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STOP butchering Kaplan!
if you're using Kaplan, DO NOT get discouraged by what others say.
Hey everyone, I took my DAT yesterday and thought I'd share my scores and a little bit about how I studied. You guys have all been extremely helpful and I feel like I wanna give back to this community, so here goes nothin.
First of all, all you people who hate on Kaplan, I'm living proof that it's enough to pull off a 20+AA. Every time I got on here, I'd get pretty discouraged by the people who need to study out of Destroyer, Cliffs, and all that other good stuff. Now I'm not saying these aren't good materials to prepare for yourself, but STOP butchering Kaplan! I felt like it really prepared me. I basically took 6 weeks after my Kaplan course to study on my own, and did a total of 4 full-length practice exams (not including the diagnostic). I peaked at an 18AA, 23PAT and 16TS :/ and I was beginning to get frustrated. Still, I chose to go ahead and take the DAT since I was going out of town immediately after and had no other choice. This is what I pulled off:
PAT: 23 (I also went through 4 Crack DAT PAT quizzes, and peaked at 23...I highly recommend it.)
QR: 19 (I had a headache and was extremely dizzy by this section. I was scoring 21-22 on Kaplan's QR)
RC: 24 (pretty straightforward passages, even had some time to go back and check - although this very rarely happened on Kaplan's exams)
BIO: 17 (I know, a little bit low, but I was peaking at a 17 on Kaplan, and people said this would drop on the real thing, but I brushed that off and still pulled this off)
GC: 20 (I was peaking at 17 as well for this section)
OC: 18 (I was peaking at 17)
TS: 18 (peaking at 16)
AA: 20
Bottom line - if you're using Kaplan, DO NOT get discouraged by what others say. It really is enough...you just have to go through the workshops, then each corresponding quiz. There aren't that many, it shouldn't take you that long. Then take a full-length every week (like every Monday, for example). Then go through your incorrect answers and make flashcards out of them. Go back through these flashcards every once in a while and make sure you understand the pretty well. I did this for 6 week-ish, and got the score I wanted, thank God. Good luck to all the people studying, I'm praying for you...hope you reach your goals
Destroyer alone would've easily given you a 20 TS.
Also, Kaplan is fine for gchem and ochem, but its biggest weakness is biology. They call themselves the "leaders in test prep" but last time I checked, they haven't updated any of their biology material to reflect new changes that were implemented in 2007.
Biology is an important section and furthermore, it also contributes more heavily to the TS score since biology is weighted more (bio has 40 questions while both chem sections have 30).
If you want to hit 23+ for both TS and AA....Kaplan is not all you need. If you need a 18-20....sure, Kaplan will do the trick.
Destroyer alone would've easily given you a 20 TS.
Also, Kaplan is fine for gchem and ochem, but its biggest weakness is biology. They call themselves the "leaders in test prep" but last time I checked, they haven't updated any of their biology material to reflect new changes that were implemented in 2007.
Biology is an important section and furthermore, it also contributes more heavily to the TS score since biology is weighted more (bio has 40 questions while both chem sections have 30).
If you want to hit 23+ for both TS and AA....Kaplan is not all you need. If you need a 18-20....sure, Kaplan will do the trick.
Yo, your performance, although not bad, is not enough to validate your claim that Kaplan is enough. Without that 24 RC score, your AA would've been 18 or 19 at best. 18-19 is exactly what Kaplan will do for most people. The average scores for incoming dental students is 19 across the board. Thus everyone is aiming for 20+ scores (and that's what Destroyer and Chad's delivers for many people). Sorry, but you did not really achieve that with your 20 AA. This confirms more that Kaplan is not enough.
Obviously, you didn't understand my point. What I was trying to get across, was that many people on SDN especially make Kaplan out to be "too easy" of a source, like this guy: http://206.82.221.135/showthread.php?t=759397 and multiple others. I was saying that although my score peaked at an 18AA on Kaplan, I hit a 20AA on the real thing with no problem.
Thank you for telling me my scores were bad, I appreciate the love. But, I'm very happy with them. It was a good attempt at making me feel like I performed poorly, but unfortunately it failed.
is 18/20 really that bad? last I checked RC is actually important.... 24 RC. Now that's impressive. Haters gonna hate.....
18 is not bad, but it's no sure thing either. To provide an example, I had a discussion with a Director of Admissions last spring and what I needed to score to gain admission. He said that if I score 20s across the board, then I'm basically in (and I have a pretty high GPA too). And if I scored lower than 20 in any section besides QR, then there would be a scrutiny of my transcript. I'm not saying that one must score 20+ but it makes it that much easier and hence why everyone is trying to achieve it.
gahh just signed up for Kaplan .. now i regret it :/
Obviously, you didn't understand my point. What I was trying to get across, was that many people on SDN especially make Kaplan out to be "too easy" of a source, like this guy: http://206.82.221.135/showthread.php?t=759397 and multiple others. I was saying that although my score peaked at an 18AA on Kaplan, I hit a 20AA on the real thing with no problem.
Thank you for telling me my scores were bad, I appreciate the love. But, I'm very happy with them. It was a good attempt at making me feel like I performed poorly, but unfortunately it failed.
I don't think anyone is trying to be mean and if they are I apologize in advance for them.Obviously, you didn't understand my point. What I was trying to get across, was that many people on SDN especially make Kaplan out to be "too easy" of a source, like this guy: http://206.82.221.135/showthread.php?t=759397 and multiple others. I was saying that although my score peaked at an 18AA on Kaplan, I hit a 20AA on the real thing with no problem.
Thank you for telling me my scores were bad, I appreciate the love. But, I'm very happy with them. It was a good attempt at making me feel like I performed poorly, but unfortunately it failed.
I think the Kaplan written materials are a great introduction to the content, but I attribute my high scores to other resources as well (namely TopScore, Achiever, and my Bio textbook). I don't think that I would have been able to pull off a 23 TS, 22 AA, and 22 PAT by *just* using Kaplan.
I took one of the tests Kaplan supplies with their online material... and my AA was 18, TS was 17 and I feel really bummed about this. It seems that most people say you usually get a point lower or two on the DAT than compared with Kaplans... and mine is early next week! I'm wondering if (no offense at all I'm just trying to look at stats) yours was a random burst of luck or if Kaplan DAT exams are off?
If anyone else has a comment on this, I'd love to hear your input. Thanks!
I took one of the tests Kaplan supplies with their online material... and my AA was 18, TS was 17 and I feel really bummed about this. It seems that most people say you usually get a point lower or two on the DAT than compared with Kaplans... and mine is early next week! I'm wondering if (no offense at all I'm just trying to look at stats) yours was a random burst of luck or if Kaplan DAT exams are off?
If anyone else has a comment on this, I'd love to hear your input. Thanks!
My advice, go in there confident and you'll do great. As long as you maintain your calm during the real thing, you'll do very well. I don't think mine was a random burst of luck...I think the Chem's on the real thing were easier than Kaplan's exams. I was consistently scoring 16OC and 17GC, and got 18OC and 20GC. The Bio was pretty similar though. Reading I thought was a lot easier, and QR wasn't harder, but by the time I got to it, I was going cross-eyed from looking at the screen too long..lol And CDP was the best for preparation for the PAT section, IMO.