Classification on DAT in reference to Campbell's

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Avery07

Avery07

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For those of you who have taken the DAT, how many questions do you remember being about classification of organisms?

I understand the broad classification and the major branches between different phyla but when questions start getting more specific, it is hit and miss. I see some very specific questions come up on some of the topscore and achiever questions so my question is do these specific questions come up on the DAT? Like asking about different classes within Arthropoda or something along those lines.

Secondly, if these questions do appear.. and if the questions are supposed to be based on Campbell's.. is all the "evolution" material presented in Campbell's? I'm worried about the shear amount of characteristics that could be asked about and I think it may be beneficial to get Campbell's just to have their take of the evolution of life and to know what they think are the noteworthy differences between specific classes.

Thanks for the help.
 
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Zero, my test was all MOlecular Biology stuff, no plants, no taxonomy, 15 somethign questions on Molecular Biology/Genetics. So if you have the Kaplan book that breaks down everything for you, well too bad it won't work for everybody
 
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The ADA DAT user's manual p. 46 says that there's supposed to be 3 question's out of thirty on Taxonomy and the diversity of life. But like you said, some versions of the DAT may or may not follow that exactly.

I'm with you - I think that taxonomy is something that can be mastered in a day or two and it's not worth losing a point over.

However I think that Campbell's is too detailed, I don't think they can expect us to know everything from there. My plan is to watch all the Thinkwell videos on it and make flashcards out of that plus Cliff's AP Bio. Between those two I feel like I'm getting a solid understanding of well established taxonomy.

Then again, I haven't taken the DAT, so I'm probably not being that helpful...
 
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Rlow04 said:
The ADA DAT user's manual p. 46 says that there's supposed to be 3 question's out of thirty on Taxonomy and the diversity of life. But like you said, some versions of the DAT may or may not follow that exactly.

I'm with you - I think that taxonomy is something that can be mastered in a day or two and it's not worth losing a point over.

However I think that Campbell's is too detailed, I don't think they can expect us to know everything from there. My plan is to watch all the Thinkwell videos on it and make flashcards out of that plus Cliff's AP Bio. Between those two I feel like I'm getting a solid understanding of well established taxonomy.

Then again, I haven't taken the DAT, so I'm probably not being that helpful...
Click to expand...

Thinkwell does not get into details with the classification. They do provide a great broad-scheme phylogenetic tree for the evolution if life but limit it to only Phylums.

The questions that appear on Topscore and Achiever ask about classes sometimes, which I haven't found much of this information anywhere. I did just take a 5 credit class on the evolution of life so I can pull a lot of details from this but I'm still looking for something to summarize all the classes. I suppose if nothing surfaces I may just make a table myself and post it on here.
 
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I just did a search for taxonomy questions in DAT breakdowns and this is what I found:

Icebreaker's breakdown

"Some questions i've never seen before and they definitely felt very random. I had about 5-6 of these. Didn't see anything on plants, body systems, respiration, or digestion. Did see a lot of phylum characteristic questions as well as genetics. "

DDSbh's breakdown

"I studied a lot for Biology and did well on Practice test but on the real test, it is so random, and broad from every section : plant, taxanomy, ecology, lab.."

gegogi's breakdown

"one taxonomy question. I don't know whether I got it right or not"

hunterpostbacst's breakdown (scroll down to the person who quoted him)

"BIO : 7 or 8 taxonomy questions. No plant questions(I studied so much for this section though)"

Kelly421's breakdown

"I was really worried about taxonomy and there was 1-2 easy questions of that on the real thing"

Anyways, I also read a lot of breakdowns that said they had no taxonomy, so I guess it's just a crapshoot. And in the time that took me, I probably could have memorized 5 more phyla.
 
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Zakl said:
Zero, my test was all MOlecular Biology stuff, no plants, no taxonomy, 15 somethign questions on Molecular Biology/Genetics. So if you have the Kaplan book that breaks down everything for you, well too bad it won't work for everybody
Click to expand...

i pray to God i get that version of the test lol.
all i remember from bio is molecular stuff
 
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Rlow04 said:
The ADA DAT user's manual p. 46 says that there's supposed to be 3 question's out of thirty on Taxonomy and the diversity of life. But like you said, some versions of the DAT may or may not follow that exactly.

I'm with you - I think that taxonomy is something that can be mastered in a day or two and it's not worth losing a point over.

However I think that Campbell's is too detailed, I don't think they can expect us to know everything from there. My plan is to watch all the Thinkwell videos on it and make flashcards out of that plus Cliff's AP Bio. Between those two I feel like I'm getting a solid understanding of well established taxonomy.

Then again, I haven't taken the DAT, so I'm probably not being that helpful...
Click to expand...

I noticed that the DAT Users Manual is from 2006, is there an updated version?
 
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Following is simply my personal opinion.

To remember the phyla and different branches on tree is not a REAL science. I'm not even sure why they emphasis on it in DAT. The real science would be to analyze the new found organism and based on the characteristics that you see and put them in to the best possible spot on the tree, to understand how the tree has been organized, what where they thinking when they were branching out organism etc.

In regards to TREE, I believe all you need to know is how the tree has been organized and how different branches evolved.

Tree should be a part of exhibits same as periodic table. They should create more challenging question related to Science and Analyse kind of stuff. Remembering Kingdoms and phyla, IMO, it's waste of one human's precious time!!
 
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RCT PC CRN said:
Following is simply my personal opinion.

To remember the phyla and different branches on tree is not a REAL science. I'm not even sure why they emphasis on it in DAT. The real science would be to analyze the new found organism and based on the characteristics that you see and put them in to the best possible spot on the tree, to understand how the tree has been organized, what where they thinking when they were branching out organism etc.

In regards to TREE, I believe all you need to know is how the tree has been organized and how different branches evolved.

Tree should be a part of exhibits same as periodic table. They should create more challenging question related to Science and Analyse kind of stuff. Remembering Kingdoms and phyla, IMO, it's waste of one human's precious time!!
Click to expand...

I'm really not sure what to make of this comment..

Taxonomy, phylogenetics, cladistics, and systematics are all very important sciences within the realm of biology.

I can't tell whether you have a blatant disregard for evolution or if you just don't feel like you should remember the names of different branches along the way. To me it seems like you just don't think the name is important but to understand evolutionary relationships you really need to know these names.. You can't simply refer to some organism as "the one that branched a couple ancestors off from that one with parapodia."

Do you feel it is important to know the 3 domains?

What about the 4 kingdoms?

I'm assuming you think it is important to know that a plant is a plant and an animal is an animal.

So what about the phyla then?

That's just the next step down.. I think it's harder to learn as we get more specific but the different phyla are so unique it really isn't that hard.. there's 35 different animal phyla of which we only need to know 12-15.


I guess what I'm getting at is that yes evolution is an incredibly important science. Knowing what separates each organism on the tree of life and where different basal and derived traits originate is very pertinent to biology.

Speaking the language of evolution is one with these sciences. I suggest everyone to try and take a day or two out of your life and attempt to learn the tree of life if you haven't already. It's very easy to hate all those different scientific names but once you learn and comprehend this tragically beautiful process, I guarantee you will have a newfound appreciation.

It's not hard to learn.. so stop psyching yourselves out.
 
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Avery07 said:
Speaking the language of evolution is one with these sciences. I suggest everyone to try and take a day or two out of your life and attempt to learn the tree of life if you haven't already. It's very easy to hate all those different scientific names but once you learn and comprehend this tragically beautiful process, I guarantee you will have a newfound appreciation.

It's not hard to learn.. so stop psyching yourselves out.
Click to expand...

I second this, I just spent 2 days learning all this material for the first time. I feel that I understand anatomy, physiology, and evolution so much better because I studied taxonomy. And hopefully it will help on the DAT!
 
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Avery07 said:
It's not hard to learn.. so stop psyching yourselves out.
Click to expand...

Don't take me wrong. I love evolution. I totally believe it's a great science. And of course I know the tree very well. I didn't learn it recently. I spent great deal of time understanding the tree from the first day I was encountered to it.

My opinion is more about the names and to simply memorize those names. Names are nothing but those are what one person would call it when it was first seen or discovered. And of course there might be some standards for naming. I'm sure if someone has to create the entire tree from the scratch today, it would certainly look different cause the names would be different. But the FUNDAMENTAL won't change. And that's exactly what I meant, to understand the tree, why it was branched out at certain point, very specific evolution trends, why certain organism was pinned at certain spot etc..not to memorize those words and that's what current DAT standard leading so many of it's takers here, IMO.

What I would like to see different is tree could be part of exhibits so you don't have to memorize those names but of course you need to understand the tree and that's what is important.

I could plug in bunch of words and their position in some computer software application and when I click 'Show me the tree', computer will pull stored data from the hard drive and show you the nice tree but does that mean if I type in some random name and it's characteristics in that application, it will analyze it and place it at best possible spot. Of course not, that's what we are here for. And that's exactly what I meant, to learn the real Science and Analyze kind of stuff behind creating and unlimitedly expanding tree. Remember THE TREE OF LIFE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. So how do you learn something which is in progress and will never finish? Well, I guess it's simple, to know how it came in existence and how it is progressing !!! One could totally go wrong here by memorizing names cause it's fair to say that names might change tomorrow but fundamentals won't.

Avery07 said:
It's not hard to learn.. so stop psyching yourselves out.
Click to expand...

Nothing is hard to learn. One human is capable of so many great things.
 
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