sorry about the lame title..
anyway I scored well on the PCAT, and I want to pass on my advice to as many as possible
verbal 437/92%
bio 430/88%
reading 435/90%
quant 455/97%
chem 505/99%
comp 451/99%
Sure, it helps for me to know if you are a first time taker, what your goal score range is give or take, and what areas you are struggling with, but here is what i generally did:
Dr. Collin's with Kaplan exclusively (self-studying, no class) + the 3 pearson practice tests
I began about ~30 days out and spent roughly an hour of medium-intense prep per day every day, taking one timed section (bio, chem etc..) per study session, so one timed section per day, which I scored and reviewed also. This is HUGE, I attribute my score to finishing EVERY section with over 10 minutes to spare everytime. all the time. this gives you time ro review marked questions what were more difficult. and the speed comes with practice taking timed sections, one at a time, dont worry about full length tests untill about 15 days out.
I also studied one section of material each day from either Dr. Collins/Kaplan big book. Def purchase the Dr. Collins materials now now now! if you havent already and go to barnes&noble and pick up a kaplan book
Verbal - studied collins word lists/some of kaplans - this is section that is hard to 'improve on' persay unless it is your priority, simply bc most of our vocabularies are 'set' at least 90% by now. The chance of finding and remembering one little word from studies on the real PCAT are low, and for this reason I probably spent the least time preparing for this section, however! do prepare for this section, as it can be finished very quickly with practice and provide you much time to review your verbal answers. so i high score is likely for the reason of it not taking as long. the sentence completion aspects were more challenging than the analogies for me, but with practice working many problems, they become easier.
bio-the big kaplan book has an unbelievable amount of bio info, if you knew all of it, you would get 99% on bio everytime, and probably get an honorary bio Ph.D. from a prestigious university haha... point is, there is wayy more info that is necessary to study i.e. intense details on plant vasculature.... so dont get sucked in to this massive tome of information/intimidated by it either. Dr. collins does have all the necessary information but in slightly different presentation. *important* spend time with both collins and kaplan bio info and see what presentation suits you the best. I examined one section of the kaplan bio big book every day in addition to me daily timed section, this allowed me to at least be exposed to all of the material in the kaplan big book, also it helps to review the post section quizzes in the kaplan big book. for collins bio, aim for one section every few days, bc the sections are far more dense and long.
reading comp - this is another one of those where practice taking times sections will get you the farthest. i improved alot after my first 3 or so timed sections. dr collins rc questions are too easy compared to the real PCAT by FAR. but they are good to begin studying with. Kaplans are slightly more realistic, the best are the ones in the three pearson practice tests. on the real PCAT i was blown away by the difficulty of the rc passages/questions compared to collins, which i had spent most of my time prepping with. dont do that, rely more on the kaplan rc passages and pearons practice exams
quant- collins collins collins, wouldnt mess with kaplan here, their calc prep was insufficient. i realllllly needed calc help coming in and with the collins calc, although pretty intense to get a grip on, i became a calc legend haha... maybe.. point is if you can perform well on the collins calc, then you are in good shape, id check out kaplan to but dont rely on it or feel as safe if you are scoring well on it but not collins quant sections. every once and a while there will be a integrative calc/trig word problem that would just blow my face off, but other than that this prep method helped me (97%)
chem- alot to say here. this is prob the most importnt section on the exam. based on my statistical analysis of 21 full scores ive analyzed, this is the section with the most scaled score points per percentile rank (SS/PR) what does this mean? it means there is the biggest spread in the distribution here, meaning it makes/breaks alot of ppl bc the scaled score from here typically affects the comp % a little more bc of the higher range (ppl making sub 400s to above 500). so focus on thie section, also bc it is maybe the most important for consideration by schools. its huge, and its hard. Gen chem is tested about 75% to ochem at about 25%, so first off know gen chem. collins is the best in my opinion for chem, their practice sections were excellent prep, the best prep of kaplan/collins for any discipline on the PCAT in my opinion, if anything get collins just for chem (and kaplan for bio)
i was scoring in the high 90s consistently (this is raw percentile as in 46/48 q's correct) on the collins practice tests and i beat the cutoff for the 99%ile on real PCAT chem by more than 50 points (highest scaled score ive ever seen) so it def works and can get you there. also as an aside, beating a 99%ile cutoff for a section helps out your composite score with those extra points i.e. i had an 88%ile in bio but my comp was still 99%.... back to chem, most important gen chem concepts: thermochemistry, periodic table trends, orbital shapes/configurations, GAS LAWS!! mult. questions always!, and nuclear isotopes. these are the topics i would stress. use collins, go over a new section of material in it each day so you cover it a few times total in its entirety, take all the practice timed sections and you will be at your max im confident. for organic chemistry, you will have to know reactions, and this scares the **** out of ppl i know. but you need to. every practice section/exam ive ever seen had at least one organic reaction. know naming as well, as well as functional groups. collins does a great job with this, kaplans organic chem is insufficient when it comes to reactions, and collins is a little bit also, ive yet to come across a great PCAT organic chem reactions prep system. I was helped by the fact that ive been an ochem tutor for 2 years now, so i honestly probably cannot accurately judge how well collins/kaplan prepare one for organic chem. but the collins naming stuff looked the easiest to grasp as far as presentation style.
essay: zero prep. but collins has awesome prompts that seemed right in line with what i saw on the real PCAT.
overall: dont kill yourself, i was studying for max 1.5 hours a day, sometimes less, usually less but did so consistantly, HARD, every single day for about ~30 days.
everyday:
- ~30 pages in kaplan bio big book ~15 minutes
- 1 collins timed practice section, scored, reviewed, alternated topics each day to stay fresh ~45minutes
- ~2-3 various sections in the collins packets as review ~20minutes
last ~15 days or so:
-I took a pearson practice PCAT every 5 days
-stressed lingering doubts i had on specific subjects (calc for me)
-finished off all the collins timed sections until I had done all of them
-finished the kaplan big bio book
-finished all collins materials
after the real PCAT: i thought id severely bungled rc, and verbal, done not great on bio, decent on quant and ok on chem. dont be discouraged if you thought the test was savage. i did and came out fine.
please post any other questions, I will try my best to reply as soon as possible
anyway I scored well on the PCAT, and I want to pass on my advice to as many as possible
verbal 437/92%
bio 430/88%
reading 435/90%
quant 455/97%
chem 505/99%
comp 451/99%
Sure, it helps for me to know if you are a first time taker, what your goal score range is give or take, and what areas you are struggling with, but here is what i generally did:
Dr. Collin's with Kaplan exclusively (self-studying, no class) + the 3 pearson practice tests
I began about ~30 days out and spent roughly an hour of medium-intense prep per day every day, taking one timed section (bio, chem etc..) per study session, so one timed section per day, which I scored and reviewed also. This is HUGE, I attribute my score to finishing EVERY section with over 10 minutes to spare everytime. all the time. this gives you time ro review marked questions what were more difficult. and the speed comes with practice taking timed sections, one at a time, dont worry about full length tests untill about 15 days out.
I also studied one section of material each day from either Dr. Collins/Kaplan big book. Def purchase the Dr. Collins materials now now now! if you havent already and go to barnes&noble and pick up a kaplan book
Verbal - studied collins word lists/some of kaplans - this is section that is hard to 'improve on' persay unless it is your priority, simply bc most of our vocabularies are 'set' at least 90% by now. The chance of finding and remembering one little word from studies on the real PCAT are low, and for this reason I probably spent the least time preparing for this section, however! do prepare for this section, as it can be finished very quickly with practice and provide you much time to review your verbal answers. so i high score is likely for the reason of it not taking as long. the sentence completion aspects were more challenging than the analogies for me, but with practice working many problems, they become easier.
bio-the big kaplan book has an unbelievable amount of bio info, if you knew all of it, you would get 99% on bio everytime, and probably get an honorary bio Ph.D. from a prestigious university haha... point is, there is wayy more info that is necessary to study i.e. intense details on plant vasculature.... so dont get sucked in to this massive tome of information/intimidated by it either. Dr. collins does have all the necessary information but in slightly different presentation. *important* spend time with both collins and kaplan bio info and see what presentation suits you the best. I examined one section of the kaplan bio big book every day in addition to me daily timed section, this allowed me to at least be exposed to all of the material in the kaplan big book, also it helps to review the post section quizzes in the kaplan big book. for collins bio, aim for one section every few days, bc the sections are far more dense and long.
reading comp - this is another one of those where practice taking times sections will get you the farthest. i improved alot after my first 3 or so timed sections. dr collins rc questions are too easy compared to the real PCAT by FAR. but they are good to begin studying with. Kaplans are slightly more realistic, the best are the ones in the three pearson practice tests. on the real PCAT i was blown away by the difficulty of the rc passages/questions compared to collins, which i had spent most of my time prepping with. dont do that, rely more on the kaplan rc passages and pearons practice exams
quant- collins collins collins, wouldnt mess with kaplan here, their calc prep was insufficient. i realllllly needed calc help coming in and with the collins calc, although pretty intense to get a grip on, i became a calc legend haha... maybe.. point is if you can perform well on the collins calc, then you are in good shape, id check out kaplan to but dont rely on it or feel as safe if you are scoring well on it but not collins quant sections. every once and a while there will be a integrative calc/trig word problem that would just blow my face off, but other than that this prep method helped me (97%)
chem- alot to say here. this is prob the most importnt section on the exam. based on my statistical analysis of 21 full scores ive analyzed, this is the section with the most scaled score points per percentile rank (SS/PR) what does this mean? it means there is the biggest spread in the distribution here, meaning it makes/breaks alot of ppl bc the scaled score from here typically affects the comp % a little more bc of the higher range (ppl making sub 400s to above 500). so focus on thie section, also bc it is maybe the most important for consideration by schools. its huge, and its hard. Gen chem is tested about 75% to ochem at about 25%, so first off know gen chem. collins is the best in my opinion for chem, their practice sections were excellent prep, the best prep of kaplan/collins for any discipline on the PCAT in my opinion, if anything get collins just for chem (and kaplan for bio)
i was scoring in the high 90s consistently (this is raw percentile as in 46/48 q's correct) on the collins practice tests and i beat the cutoff for the 99%ile on real PCAT chem by more than 50 points (highest scaled score ive ever seen
) so it def works and can get you there. also as an aside, beating a 99%ile cutoff for a section helps out your composite score with those extra points i.e. i had an 88%ile in bio but my comp was still 99%.... back to chem, most important gen chem concepts: thermochemistry, periodic table trends, orbital shapes/configurations, GAS LAWS!! mult. questions always!, and nuclear isotopes. these are the topics i would stress. use collins, go over a new section of material in it each day so you cover it a few times total in its entirety, take all the practice timed sections and you will be at your max im confident. for organic chemistry, you will have to know reactions, and this scares the **** out of ppl i know. but you need to. every practice section/exam ive ever seen had at least one organic reaction. know naming as well, as well as functional groups. collins does a great job with this, kaplans organic chem is insufficient when it comes to reactions, and collins is a little bit also, ive yet to come across a great PCAT organic chem reactions prep system. I was helped by the fact that ive been an ochem tutor for 2 years now, so i honestly probably cannot accurately judge how well collins/kaplan prepare one for organic chem. but the collins naming stuff looked the easiest to grasp as far as presentation style.essay: zero prep. but collins has awesome prompts that seemed right in line with what i saw on the real PCAT.
overall: dont kill yourself, i was studying for max 1.5 hours a day, sometimes less, usually less but did so consistantly, HARD, every single day for about ~30 days.
everyday:
- ~30 pages in kaplan bio big book ~15 minutes
- 1 collins timed practice section, scored, reviewed, alternated topics each day to stay fresh ~45minutes
- ~2-3 various sections in the collins packets as review ~20minutes
last ~15 days or so:
-I took a pearson practice PCAT every 5 days
-stressed lingering doubts i had on specific subjects (calc for me)
-finished off all the collins timed sections until I had done all of them
-finished the kaplan big bio book
-finished all collins materials
after the real PCAT: i thought id severely bungled rc, and verbal, done not great on bio, decent on quant and ok on chem. dont be discouraged if you thought the test was savage. i did and came out fine.
please post any other questions, I will try my best to reply as soon as possible
