support for those who need it

[udiep]

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I decided to make this thread in support for those who are thinking about giving up on Pharmacy, need high scores, etc. Because I see a lot of threads with those scoring 90+ percentile and I know how disheartening that is for those with below at 60 percentile. Trust me, I use to look @ those threads and cry..wishing I was in their shoes.


Let me, first start off with, DON'T GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS!! I don't know if I will get accepted yet..but I just wanted to offer those thinking about giving up due to low pcat scores..

As for me, I took my first PCAT ever in June this summer and I received the most disheartening score (xx<50). I cried for almost a week because I wanted to do pharmacy since forever.. and I know I am intelligent, social-able and caring person..just my score was not showing that. I wanted to give up, but after I picked myself up and told myself, this is what I want to do then I need to keep going and be strong.

I just received my August PCAT score and its a 83% 🙂
This is like a dream come true, I was just hoping for a 70%. Never in a million years..would I have thought I got that score on the PCAT.
I thought I wanted to give support & hope to those struggling.
Hang in there and believe in yourself!! If this is REALLY what u want to do, then in the end, it will all work out.

Good luck to you all!

 

[Dr.iz-n]

This is a great thread. I was also in the same boat last year. Took the PCAT in October 08 and got a 45. Studied some more, and turned the score around to a 77 in Jan 09. You have to really stick to your dream and study hard. I just hope that all this hard work pays off in the end so I am in pharmacy school in 2010!

 

[delano2000]

This is a really nice thread, especially for those who have yet to take the test and are really nervous (like me).

 

[rammo]

iam so depressed by seeing my scores this august i dont know what to do but after reading your postings i just felt when you can do it why can't i ! i just want your support and please help me how to plan to get the high scores.

 

[udiep]

iam so depressed by seeing my scores this august i dont know what to do but after reading your postings i just felt when you can do it why can't i ! i just want your support and please help me how to plan to get the high scores.

well.. I had already read kaplan's chem and bio from June, but I re-read it all for my August pcat and made an outline of important chem concepts (the outline I made for myself was about 12 pages..but better than having to look through those 200 pages in Kaplan to look for an equation/concept I wanted to review on..u know?)

Then after that, I took about 3 weeks using Dr. Collins, his biology packet is useful..but it doesn't explain everything, so read Kaplan's bio or AP biology book and also if you had taken Microbiology or Pathogenic Microbiology..pull out those notes, it'll be very useful for the random Microbiology organism/disease questions on the test.

As for the quantitative, I made notes from the Kaplan Math book and practiced as much Dr. Collins math packet/ practice tests as possible. I swear I did those tests more than 15 times and timed myself, in order for me to solve the problems quicker and get use to manipulations of equations so I could get through it efficiently.

As for verbal, I studied the vocabulary listed in the Kaplan Verbal book. Although, its a LONG list to memorize, I just tried to make myself accustomed to it (roots and etc). I also memorized analogies and definitions from Dr. Collins, but you can't just rely on Dr. Collins for verbal. I suggest studying 10-15 words a day.

Lastly, reading..was one of my lowest scores for my June PCAT, so I knew I had to work on it. Dr. Collin's reading was VERY easy for me, but I did them anyways so I could practice on timing and see what way worked best for me (reading the questions first, then reading the passage, underlining, etc). I also did the two practice reading passages in Kaplan.

 

[phathead]

I jumped up a ton on my second here. Here's a link to my stats and how I studied for it the second time around

http://www.iwanttobeapharmacist.com/2009/07/pcat-scores-are-back-part-2.html

http://www.iwanttobeapharmacist.com/2009/07/studying-for-pcat.html

 

[rammo]

well.. I had already read kaplan's chem and bio from June, but I re-read it all for my August pcat and made an outline of important chem concepts (the outline I made for myself was about 12 pages..but better than having to look through those 200 pages in Kaplan to look for an equation/concept I wanted to review on..u know?)

Then after that, I took about 3 weeks using Dr. Collins, his biology packet is useful..but it doesn't explain everything, so read Kaplan's bio or AP biology book and also if you had taken Microbiology or Pathogenic Microbiology..pull out those notes, it'll be very useful for the random Microbiology organism/disease questions on the test.

As for the quantitative, I made notes from the Kaplan Math book and practiced as much Dr. Collins math packet/ practice tests as possible. I swear I did those tests more than 15 times and timed myself, in order for me to solve the problems quicker and get use to manipulations of equations so I could get through it efficiently.

As for verbal, I studied the vocabulary listed in the Kaplan Verbal book. Although, its a LONG list to memorize, I just tried to make myself accustomed to it (roots and etc). I also memorized analogies and definitions from Dr. Collins, but you can't just rely on Dr. Collins for verbal. I suggest studying 10-15 words a day.

Lastly, reading..was one of my lowest scores for my June PCAT, so I knew I had to work on it. Dr. Collin's reading was VERY easy for me, but I did them anyways so I could practice on timing and see what way worked best for me (reading the questions first, then reading the passage, underlining, etc). I also did the two practice reading passages in Kaplan.

thank you i will definitly do that.