CAN DAT: Soap Carving and Angles

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Mystere-ious

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Hey guys,
I need help on Soap Carving and the Angles section of the PAT.

First off, anyone have any suggestions on how to carve soap, besides the obvious that I've read so many times. After I finish the carve, I just can't seem to get the lines straight. Does anyone know how to deal with the 45 deg. angles, especially when there's a "box" in the middle of four 45 deg. angles at the tip of the soap?

Also, the angle section is REALLY tough on the actual DAT. The angles all look near identical (within 5 degrees of each other). Anyone have any suggestions? I've heard of picking out the largest and smallest, etc. but that doesn't seem to work when they all look the same!

Thanks for the help.

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I'm from the US so I can't really say anything about the soap carving but I can help you with the angles. Some people rip off a corner of the paper and fold it in half to make a 45 degree angle to compare the angles with. Another tactic I used (according to test center people it is allowed under their guidelines) is I put any edge of my scratch paper up to the angle nd then make a mark on the paper. So now you have an angle that you can put up to the one you are comparing it to. You might have to turn the paper around because the PAT angles may be rotated but it shouldn't be too hard. This helped me get a 20 on the PAT. Hope this helps.
 
I'm kinda confused...what do u mean put the edge of a scrap paper (do they even give scrap paper for the CAN DAT?) to the angle?
 
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I've never carved soap in my life, though I should probably start practicing soon since I write the Canadian DAT in February. Can I do well with only 4 months of practice? I don't know how good my manual dexterity is, although I do play classical guitar. Can I use normal soap and a normal knife to practice? What kind of figures are there?
 
You better buy the soap and knife from CDA...it's a cylinderical soap measuring 84mm x 16 mm (diameter).
 
Hi, I took the Canadian dat Back in 1995/96. I am now graduating from a US dental school in 8 months. I did not score well in the carving (and I took the DAT 3 times before I got a 15). As a freshman I had to carve teeth out of wax. If you use the back end of the knife you can smooth out the soap. On the PAT I just looked for the largest and smallest angle, and I only got a 16. I had a 18,18, and 20 in the other sections. My friend got a 14 on the PAT and is going to graduate in my class. Bottom line is that handskills and preception are not that big a deal as you might think. Even in dental school so many people would talk about so and so's handskills. I struggled in my first year, but by second year I could cut mannquin preps and score A's on practicals. Hand skills are learned and some people are faster learners than others. Just try to get through the DAT. Canadian schools are BS, because my DAT kept me out even though my grades were 4 points above the average that they admitted for that year. Dental school is not that hard that you need to have a 90% to be successful. If you have a B average apply to US schools where you will probably be at least interviewed. Good luck all.

:p
 
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