Dr. B's PAC

Welcome to Dr. B's PAC (PACKRAT Analysis Calculator)! This is a free tool to help you prioritize your study time for the PANCE.

Overview

I developed PACKRAT Analysis Calculator for my students and after positive feedback, I decided to make it available to everyone through my website. The idea is for you to enter your PACKRAT performance in each category from the results PDF you receive after taking the test.

The PAC takes into account your performance, how you compare to national performance, and how heavily each category is weighted on the exam. Once you have entered your data, the PAC will sort each topic into a color coded ranking. 

  • RED = Higher study priority
  • YELLOW = Medium study priority
  • GREEN = Lower study priority

You can game the numbers to see how the categories might change with different scores. If you take the PACKRAT more than once, you can see how your colors change over time by creating several PAC tables. Keep in mind that all of the topics are important and green categories should not be neglected or give you a false sense of security for the board exam. The PAC is more about pointing out weaknesses and study priorities than strengths.

PACKRAT Analysis Calculator

Directions

Enter your PACKRAT results PDF you receive after taking the test into the grid above. You can enter your scores by hand but the preferred method is to copy and paste the information in the PAC:

  1. Open your downloaded PACKRAT results in Adobe PDF (NOTE: You must download the results and open them in Adobe PDF. The copy function will not work properly with a generic PDF viewer or preview pane)  You can download Adobe Reader from here.
  2. Click on the page and hit CTRL+A to highlight the entire page (or right-click "Select All")
  3. Click on CTRL+C to copy the page (or right-click "Copy")
  4. Come back to the PAC webpage and click on the "Load Data" button at the bottom of the table
  5. Click on CTRL+V (or right-click "Paste") to paste your data in the pop-up box (you will see a large amount of text appear)
  6. Click on the "Apply" button - the PAC will automatically enter your results in the table

You have the option to save your PAC table in a PDF form by clicking the "Print Preview" button at the bottom of the table.

I hope you enjoy this tool. I would be happy to hear feedback through the contact link on my website.