DONE with the August 21st PCAT!! THOUGHTS and YELLS of fustration

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Hey Guys I just finished the PCAT 4 minutes ago.

Hardness scale 1 to 10 with 10 being rape

Chemistry-6
biology-5
math-15893485
Verbal-7
RC-1

The 5 minute warning was called during math when I was on question 21..yeah...

I HOPE EVERY DID WELL!!

the waiting game begins good luck everyone!:)
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MolarExpress said:
That is the same exact question I was on!! I wish I voided my score...

I definitely couldn't focus on the next 3 sections because of how angry I was at myself. Chem was supposed to be my saving grace for my terrible calc skills (I haven't taken calc). After that, all I kept thinking was "OMG I FAILED".
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Felt the exact same way. Math screwed me!

BTW - Off Topic - MolarExpress, your really cute, assuming thats you =p
 
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Essays-3
Verbal-3
Biology-5.5
Chem-9
Reading-4.5
Math-8
I felt like there was a lot of organic on my test. I studied only briefly with Kaplan. I plan on retaking in October and studying daily between now and then. Good luck to all!
 
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Okay, I really don't know what to say now.....
hmmm......kinda sad/mad at myself right now...:mad:
chem - ran out of time....the questions are easy, but i just need more time!!! give it a 5.
math - not too bad, but again, need more time!!! :mad: give it a 5
bio - as expected. 4
Verbal - as expected 4
RC - 3
writing - 2 - topics are easy, but im not good at writing!! :(
Overall, I was lost after walking out the test center. I had no idea what to do next, I didn't remember anything....it was just like walking out from a nightmare...

Question, I remember there was a thread on this forum about how did people do on the June PCAT. I have searched around but don't see it anymore. I just want to compare what people thought on how they did it to their actual scores.
 
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UyenRita said:
Okay, I really don't know what to say now.....
hmmm......kinda sad/mad at myself right now...:mad:
chem - ran out of time....the questions are easy, but i just need more time!!! give it a 5.
math - not too bad, but again, need more time!!! :mad: give it a 5
bio - as expected. 4
Verbal - as expected 4
RC - 3
writing - 2 - topics are easy, but im not good at writing!! :(
Overall, I was lost after walking out the test center. I had no idea what to do next, I didn't remember anything....it was just like walking out from a nightmare...

Question, I remember there was a thread on this forum about how did people do on the June PCAT. I have searched around but don't see it anymore. I just want to compare what people thought on how they did it to their actual scores.
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I remember that thread too and most people did better than what they thought. So don't worry uyen
 
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so how does this work? I thought Pearson just take the 50 versions (or whatever number it is) and spread it out??? how come everyone is finding the same sections to be difficult??
 
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I was so depressed after taking the pcat...I decided to fill in the "no score" bubble

math: 10+
chem:9
essays: 3
bio:5
rc:5
verbal: 6

originally i had signed up for for aug and oct test, and i planned to "no score" this one. But once i wrote my essay and finished verbal and bio...i thought maybe this score would be alright..

once i hit chem...i knew i had to void this test. I had 12 questions left in chem and had to randomly fill them in.

then, the 2nd essay wasn't too bad, not rc (tougn i felt like i was reading at unbelievably fast) yet finished right at the timer with no time to spare

But the worst, above chem was the MATH. I gave up then. I probably only answered 20 questions and realized that i am filling in the "no score"
I don't understand it. The teaching material for kaplan on the math and the Dr collins are easy to me....yet the math section was levels beyond what was taught..


--any advice to those who felt the math was easy? obviously you can see that most of us are suffering from being raped! I know the material that is taught in Kaplan +collins...but I could not do most of the problems.
 
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Definitely agree with others; Math and Chemistry killed me (not having enough time, Calculus problems, and some Chemistry stuff I've never seen before). I cried as soon as I got in the car, just because I've spent all summer studying.

I really hope I can get my scores back in time to make a decision about the October test, which is the final time I can take it because of school deadlines. I used Kaplan/Pearson tests, which did not help at all. I think I'll look into Dr. Collins now.

I wish we could retake certain sections; I know I did well on everything else but those two subjects.
 
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dr collins owns a time machine.. that is all.. :laugh:

skylights89 said:
--any advice to those who felt the math was easy? obviously you can see that most of us are suffering from being raped! I know the material that is taught in Kaplan +collins...but I could not do most of the problems.
Click to expand...

skip stupid averaging questions and wing them at the end.. they take up waay too much time.. i had like 8 minutes between like 6-7 questions? after i bubbled in the rest
 
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UyenRita said:
True! I can't even relax now...oh gosh, how am gonna sleep tonight without thinking/worrying about this F%$^ PCAT!! :mad::mad:
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Definitely know the feeling. I went from depressed to angry. My family/friends keep telling me that I may do better than what I think, but like others said - I had way too many left on the Math, and the Chemistry questions just upset me so much that I couldn't even focus on the rest of the section. :(

Please let's fast forward to 6 weeks!
 
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pharmfun123 said:
I doubt that they will curve because everone did bad. They compare our results to people that took the pcat like 4 yrs ago or something
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Actually, the figure out the "difficulty factor" for each test form... that's why your raw score is usually in the 400's... THEN they give you a percentile score compared to those who took it in 2007...

please correct me if i'm getting this wrong :oops:
 
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Does anyone know if we'll get our scores back in time to make a decision about the October test? I know it seemed like the June scores took forever to get back,
 
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ricedemon said:
dr collins owns a time machine.. that is all.. :laugh:



skip stupid averaging questions and wing them at the end.. they take up waay too much time.. i had like 8 minutes between like 6-7 questions? after i bubbled in the rest
Click to expand...

I found Math section to be relatively easy... And I did the EXACT same thing as ricedemon did... SKIP ALL THE NASTY LONG QUESTIONS and only go back to them if you have enough time at the end.
 
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xprettygirl11 said:
I really hope I can get my scores back in time to make a decision about the October test, which is the final time I can take it because of school deadlines.
Click to expand...

I believe the deadlines for Oct PCAT is in 2 weeks, and the Aug PCAT's score won't be up until 5-6 weeks. So better make your decision on taking Oct PCAT.
I'm thinking about it right now too....arrrrr....this really gives me terrible headache!! :mad:
 
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xprettygirl11 said:
Does anyone know if we'll get our scores back in time to make a decision about the October test? I know it seemed like the June scores took forever to get back,
Click to expand...

the monday after the saturday 6 weeks from now is october 4th. to regular (non-late) registration deadline for the oct. PCAT is september 3rd, i think
 
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Hey guys I think math is hardest one..grr. I feel so embarrassed for being an Asian and think that math are hard................ I even think that verbal is easier than math.. grr GODDDDDDDDD. I believe this type there are more time consuming questions comparing to previous math test.. I basically skip all the questions that requires extensive calculations. Just keep bubble in all the circles haha
 
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I was surprised to see many felt the test was not that bad.
I filled in bubble every section when 5 minutes was called.
I have to retake!
 
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hm.....

math was actually really easy for me.. I finished within 30 minutes and had time left over..

Rest were pretty easy.. EXCEPT CHEMISTRY.

I ran out of time I had to literally guess 5 and sold the other 5 very very quickly :(
 
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910803 said:
hm.....

math was actually really easy for me.. I finished within 30 minutes and had time left over..

Rest were pretty easy.. EXCEPT CHEMISTRY.

I ran out of time I had to literally guess 5 and sold the other 5 very very quickly :(
Click to expand...
How did you find the math easy? Any tips and trick in that area?
 
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Omg! I am not kidding, I went home crying. I felt really good about the writing part, the topics were not hard. Reading comprehension was easy for me and English is my second language. I felt ok about math until they said we only had 5 min left and I was on the 20th question. I bubbled in C for the remaining 28 questions. Only got halfway trough chem. Bio was ok. I'm definitelly retaking. But not until January. I will be studying my whole winter break. I'm gonna take the kaplan prep course I think. Or use dr. Collins self study guide.
 
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Smiles425 said:
I reviewed with Dr. Collins and Pearson's practice test.

I think verbal's and bio's difficulty was expected. Collin's helped some with bio.

I was smiling after i finished the chem section. Wow, Dr Collins really prepared me for that. There wasn't one question on there that was a surprise. I'm shocked when I read that people found chem tough.

Math was tough, but not nearly as tough as everyone is claiming. I dr collins helped here again. I think the difficulty was about expected.

Reading...Hmmm. I'm embarrassed to say that I did not find it as easy as every one else did (and I had to randomly guess on the last four questions because I ran out of time). It's also embarassing because I'm a native english speaker, born and raised in the midwest. Mistakenly, I didnt review reading because I thought I would score at least decently in this section :(
Click to expand...


I think for the Chemistry section, your performance is totally depended on which test version you were taking. Mine has a lot of Ochem, imean more than 50%. But my friend said all she had was gchem.
 
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VegasGirl1987 said:
Omg! I am not kidding, I went home crying. I felt really good about the writing part, the topics were not hard. Reading comprehension was easy for me and English is my second language. I felt ok about math until they said we only had 5 min left and I was on the 20th question. I bubbled in C for the remaining 28 questions. Only got halfway trough chem. Bio was ok. I'm definitelly retaking. But not until January. I will be studying my whole winter break. I'm gonna take the kaplan prep course I think. Or use dr. Collins self study guide.
Click to expand...


i was in the same situation as you. i am going to retake it in Oct though.
It is true that the questions aren't very hard. You just have to speed up under such a stressful condition.
 
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ICaPharmD said:
Me....Too.

Verbal:4 (Some of the analogies were random...I Think PCAT Achiever was good for this bc they had random analogies too.)
Reading: 4 (A lot easier than I expected and I had time to go back.)
Biology: 6 (Felt prepared for this one, but some of the questions were a little tough)
Chemistry: 7-8 (I was really pushed for time and ended up leaving a few blank. Dumb, I know...)
Math: I don't wanna talk about it.....

I will say I'm glad I'm not the only who felt this way about math. Now I don't feel so incompetent. Good luck to all!!
Click to expand...
i was like WTF, when the protractor said the 5 minutes remaining.
one of the student actually said "oh ****" when he heard the announcement of 5 minutes remaining. LOL
man, totally bomb on the math section :scared:
 
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Okay.

Writing: wasn't too bad. I managed somehow.
Verbal: thank you dr. Collins. My score probably went up a little because of this, unlike last time.
Biology: eh not too bad. I guess on a good 10 hard questions. Thank You microbiology.
Chemistry: I was super confident about this one. Or maybe it was all in my head.
Math: o.o I literally laughed out loud during and after the section. "when in doubt, C your way out".


All in all, pcat for sure kicked my butt this time, even if I fought back a little. Hello October pcat. :(
 
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Okay, worst experience I've ever had.

I was doing the rc section, was on time like the practice tests. I was done 4.5 passages when the proctor said there were 5 minutes left. I thought to myself how could I have been so off? So I bubbled in everything (~1 min), pressure hit me and I couldnt use the 4 minutes well at all. I would read questions over and over and nothing would get in my head. So 5 minutes were up (I thought) and I didnt go onto next passage because I thought I didnt have enough time. 5 minutes after the 5 minute warning by the proctor, she says "sorry, made mistake with the time" 7 more minutes left. So that was 5+5+7 = 17 minutes left. I raged and just lost it. Was derailed after that, guessed 2 complete passages pretty much. I scored 80-99 percentile on both practice tests I took. I will probably get a 20%ile in that section now. See you guys in October.
 
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OptimistPrime said:
Okay, worst experience I've ever had.

I was doing the rc section, was on time like the practice tests. I was done 4.5 passages when the proctor said there were 5 minutes left. I thought to myself how could I have been so off? So I bubbled in everything (~1 min), pressure hit me and I couldnt use the 4 minutes well at all. I would read questions over and over and nothing would get in my head. So 5 minutes were up (I thought) and I didnt go onto next passage because I thought I didnt have enough time. 5 minutes after the 5 minute warning by the proctor, she says "sorry, made mistake with the time" 7 more minutes left. So that was 5+5+7 = 17 minutes left. I raged and just lost it. Was derailed after that, guessed 2 complete passages pretty much. I scored 80-99 percentile on both practice tests I took. I will probably get a 20%ile in that section now. See you guys in October.
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LOL PCAT at UBC?!

That made me so mad when the proctor said that...I looked at my watch and thought we had like 20 minutes left....I was only done 4 passages then....I was unable to focus for the remaining 2 passages because kept thinking time was gonna run out!
 
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Degree said:
LOL PCAT at UBC?!

That made me so mad when the proctor said that...I looked at my watch and thought we had like 20 minutes left....I was only done 4 passages then....I was unable to focus for the remaining 2 passages because kept thinking time was gonna run out!
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yah bro, ubc. you might of recognized me, I was the guy that looked like he wanted to punch that ******* of a proctor in the face. she kept trying to be funny, was probably drunk. the exam went on to like 2 pm? was supposed to end at 1ish, im still pissed off. put in so many hours for nothing now not to mention the 150 ima have to spend again...
 
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hanhuang said:
Hey guys I think math is hardest one..grr. I feel so embarrassed for being an Asian and think that math are hard................ I even think that verbal is easier than math.. grr GODDDDDDDDD. I believe this type there are more time consuming questions comparing to previous math test.. I basically skip all the questions that requires extensive calculations. Just keep bubble in all the circles haha
Click to expand...


I'm on the same "asians who can't do math" boat. not to mention english is my second language so i guess this means i am really screwed. I think math is the hardest to study because you just don't know how for these at exams. I just want my scores to be in the 80's and i will be happy but i'm not so sure about it now.
 
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I'm also asian and found the math to be the hardest then chem and bio. Verbal and reading sections seem to be my highest score based on my performence on the test and english isn't even my native language. Funny how that works...
 
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OptimistPrime said:
yah bro, ubc. you might of recognized me, I was the guy that looked like he wanted to punch that ******* of a proctor in the face. she kept trying to be funny, was probably drunk. the exam went on to like 2 pm? was supposed to end at 1ish, im still pissed off. put in so many hours for nothing now not to mention the 150 ima have to spend again...
Click to expand...

Yeah I know what you mean, someone should let pearson know........I got at least like 10 wrong on the last 2 passages because of that!
 
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Degree said:
Yeah I know what you mean, someone should let pearson know........I got at least like 10 wrong on the last 2 passages because of that!
Click to expand...

During the RC and Math sections, two of the proctors started talking to each other during the exam and ruined any concentration I had...
 
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Degree said:
LOL PCAT at UBC?!
Click to expand...


lol who were you guys? XD

so you got the skinny short brown hair lady? our proctor gave us like another minute (not on purpose but i had a digital timer) on every section

glad i wasnt in your room..
 
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09hamster said:
i was in the same situation as you. i am going to retake it in Oct though.
It is true that the questions aren't very hard. You just have to speed up under such a stressful condition.
Click to expand...

Well, I spent a lot of time practicing al kinds of math problems. So I did not think that they were that hard, it's just that they were time consuming for me. It took me 35 minutes to finish 20 problems. The rest I bubbled in cuz I ran out of time. I just thought that was ridiculously a lot to do in 40 minutes. Even if I practiced my speed for months, I still don't think I could finish in time.Not for those kind of problems.
 
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09hamster said:
i was in the same situation as you. i am going to retake it in Oct though.
It is true that the questions aren't very hard. You just have to speed up under such a stressful condition.
Click to expand...

Well, I spent a lot of time practicing all kinds of math problems. So I did not think that they were that hard, it's just that they were time consuming for me. It took me 35 minutes to finish 20 problems. The rest I bubbled in cuz I ran out of time. I just thought that was ridiculously a lot to do in 40 minutes. Even if I practiced my speed for months, I still don't think I could finish in time.Not for those kind of problems.
 
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I agree, math and chem were the hardest. I didn't finish the math and I was probably on #30 when the proctor called 5 minute warning on the chem section :eek:

I was sooo numb after taking that test, if I was hit by a car I probably wouldn't felt a thing:mad:

If you choose the no score option, does that count as part of the 5 max attempt one can take the pcat?
 
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JJVmom said:
June took over 6 wks. I think they just wanted us all to pay $20 to see our scores online a day before they arrived in the mail.
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Almost all of us did. Pearson has such a racket going.

mimi10 said:
If you choose the no score option, does that count as part of the 5 max attempt one can take the pcat?
Click to expand...

I am almost positive that it does.
 
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VegasGirl1987 said:
Well, I spent a lot of time practicing all kinds of math problems. So I did not think that they were that hard, it's just that they were time consuming for me. It took me 35 minutes to finish 20 problems. The rest I bubbled in cuz I ran out of time. I just thought that was ridiculously a lot to do in 40 minutes. Even if I practiced my speed for months, I still don't think I could finish in time.Not for those kind of problems.
Click to expand...


I did not do a lot of practice since I started reviewing my staff about 3 weeks ago. I think the main thing that slowed me down is to figure out how to tackle the problem. I was so tensed up and had to read every question twice. I think we just have to do a lot of practice questions and really work on timing.
 
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MolarExpress said:
That is the same exact question I was on!! I wish I voided my score...

I definitely couldn't focus on the next 3 sections because of how angry I was at myself. Chem was supposed to be my saving grace for my terrible calc skills (I haven't taken calc). After that, all I kept thinking was "OMG I FAILED".
Click to expand...


omg i know how you feeeel!!!!! chem was supposed to be my savior too to bring my whole score up but i don't know what happened on the test :/
 
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omg i knoww how you feell tooo! ahhhhhh bio chem and math were the subjects that i was definitely banking on for my overall score to be high, but i guess that won't be the case now :/
 
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I got rapeddddddddddddddd

quant- 10 billion
chem-8 (never took organic)
bio- 7
rc- 2 (english is my second language)
essay- 1
verbal- 5 (wtf carrots and potatoes?????)


I used barron's and it was soo easy, I also took the Five Cliff practice test. And studied Kaplan. I guess I have to buy collins.
 
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