verbal part suffering,, help wanted plz

[manutdmax]

hi alll ...

i wanted to say that my biggest problem in the PCAT is the verbal analogies....what i should do ...i did study GRE WORDS but it is impossible to memorize 100000000 words...plz any help or tips...i will take the exam in june and i do think i stilll have plenty of time to prepare...for the people who did well what did u do ..for the people who suffer like me what are you going to do ..my 1st language is not english by the way

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[AngelaCL]

Here's the advice I give to everyone who has difficulty with the verbal or reading sections - start by practicing proper English now! Don't type your responses using poor grammar and punctuation. Use capital letters at the beginning of the sentence, and ellipses (...) do not indicate a pause in your thinking!

 

[Mandu08]

hi alll ...

i wanted to say that my biggest problem in the PCAT is the verbal analogies....what i should do ...i did study GRE WORDS but it is impossible to memorize 100000000 words...plz any help or tips...i will take the exam in june and i do think i stilll have plenty of time to prepare...for the people who did well what did u do ..for the people who suffer like me what are you going to do ..my 1st language is not english by the way

hey,

I just took the jan 19th exam and well, I studied the GRE verbal book with all those damn words. And, there was only one word on the actual exam which was not even in the question but the answer choice. I believe memorizing all those words was a waste of my time. The analogies were all knowing how "things" are related. Some analogies were science or phenomenon based which had nothing to do with knowing a difficult word. SO, I would recommend just reading the new york times, science/humanity journals, etc. The verbal section measures your ability to make logic of words in relations to other words. For example, you might have memorized a word's definition but on the pcat's sentence completion this exact word has a different meaning depending on the sentence's context. So, memorizing is pointless if you cant comprehend and differentiate it's various usages within that question. In addition, you can practice lots of analogies, kaplan or GRE, because that may increase your ability to understand the relations with words. Umm, to be safe, learn roots of words. But, practice how to take exams on analogies and sentence complete and not just memorize words. I can tell that PCAT, like many other standardize exams, has a particular format/strategy for this which i cant farther explain because PCAT rules. But, you'll figure it out with lots of practice.

 

[manutdmax]

thanks guys..but i still dont know ...i read alot of journals and scientific papers..but there are many words that i cant understand...i will study the roots and see what i will do..how was your exam yesterdat by the way...

 

[Mandu08]

thanks guys..but i still dont know ...i read alot of journals and scientific papers..but there are many words that i cant understand...i will study the roots and see what i will do..how was your exam yesterdat by the way...

I would recommend you studying your bio and chem notes from college. PCAT has become very specific which i believe most recent study guides have not began to cover.

 

[tharper14]

hi alll ...

i wanted to say that my biggest problem in the PCAT is the verbal analogies....what i should do ...i did study GRE WORDS but it is impossible to memorize 100000000 words...plz any help or tips...i will take the exam in june and i do think i stilll have plenty of time to prepare...for the people who did well what did u do ..for the people who suffer like me what are you going to do ..my 1st language is not english by the way

I think you can't really study for the verbal section.... way, way too many words to learn. The best thing you can do, I think, is whenever you come across an unfamiliar word when reading, look it up in a dictionary. Also, have you taken any upper level english classes? I think that helps heaps too cause you're introduced to words that aren't often used in everyday language.

Hope this helps a little...

 

[stoopkid]

personally, i think the verbal section assumes you have heard the common terms and words before, and know their definition. no way of studying for words like that, imo. I honestly had no idea for most of them and hope to have guessed correctly.

 

[charleshawtrey]

You have to form a link between the words in the prompt, and then see what answer choices that link works with. It is best for the link to be as specific as possible. For example:

height::meters

a) mass:: pounds
b) water:liters
c) gravity:: pull
d) liquid:gallons

The key to getting the analogies (for me) is to try and form a relationship between the two prompt words BEFORE you look at the answer choices, and make this relationship as specific as you can. Never say "height is to meters as X is to _____." In the above example you would say "height is measured in meters". You then transfer that link---is measured in----to ALL of the answer choices.
a) mass is measured in pounds
b) water is measured in liters
c) gravity is measured in pull
d) (a) liquid is measured in gallons

None of them seem particulary crazy at first reading, usually one of them will. A, b, and d all seem quite plausible. Therefore we need a better link. You notice both SI units and English units are present in the answers, so you re-read the prompt and see meters -- SI units. The new link becomes "height is measured in meters when using SI units." Back to the choices:

a) mass is measured in pounds when using SI units
b) water is measured in liters when using SI units
c) gravity is measured in pull when using SI units
d) (a) liquid is measured in gallons when using SI units

and "b" emerges as the clear answer. As you can find in any prep book, the analogies will tend to be in one of a few different forms.

synonym
halt::stop

antonym
stop::go

extremes
wind::hurricane (link would be "a hurricane is a very strong/violent/sustained wind)

part/whole
kansas::america

other, "normal" relationships
hammer::nail
landlord::tenant
power::turbine

 

[manutdmax]

You have to form a link between the words in the prompt, and then see what answer choices that link works with. It is best for the link to be as specific as possible. For example:

height::meters

a) massounds
b) water:liters
c) gravityull
d) liquid:gallons

The key to getting the analogies (for me) is to try and form a relationship between the two prompt words BEFORE you look at the answer choices, and make this relationship as specific as you can. Never say "height is to meters as X is to _____." In the above example you would say "height is measured in meters". You then transfer that link---is measured in----to ALL of the answer choices.
a) mass is measured in pounds
b) water is measured in liters
c) gravity is measured in pull
d) (a) liquid is measured in gallons

None of them seem particulary crazy at first reading, usually one of them will. A, b, and d all seem quite plausible. Therefore we need a better link. You notice both SI units and English units are present in the answers, so you re-read the prompt and see meters -- SI units. The new link becomes "height is measured in meters when using SI units." Back to the choices:

a) mass is measured in pounds when using SI units
b) water is measured in liters when using SI units
c) gravity is measured in pull when using SI units
d) (a) liquid is measured in gallons when using SI units

and "b" emerges as the clear answer. As you can find in any prep book, the analogies will tend to be in one of a few different forms.

synonym
halt::stop

antonym
stop::go

extremes
wind::hurricane (link would be "a hurricane is a very strong/violent/sustained wind)

part/whole
kansas::america

other, "normal" relationships
hammer::nail
landlord::tenant
power::turbine

thanks for the great post...but sometimes the words are hard for me to identify and i dont know their meanings...what to do in the case..any advise on how u aced your verbal part?

 

[charleshawtrey]

You cannot build your vocab overnight. You simply have to read books that are above your reading level and look up the words you do not know. This process of looking up words can be streamlined quite a bit, with no need to use a "real" dictionary.

If you are not using Firefox as your browser, get it here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Next, go here and get the dictionary tooltip add-on.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1171
Now when you double click a word you do not know, a pop up box will appear with the definition.

If you are having problems finding suitable reading materials online, try here:
[SIZE=-1]http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
A LOT of free books on this site.

Finally, get a "vocabulary builder" from here:
http://campusi.com/search.pl?cat=book&isbn=&title=&author=&keyword=%22merriam+webster's+vocabulary+builder%22&format=&lang=en-us&search_country=us&shipto=us&currency=usd&zip=&nw=y&limit=10&use_ajax=1
I bought the first one on the list about a month ago and have read it a bit. Each section teaches you around 8 words that come from a common root.
[/SIZE]

 

[snvplayer]

some of the analogy questions were ridiculous.

One question that I remember was related to knowing the composition of color. (at leat I think it was).

The words on PCAT aren't difficult, they are probably a little easier than SAT.

I don't think you could really study the analogy section, perhaps you could study MAT?

But for sentence completion, you can start by reading a lot. And what I found most useful was Kaplan SAT Verbal Prep book. Their sentence completion and reading were the most similar to the ones that I saw in PCAT.

GRE is just a lot more difficult than PCAT, and is unnecessary.....
GRE readings are generally a lot more technical and from journals.

 

[cuedee]

The Princeton Review GRE book has good advice for the verbal and essay sections.

 

[SomaCNS]

For me, the problem was NOT that I didn't know the vocabulary. I think most of the words were ones most people would know. In fact, after studying all of the Kaplan words, I don't recall one word being on the actual exam. I think the difficult part is finding the relationship of these relatively simple words. Some of the word pairs did not appear to have a strong relationship so I spent a lot of time figuring out what kind of relationship they were looking for. It reminded me of when I was studying for SAT and they told us to NEVER pick a choice which had words that go together, but no real relationship. For the PCAT, it seemed that this is how the section is - words that go together with no real relationship. And I could definitely see how some of the word pairings could be subject to a few interpretations, which complicated things more.

 

[pharm4sure]

one advice, never use GRE words. Look for some pcat practice materials maybe from Kaplan class or from the question bank. You can obtain a PCAT CD-rom containing lots of questions. Go on amazon or search generally on line. Also try pcatdoctor.

 

[Strutter]

I made a new thread here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=492747

I would appreciate your responses...