Working quickly on the PCAT

[moi]

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I just started studying for the PCAT, and I"m doing the Diagnostic Exam in the Kaplan 2006-2007 book. I'm having BIG problems with the Quantittive and Chemistry sections - it's not that I don't know the information, but I run out of time. On the Quantitative Ability section there were 30 questions in 20 minutes, and on the Chemistry section there were 30 questions in 15 minutes. On both, I was only 10 - 15 questions through when i ran out of time!

Did anyone else notice this when they first started studying for the PCAT? Any tips on how to work faster? The Kaplan book doesn't seem to have much to say about how to work faster. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance

 

[rxlynn]

I just started studying for the PCAT, and I"m doing the Diagnostic Exam in the Kaplan 2006-2007 book. I'm having BIG problems with the Quantittive and Chemistry sections - it's not that I don't know the information, but I run out of time. On the Quantitative Ability section there were 30 questions in 20 minutes, and on the Chemistry section there were 30 questions in 15 minutes. On both, I was only 10 - 15 questions through when i ran out of time!

Did anyone else notice this when they first started studying for the PCAT? Any tips on how to work faster? The Kaplan book doesn't seem to have much to say about how to work faster. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance

I mentioned this in my other post to you - yes, I had lots of problems with this when I first started studying. I ended up with a 99 chemistry and a 72 quant, so I did fine in the end. Although I had problems with time on Kaplan chemistry, I did not have problems on actual test - there's just not as much math involved, and some of the PCAT questions will only require you to identify the correct set-up of the problem - you won't have to do all the math.

Quant was a different story - I really thought I had bombed it, and I think it is very common for people to run out of time on that section. Try to identify the questions that you know you could do - don't spend a lot of time trying to work out things you have no idea about. I think I must have done a lot of good guessing

 

[ForcedEntry]

Speed will come with practice.

I was running out of time while practicing until I the problem wanted me to solve log 5.324 (or something like that) without a calculator. It was my epiphany. I realized that there was no freaking way the real PCAT was going to test my ability to be a savant.

While you are practicing, try to notice how easy it is to discount some of the answers immediately. You can almost always work every quant problem backwards.

Why the heck am I giving pointers to my competition?

 

[Benzoic Acid]

Speed will come with practice.

Why the heck am I giving pointers to my competition?

Too much cowbell, it must be going to your head.

 

[All4MyDaughter]

The Kaplan book is WAY WAY WAY harder than the actual PCAT math and chemistry sections.

Working quickly is still important though.

I went through the test and handled each question in one of three ways:

1. If I knew how to do the question, I did it and answered it.
2. If I had no idea how to do the question (no hope) I marked it "B" and never looked back at it.
3. If I wasn't sure but thought I might be able to answer the question, I circled it to remember to return to it.

After all I answered all of the #1 questions, I started working on the #3's. When they called 10 minutes I made sure I had SOMETHING marked for every question (even if only a guess). At five minutes I picked one final question to work on until time was called.

Worked for me, I finished both sections.