Tips on doing well on verbal section during PCAT?

[ammym92]

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Hey guys! First post 🙂

I'm registered to take the PCAT on September and I have finally decided to study for the exam since I just graduated this summer (Woo hoo!)


For those of you who did well on the verbal section, please share your story!

My strengths lie in the science and math section but my writing, reading and verbal skills are terrible. As I was practicing for the verbal section, I realize it is almost impossible to do the analogies without knowing what the words in the questions mean.

Should I just study all the words that come with the flashcards? Will this suffice?

I don't want a low score on the verbal section to affect my overall score. Please help!!!! Thank you very much 🙂

 

[MyRealNameIs]

I got a 98 on verbal and really the only thing you can do is memorize all the words. I used the Kaplan book which has around ~2000 words. I knew about half of them really well, familiar with about 500, and didn't know about 500. I think it took me about two weeks to memorize most of them. I had about 200 words that my brain refused to learn so I just didn't. Not worth spending too much time on it. I don't think this is an area you should really focus on. It was the last section I studied and most people do well in PCAT with a low verbal score. Getting over 90 composite with 50 in verbal is common. The sections are probably not weighted equally.

It is also important to get enough practice with analogy section because sometimes you will get the answer wrong even if you knew all the words. I did notice on the test that the easy words that kinda fits the analogy are the wrong answers. So be careful about automatically choosing an easy word as an answer. I am not saying that there were no easy words that were answers, but if they don't unequivocally fit the analogy, there is probably a harder word that does.

 

[cujoh325]

I got a 95 on verbal for the July PCAT, and I found that simply exposing myself to as many vocab words as possible from the Kaplan book helped me a lot. I made flashcards ( a letter of the alphabet each day) of words I did not know, and studied them all throughout the 2 months or so I did to prepare for the PCAT. Also, taking practice verbal tests helps you get a feel for the types of questions and how to approach each analogy and sentence completion.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I did not find the verbal section for the July PCAT very difficult. Not too many complicated words, just a lot of tricky answer choices. Be sure not to rush, and that you know how to eliminate those trick answers.

Good luck!

 

[iLIFTforFOOD]

Dr. Collins. Got a 91 using only Dr.C.

 

[ammym92]

I got a 98 on verbal and really the only thing you can do is memorize all the words. I used the Kaplan book which has around ~2000 words. I knew about half of them really well, familiar with about 500, and didn't know about 500. I think it took me about two weeks to memorize most of them. I had about 200 words that my brain refused to learn so I just didn't. Not worth spending too much time on it. I don't think this is an area you should really focus on. It was the last section I studied and most people do well in PCAT with a low verbal score. Getting over 90 composite with 50 in verbal is common. The sections are probably not weighted equally.

It is also important to get enough practice with analogy section because sometimes you will get the answer wrong even if you knew all the words. I did notice on the test that the easy words that kinda fits the analogy are the wrong answers. So be careful about automatically choosing an easy word as an answer. I am not saying that there were no easy words that were answers, but if they don't unequivocally fit the analogy, there is probably a harder word that does.

Thanks a lot!! Very helpful 🙂