Exam: PCAT - Pharmacy College Admission Test

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To Crack the PCAT - pharmacy college admission test, a candidate can follow some steps stated below:

To follow a study plan for the PCAT Preparation

To Crack the PCAT, it is advised to the candidates to formulate a pertinent study plan, depending on the time left for the exam. If a student starts his or her preparation about three months before the PCAT testing date, then s/he can certainly expect good score. The study plan needs to be created in a systematic way, in which a candidate must keep enough time to study at least one particular sub-test subject or section in each single day for minimum one/two hours. The study plan should be developed complying with the daily schedule of the candidate to prevent any inconsistency or over-pressure. In addition, the candidate should dedicate at least one day in a week to take a full-length PCAT practice test and review the answers.

To get familiarity with the structure of PCAT

To Crack the PCAT, each candidate must keep a clear conception regarding the test details of the PCAT, including, sections, question structure, total numbers of questions per section, question type, time durations, answering style, etc. 

The PCAT includes seven sections that include: Writing (part-1), Verbal Ability, Biology, Chemistry, Writing (part-2), Reading Comprehension and Quantitative Ability. The total duration of PCAT exam spans for 4 hours. This exam measures the aptitude of the examinees through 240 questions in total along with 2 essay questions. The question type falls in two categories: multiple choice items and essay item. Among them 240 questions belong to the multiple choice items, where each question is followed by 4 possible answer options, presented in either direct question or fill-in-the-blank.

The ‘Writing’ section comes in two phases (part 1 and part 2) among the seven sections. In both parts the examinees are required to answer 1 essay writing question in thirty minutes. In The ‘Writing’ sections the examinees are given an essay prompt along with several given problem. In the question format the examinees are asked to find out every possible solution to the given problems using their skills and aptitude. Therefore, the ‘Writing’ sections have been designed to measure the Problem solving expertise, conferencing skills and hoard of non-scientific vocabulary in the memory of the examinees.

In the ‘Verbal Ability’ section, the examinees are required to answer about forty-eight numbers of multiple-choice items in thirty minutes. In this section, about sixty percentages of questions are drawn from ‘analogy’ and the rest forty percentages from the ‘sentence completion’ category.

In the ‘Biology’ section, the examinees are required to answer about forty-eight numbers of multiple-choice items in thirty minutes. In this section, about sixty percentages of questions are drawn from general biology, twenty percentages from microbiology and the rest twenty percentages belong to the category of anatomy & physiology.

In the ‘Chemistry’ section, the examinees are required to answer about forty-eight numbers of multiple-choice items in thirty minutes. In this section, about sixty percentages of questions are drawn from ‘General Chemistry’ and the rest forty percentages from the ‘Organic Chemistry’ category.

In the ‘Reading Comprehension’ section, the examinees are required to answer about forty-eight numbers of multiple-choice items in thirty minutes. In this section the examinees are given 6 numbers of passages based on diverse scientific topics and the contents of these passages are selected randomly out of the general curricula of the exam. In this section, thirty percentages of the questions tests comprehension ability; forty percentages of the questions tests analytical skills; and the left over, thirty percentages of the questions tests the evaluation skill of the examinees.

In the ‘Quantitative Ability’ section, the examinees are required to answer about forty-eight numbers of multiple-choice items in thirty minutes. In this section, about fifteen percentages of questions are drawn from fundamental math skills, twenty percentages from algebra, another twenty percentages from probability & statistics, twenty-two percentages from pre-calculus and the rest twenty-two percentages belong to the category of calculus.

To gather study materials for PCAT

To Crack the PCAT, it is advised to the candidates to collect study guides and online resources developed by reputable companies to take a good preparation on the entire seven sections. The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy recommends that Kaplan prep test is the official test preparation program approved for the latest PCAT exam. Besides these materials, the students should search study materials from both offline libraries as well as the Internet. At present diverse study materials for PCAT 2014-15 are available online for free. Additionally, the candidates can attain the pre-pharmacy programs offered by several universities that aim to prepare the examinees for the latest PCAT exam.

To attain full-length practice tests for PCAT

The candidates should take full-length practice tests for PCAT 2014-15 during their preparation phase in order to identify the areas of their strength and weakness. In other words, practice tests will assist the candidates to determine their level of performance as well as test-taking readiness. Diverse company-websites like Kaplan, Pearson, etc. offer free and paid practice tests along with the correct answers as well as corresponding explanations, which assist the candidates to understand, analyze and evaluate the every item of the multiple-choice question-answers. It is recommended for the candidates of the PCAT 2014-15 to take a practice test at the beginning stage of their preparation to categorize the sections that require more attention. During the preparatory phase, the candidates can compare those practice test scores to evaluate their progress. If the students take considerable numbers of full-length practice tests during their study plans, they will not only be able to improve their level of performance, but also will develop strong self-confidence, which is essential to crack the PCAT with good scores.