM.

 

[sideeffect]

you mean the practise test?

I took the PCAT October 2007 and some of the same questions (e.g. same essays in verbal section)appeard in this PCAT June 2008... Did anyone else see this also?

 

[sideeffect]

I don't remember there being a ton of calculus (maybe 6 or 7 questions?), a few of them seemed like they were pretty involved though so I just immediately guessed instead of wasting time on them when I could get to questions that were just adding fractions or something.

I only saw one calc question...

 

[kizlam]

Last Bottom line, PEOPLE LEARN TO MANAGE TIME...IT IS IMPORTANT AND PLEASE TAKE A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP BEFORE THE EXAM.

Completely agree. The time I took the PCAT, I was trying to take in as much as I could the day before the exam and didn't sleep at all. I felt like a zombie driving to the test center and even nodded off for a couple of minutes during the reading comp. section Very very bad. I definitely learned my lesson

 

[kizlam]

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[sakigt]

Writing: Easy. Organize your thoughts on the practice sheet and start writing after ~1 minute.
Reading Comp: Easy. Had 20 minutes to spare!
Verbal: Mostly easy. Had to guess on 3 or 4
Bio: Easy. Had to guess on 3 or 4. I remember 1 or 2 I wrote LOL WTF next to it because I had absolutely no clue.
Chem: Mostly easy. I guessed on a few.
Quant: Wowzers. Time management, youre not kidding. I think I knew how to do 75% of the problems but I only had 2/3 done before 5 minutes was called. Definitely need more than the Kaplan review for that, I guess since thats all I used.

I think I got above the 80 that I need.

 

[Spirala]

Generally, I believe the exam was easier than the kaplan exams. The math section was not necessarily hard cause I knew how to solve the problems but I didnt have enough time to solve them! So i ended up guessing on 7 problems. I am glad I went through the math questions and answered all the easy to solve questions first before solving the word problems which took most of my time because it is so hard to focus when your are under a lot of tension! So do these exams have the same level of difficulty or there are exams that are way harder than this? I plan on taking August if I dont get a 80 percentile. I guess we have another rendez-vous when the results come out see you then!

 

[inquirer89]

Oops just notice I said "July" instead of June Test. Glad everyone overlooked my error. Thanks for the heads up medicalcpa.


So do PCATs of the same year follow a common trend? Because I'm getting the general conscientious that I should study alot of Math and work on Time Management for the August exam.....

 

[31fan]

Writing: First essay was fine, second one was... not so fine. An impossible-to-answer question unless you're an expert on the topic. Sheesh.
Verbal: VERY easy, but I think I have a good vocabulary.
Biology: Surprisingly easy!! Questions were pretty simple.
Chemistry: It was ok. So much organic chem!! (I haven't taken it yet! I just finished freshman year)
Reading: VERY easy. I was expecting scientific articles and there were none :-?
Math: AAAGGH! Speed math is not my thing. Guessed on a large percentage.

I studied the 700-page Kaplan book cover-to-cover so I think I was a little overprepared. Overall the test was much simpler than I expected. I will probably take it again in October when I have a couple months of Organic Chem and I will definitely practice those stupid math problems.

Hoping for a 75-80...???

 

[mug3n]

^ But you found most sections to be easy so you should be expecting better than 75-80 hehe.

 

[Nottingham]

Writing: First essay I rocked. Second one was just good
Verbal: Piece of cake
Biology: MUCH harder than I expected. Then again I haven't taken A&P or genetics, and we only cover 1/3 of the material in bio 102 b/c of an incompetent professor who is no longer employed by the college
Chemistry: Did a lot of eenie meenie minie mo. I've only done 101, I take 102 the end of the summer and Ochem in the fall so perhaps I was a little too ambitious. The calculations I could do though were cake.
Reading: Easy, straightforward. Maybe a tricky question here or there.
Math: Dude, they weren't too difficult but the time was way short. In all of the practice books I used 50 minutes was given for this section, not 40. Wasn't such a nice suprise.


All in all for not having taken most of the classes I think I did okay. I'm taking it again in August and this time I'll be better prepared for the science sections (aka...do better at teaching myself). Talk about a stressful morning though. I took the exam at Penn State and when I showed up for the test at 8:10, all the doors to the building were locked! I just about freaked out and starting running round the building until I came to the one where everyone else (including the proctor) was waiting. Penn State didn't have anyone open the doors until 8:20, but at least I wasn't the one who was late.

 

[Markovnikov]

I just about freaked out and starting running round the building until I came to the one where everyone else (including the proctor) was waiting. Penn State didn't have anyone open the doors until 8:20, but at least I wasn't the one who was late.

haha, I took the test at Ohio State and the doors did not open until 8:30.

 

[dstormz]

This PCAT will definitely hurts my chance of getting accepted I guessed so many questions. I'm a biologly major, however, most of the questions on the biology were quite specific. My suggestion is to make sure you will take the test seriously and work on your time management skills.

Good luck!