Upcoming 8/22/09 PCAT

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roziak

roziak

Superhero
10+ Year Member
Hi guys.

I'm taking the upcoming 8/22/09 PCAT and just wondering (for this who are going to take this PCAT as well) how much this summer you guys have been studying? and what are your expectations and running track records? You don't have to share if you don't want to! I just getting a little nervous about this upcoming test and wanted to hear how some of you guys feel about it. I'm sure some of you are nervous too and maybe would like to share!

I've been studying probably about 25-30 hours a week (~4hours/day) and anticipate hopefully about a 75. I've taken the test in the very beginning of the summer studied a bit and got a 69 with about a month of studying. I hope I do a little better this time around... Good luck to all of you!
 
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roziak said:
Hi guys.

I'm taking the upcoming 8/22/09 PCAT and just wondering (for this who are going to take this PCAT as well) how much this summer you guys have been studying? and what are your expectations and running track records? You don't have to share if you don't want to! I just getting a little nervous about this upcoming test and wanted to hear how some of you guys feel about it. I'm sure some of you are nervous too and maybe would like to share!

I've been studying probably about 25-30 hours a week (~4hours/day) and anticipate hopefully about a 75. I've taken the test in the very beginning of the summer studied a bit and got a 69 with about a month of studying. I hope I do a little better this time around... Good luck to all of you!
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How did you determine that you got a 69? It seems impossible to determine a score.
 
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Im taking it for the first time this sat and im pretty nervous..i have studied about a month..average about 3 hours a day. I would like an 85 or 90 but that might be pushing my luck lol
 
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well good luck!
through taking it a few times and having a few friends do the same thing, all I can really say that it is really hit or miss when it comes to the PCAT. My buddy took it the first time, got a 56 and took it the next available date with no considerable amount of studying and got a 72.

So if you do bad, just try again!
 
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i started studying like for a month but had summer school. im out this week and ive been studying like 5 hours, but i work. im getting like 50% on everything....... im sure thats less thatn 50% overall on the real thing.
 
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Just studying for it from the PCAT. Never counted how many hours I studied. But am doing alot of practice test. I hope they are helpful on the exam. I just wanna get off this PCAT thing this Sat and get an outstanding score.😀

well now I can make analogies. 😎

1) PCAT: EASY :: STUDENTS:

a) HAPPY
b) SAD
c)ANGRY
d)FRUSTRATED



and Good luck guys and girls.....Put in your best.:xf:
 
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coolboy16 said:
Just studying for it from the PCAT. Never counted how many hours I studied. But am doing alot of practice test. I hope they are helpful on the exam. I just wanna get off this PCAT thing this Sat and get an outstanding score.😀

well now I can make analogies. 😎

1) PCAT: EASY :: STUDENTS:

a) HAPPY
b) SAD
c)ANGRY
d)FRUSTRATED



and Good luck guys and girls.....Put in your best.:xf:
Click to expand...

if this was on the test, the answer would be a right? all joking aside.
 
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haha you guys are probably going to blow me out of the water. I only decided I wanted to attend pharm school instead of med school in the middle of this last summer (when I was taking Organic).

I signed up for the August PCAT only about three weeks ago. Coincidentally, that's also when I started studying. 😆

Personally, I feel good about chem and o-chem, so I've just been studying the quant and bio sections.
 
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I did the pearson tests and the kaplan test, and I agree with you, the kaplan test seemed harder. I am also taking the pcat this saturday, and am quite nervous. I took the pcat in june and bombed it. I got an 80 on the biology, but the math and verbal ability killed me. I am having such a hard time with the analogies, any suggestion for the last couple study days before the test?
 
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Ash of S Mart said:
I did the pearson tests and the kaplan test, and I agree with you, the kaplan test seemed harder. I am also taking the pcat this saturday, and am quite nervous. I took the pcat in june and bombed it. I got an 80 on the biology, but the math and verbal ability killed me. I am having such a hard time with the analogies, any suggestion for the last couple study days before the test?
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I would just take tons of verbal analogy practice tests all day today. Btw, is anyone else taking tomorrow off and relaxing the day before the test? I plan on going to opening night of Inglourious Basterds and then playing a round of golf tomorrow. Just wanted to see what other people are doing.
 
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I didn't have too much time to study (about 3 weeks) because of the summer science class. But I had chance to take both Kaplan and Pearson tests. I found Kaplan to be harder in both Biology and Chemistry, but easier in Quant. I thought reading was about the same, but I felt Kaplan's reading was slightly more time consuming for some reason.

My biggest worry is verbal 🙁 For Pearson practice tests, I ranged 80~99% in Bio, Chem, and Quant, 65~85% in Reading, but 30~50% for verbal.. Composite was 80~99% but I don't know how much of that will come true 🙁 Since there is no quick way to improve verbal, I'm just going to review some Bio and formulas for Quant until the test day.

By the way, is it possible to get 85 or above with that low of the verbal score??
Also, how accurate is that pearson practice test? I timed myself, and tried to simulate the test environment as much as i could. (I found some posts about it but the opinion seemed to diverge)
 
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Theta16 said:
I would just take tons of verbal analogy practice tests all day today. Btw, is anyone else taking tomorrow off and relaxing the day before the test? I plan on going to opening night of Inglourious Basterds and then playing a round of golf tomorrow. Just wanted to see what other people are doing.
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I'll prob go to the bar all day and relax a little bit haha
 
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🙁 Ya taking PCATs Saturday too. I took Kaplan's (SOOOO HARD!) much much harder than pearsons. I got Barons which is much too easy. Then I also studied from Dr. Collins...seems to be more in line with Pearson. But on all the practice exams they repeat themselves from other test they have in the books 😡. I spent toooo much to have REPEAT QUESTIONS!!!

K, breathing... Pearson practice test I should get about 75%, but I never took OChem yet...so crossing my fingers that C is the right answer for my guess! 👍

Good LUCK!!! 🙂
 
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Are there other places to get practice tests besides the kaplan and pearson ones, and are there some free ones? Oh, and the day before the test I will be going to class, my semester has started, and studying down to the last minute. I would like to see Inglorious Basterds though, it looks way good. You gotta love Tarantino.
 
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I spent about 4 - 5 hours a week for 2 months during the summer on mostly science and math review. I'm still very uncomfortable with the quantitative ability and chemistry, so I'm gonna rely on good guesswork. My plan is to retake the PCAT in January if I don't make an 80+ composite score.
 
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I started reviewing for Bio during mid June and for verbal I've just been reading and doing analogies every now and then since summer started. Chem and Math i started a mth back.


Hope I can score above an 80 percentile, lets see what happens.
Best of luck to everyone. Hope we all end up doing exceptionally well. 🙂
 
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I started studying in July, while taking an intensive summer course and working part time. I read the entire Kaplan study guide, bought the pearson practice exams, and have been doing random questions here and there from barrons and cliffs. I haven't timed myself on anything yet; my strategy is to understand the material enough so that when under timed conditions, I can know what to do and when to do it. Yeah this might blow up in my face but I guess we'll find out saturday.

Question, for you guys that have done the pearson practice, did you find the chemistry section unnervingly easy? I thought the math was horrible, bio was tricky, but for some reason I flew through the chem. And chem isn't normally that easy for me. I wanted to see what everybody else's opinion is on that too.
 
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Yeah your true. I took both the pearson practice test. I found chem to be easy or may be i have studied well. lolz......math was very very hard. I don't know what I am gonna do with math. Bio was ok......and since my reading and verbal is not so good i screwed them ...
 
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I think you guys are making it harder than it seems.

I have a 2.8 GPA and got a 86 on the PCAT, and I studied for 3 weeks.

Still nervous as hell for the test this saturday though !
 
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BTW Math is what you have to watch out for. If you think its going to take you more than 40 seconds to solve a problem, SKIP IT FOR LAST !

I got a 26 or something in math because I was half way done and only 5 minutes left !
 
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Aquahelix said:
BTW Math is what you have to watch out for. If you think its going to take you more than 40 seconds to solve a problem, SKIP IT FOR LAST !

I got a 26 or something in math because I was half way done and only 5 minutes left !
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haha
If that happens to me, I'll just bubble in B for everything else and hope to get lucky. :xf:
 
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really? I tried researching how the percentile ranking is scored and all I could really find is that it is your score based on other performance on the same test. Is that incorrect?

Way to shoot me down the day before the test! I'm gonna fail now!
 
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Their scoring page
http://psychcorp.pearsonassessments.com/hai/Images/dotCom/pcatweb.info/PCAT_Scoring_FAQs.pdf


Are my scores derived by comparing them to the other students who took the
exam on the same date as me?
Your percentile rank scores are based on the current norm group each time
you take the PCAT. The current norm group is defined as all first-time
examines who took the test between October 2004 and May 2007. Your
scaled scores are based on the number of core (live) items that you answered
correctly for each subtest. Each multiple-choice subtest is calculated
separately.
 
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i put in a lot of studying for tomorrow's pcat. i went over at least 15 different books for biology,chemistry,math, verbal, and reading comprehension in the past 3 months. all i am asking is that all my hard work pay off at the end. 😀😀😀
 
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Good luck on the pcat tomorrow everyone!!! Hope all our studying has paid off =]

I also thought the chem section on the practice test was very easy, and I'm am TERRIBLE at it.

I saved the second pearson practice for today to see how I would do after all my studying, but I found the quantitative section to be much harder than practice test one! Has anyone else noticed this?
 
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