chemistry section on pcat

[stunna]

im not sure how much time you are givin on the chem section of the pcat. Is it 60 questions in 30 mins? or 60 questions in 45 mins? the barrons book tells me its the later, but the pcat success 2004 book tells me its the prior, does anyone know what it is? Ive been working on the 60 questions in 30 mins and it seems like im pressed for time. thanks
-sal

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[ApothRM]

Im almost positive that it is 30 mins long..I have been trying to keep my times to about less than 30 secs a questions..


Good luck!!

 

[Caverject]

Chemistry is 30 minutes. The only sections that you get 45 minutes are Reading Comp and Math. My advice is to do practice tests and get the times down. This is especially vital in math, because you will see things on the math part that you probably have not seen in ages and will take you a minute to figure out. That minute is VERY precious though! Make sure you know how to convert a fraction to decimal form and then figure out what is 30% of that fraction or whatever. It's kind of hokie, but if you practice, you can do it!

 

[moobymaster]

The math part is a killer, but not because it's hard. I had to christmas tree about 15 of the final problems simply because I ran out of time and just about everybody I talked to said they didn't finish either. They aren't hard, just time-consuming. I made the mistake of not practicing this section because I knew the problems and it turned out to be my lowest grade. My recommendation is to do timed practice sections (and I could swear that we only had 30 minutes for this section).

 

[Iryna]

I took PCAT this fall and it was 30 minutes for CHEM section.

 

[BiOGoly]

Times are:

Verbal: 30min
Biology: 30min
Chem: 30min
Reading: 45min
Math: 45min

The most important thing to remember for this test (and every standardized test for that matter) is to prioritize! For math and chem this is especially crucial, as time-per-problem is very short for these sections. These tests don't just measure accumulated knowledge, they also measure how well you cope under time limit pressure. The costliest mistake that people make is to just go through a test answering every question in order, if you do this you are falling into the test makers trap. Some questions are designed to take an over long time to finish, usually these are found near the beginning. If you get stuck on a hard problem you are wasting precious time, and even if you get it right afterwards you will feel rushed to make up for it. If you feel rushed you will make careless mistakes, missing easy problems or even worse running out of time. It's usually pretty easy to spot the time waster questions, just make a quick guess and mark the problem in the test booklet and continue answering questions. When you get all the quick answer questions out of the way you can go back to get the work problems. It is much easier to focus on long problems when you know the rest of the test is already done, you won't have that feeling of the unknown hanging over your shoulders.

Everything is pretty basic in the PCAT, in fact organic is a total joke. Review the basics and take timed practice tests. I found barrons to be the most like the real thing.