Kaplan PCAT Diagnostic Exam

(I cut out and scanned the Answer Sheet rather than try photocopying it.  Click to enlarge.  Feel free to copy/paste it to use for yourself if you don't want to damage your own book.)

The diagnostic exam is half as long, in half the time, with no essay portion.  There are my results:

Verbal Ability: 19/24

Biology: 8/25

Chemistry: 11/24

Reading Comprehension: 18/20

Quantitative Ability: 18/24

Without even knowing what percentile I'd be in, obviously my Bio and Chem need a lot of work and the Verbal and Quant could use some improvement as well.

Verbal

I didn't score too bad.  I did change two of my answers away from the right answers, and with one question I filled in the wrong bubble.  That's an easy mistake to avoid.

Biology

First of all... there is a typo in the instructions that says you're only supposed to get 10 minutes, as opposed to 15.  It has the time correct in the full breakdown of the diagnostic, but not right before the actual Bio questions.

And the section this to note... I completely bubbled in the wrong section.  I was bubbling in the Chemistry section rather than the Biology section.  I only noticed when I was more than halfway done.  Fatal mistake that I'll be sure to not repeat again.

As for the actual content.  This is the section that I was pretty sure I'd need the most help on.  I will be retaking Physiology and Anatomy, so that should help.  And was already considering retaking Bio I and II.  Look like that consideration has more weight now.

Chemistry

I didn't feel as lost in this section as the Bio section even though I did almost as bad.  It all looked very familiar, but I took Gen Chem I over ten years ago.  My reading comprehension of chemistry is slow now because I'm out of practice.  I also ran out of time, and missed bubbling a question.

I got an A in the class last time, but I think I'll also have to be retake the class again because it's too old, and I guess from these results I can see why.

Reading Comprehension

Not much to say.  I ended this section very early.  I made a couple mistakes, but the score is probably pretty decent.  Just got to repeat this result or get better on the real thing.

Quantitative Ability

I could have done better.  I'll go over the exact reasons I made mistakes later.  But it's not horrible.  It's nothing that just a tiny bit of practice won't fix.  No worries here.

It's going to be a while until I take the actual PCAT, but I think getting the book this early and taking the diagnostic to give me some concrete feedback on what I need to work on has already been worth it.  That should help keep me focused when I retake some classes, and help really motivate me to pay attention rather than fall into the trap of feeling like I already know half (or more) of the material and I don't need to pay attention in the beginning.

It's someone sad that seeing how much work I need is a good thing, when I know I have a lot of ability in me, but I need to keep myself grounded and ensure that I don't stray from the path anymore.

I bought the Kaplan book on the Kaplan name, but it was nice to see the following review after I had purchased it from Amazon.com, since Bio and Chem are obviously the sections that I need work on:

I just got my PCAT score back and this book was close to the only thing I used to study.  The chemistry and biology sections are very good reviews.  Yes there are many typos, but they are usually obvious enough  that they will not mislead you.  However, the organic chemistry section only addresses a few functional groups.  The math section does not have enough calculus, so I took a practice test and reviewed the concepts that appeared on that exam.  The verbal section and reading comprehension section are too short to actually help the reader.  Lastly, the writing section is basically two pages.  In closing, this book is a good review of inorganic chemistry and general biology (I was in the 99th percentile for both the chem and bio sections), but I would get an additional aid for the writing, verbal and reading comprehension sections... and look over your old organic and calculus notes.  The organic chemistry on the exam is a breeze if you are a chem major so I wouldn't worry too much about it.