The official PCAT practice exams?

[wltkdfuf]

For those of you, who took PCATs already...

Is it helpful to take the official pcat practice exams from the tpc-etesting.com website??

or is it a total waste of money?

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[crazybob]

I took a diagnostic test from a Kaplan book and studied from that.

And I also took two practice tests from Pearson, which was $57. The ones from Pearson give you a timer, so that you can see how much time you need to spend on each question on the actual PCAT. I would say that the practice tests from Pearson helped a lot more than the ones from Kaplan. These two tests were very similar in difficulty to the actual PCAT I took.

 

[thephoenician88]

I just did kaplan book tests, those were OK. It's not too expensive to take the online ones, so i'd take it anyway if you're worried.

 

[TTUMike]

I took the practice test and it was fairly close to the scores that I received on the PCAT.

 

[atticus27]

For those of you, who took PCATs already...

Is it helpful to take the official pcat practice exams from the tpc-etesting.com website??

or is it a total waste of money?

Do it. It's worth taking if nothing else just to get used to the testing format. The KAPLAN book is garbage though. I found the real PCAT questions to be a lot easier (especially verbal) and the reviews are dreadfully boring (you won't want to study them).

The biggest help for me was not going over mass amounts of info, but getting better at deducing correct answers and creating strategies like simply reading the Q's first then the paragraphs in the reading section.

fyi, It's PCAT, not PCAT'(S) and there is a PCAT FORUM aside from PRE-PHARM where this thread will ultimately get bumped.

I took the practice test and it was fairly close to the scores that I received on the PCAT.

I bombed the official PCAT practice tests, but made the real one my beetch.

 

[thephoenician88]

i would ask the pcat section of this forum, more people there have taken these practice exams.

 

[fenderbiz]

I don't think the online tests account for the 8 experimental questions. They are all questions that were on previous tests, but i'm guessing they leave out the experimentals? So there's really 8 extra regular questions? I'm not sure. I took them both - one before I started studying and one after. There was a decent improvement.

 

[wltkdfuf]

I don't think the online tests account for the 8 experimental questions. They are all questions that were on previous tests, but i'm guessing they leave out the experimentals? So there's really 8 extra regular questions? I'm not sure. I took them both - one before I started studying and one after. There was a decent improvement.

I just looked at your stats and it made me go....

Which undergrad did you go to!!!!!???

 

[wltkdfuf]

Do it. It's worth taking if nothing else just to get used to the testing format. The KAPLAN book is garbage though. I found the real PCAT questions to be a lot easier (especially verbal) and the reviews are dreadfully boring (you won't want to study them).

The biggest help for me was not going over mass amounts of info, but getting better at deducing correct answers and creating strategies like simply reading the Q's first then the paragraphs in the reading section.

fyi, It's PCAT, not PCAT'(S) and there is a PCAT FORUM aside from PRE-PHARM where this thread will ultimately get bumped.




I bombed the official PCAT practice tests, but made the real one my beetch.

Thanks for the correction & your advice!!!!!

 

[aboveliquidice]

Thread moved to appropriate forum

 

[fenderbiz]

I just looked at your stats and it made me go....

Which undergrad did you go to!!!!!???

I started at UF in '03, screwed up, reformed, went to Palm Beach Community College.

That science gpa might change after pharmcas screws around with it, and apparently some schools only look at the pre-reqs for the gpa, instead of all science courses. I don't know...weird stuff.

 

[AKN16]

I'd take the online tests- both of them.. I took them a month or so before I took the real thing, and it made me prepared for how long I should spend on each section.. Plus the questions on there are actual questions from old tests, so you can't really lose, except for the money part..

 

[jjfree]

fenderbiz,
I talked to the dean from the UF CoP at a dean's day, and he said they now only consider the science gpa (all science classes included).

 

[diastole]

It's totally worth it. I would have been woefully unprepared for certain math concepts that they didn't address in Kaplan's if I hadn't taken the practice exams. The tests are a good way to point you to concepts that you still need to work on. They are also good to prepare you for the pacing that you will need for the real thing. For example, I realized that I could take my time in the reading comprehension and verbal sections but I had better move speedy quick in the quant section.

 

[diastole]

What's not worth it is paying Pearson extra to get your scores "early" unless you are from Canada. My scores came in the mail the same day Pearson allowed you to pay money to see your scores online. Some people paid the money in the morning and got their scores in the mail later that day. I'm glad I waited for the mail before I handed Pearson more money.

 

[fenderbiz]

fenderbiz,
I talked to the dean from the UF CoP at a dean's day, and he said they now only consider the science gpa (all science classes included).

Ya, I saw that they had changed the wording on their admissions info, but they haven't updated their FAQ yet. That's unfortunate in my case.

 

[kern07]

quick question for those that are mac users:

did the practice exams show up on safari or firefox? i'd rather not download IE, and since it states pretty clearly that website states: "the Practice Tests may not be compatible with Macintosh operating systems", just wanted to see if it worked on mac users.

thanks!

 

[pharmky]

I use a mac, but anything related to the pcat website, I run in parallels (windows). I would hate for something to go wrong, it scored my practice too early, and I couldn't go back. I remember having trouble registering for the pcat exam with my mac (firefox and safari), but when I used ie, it worked. All of the sites are aspx (microsoft)

Hth

 

[kern07]

thanks pharmky, appreciate your help.

 

[mgs50]

I tried to register for the practice PCAT on my mac, and I filled out all the payment info and then when I clicked "purchase" it said that you can only use Internet Explorer.... so safari and firefox don't work with the official practice exam.

 

[alasvm]

i have my exam coming up in two days and i have to say kaplan was really horrible for me. i did get the two official pcat practice exams and they seem much different than kaplan practice so hopefully im prepared. just wondering..how much trig is on the quant section for those of you who have already taken the exam?