DAT RC and MCAT similarity

[psupredental]

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I am starting to gather all of my study materials for the DAT. I've got a pretty good list so far. As for the reading comprehension, I had heard that a good way to study is to practice reading journal articles. I have a college library nearby with all the journals so is one journal better than another. In addition, the library has some MCAT practice tests available. I was thinking about using them, minus the physics and supplementing in the PAT. Is this reasonable? Also, will using MCAT verbal reasoning books help with the DAT reading comprehension?

Thanks

 

[doc3232]

MCAT verbal is different. It has a lot more tone questions. Ours requires much more comprehension in it.

I think you should stick to taking DAT practice tests rather than MCAT ones. MCAT materials are sometimes good though.

 

[Jongho Yoon]

Not much. I have MCAT verbal book, but most of the questions are inference type questions, which requires you to read the whole passage and understand it. DAT RC, as you know, contains mostly of the information/detail questions. I would not rely on it.

Practice reading may have some benefits, I believe, in such a short time, but I would not rely on it for a better score. Best practice you can do is doing more practice tests, practicing your method as well as reviewing the questions/answers. I would do topscore, kaplan bb, achiever, and if more is necessary cliffs, barrons, and kaplan online.

 

[Sublimation]

If you have 2 or 3 years to prepare for the DAT then u might want to start reading journals and other reading supplements. However, you cant become a better reader overnight, and this does not doom u to a bad score in RC. I would highly recommend that u practice the strategies that kaplan and other DAT review material. Keep on practicing, and ull start to notice some trends and ull get better at it. No need to waste ur time reading journals, unless you can use them to study ur natural sciences. If you wanna become a better reader, avoid using the internet for practice. Go to the library and check out some books and read them. The internet is not a good place to enhance ur reading comprehension skills.

 

[kingsingh]

I practiced the RC from the MCAT princeton review book and would highly recommend it. It helped me score a 23 in the RC and I'm not a native speaker. I had started practicing from the DAT RC stuff (Kaplan blue book, electronic practice tests I bought online) and was kicking ass because they were so easy and targeted the old type of RC sections, the ones in which the answers are straight forward............lately the RC section has included more and more tone/infrence (sp?) type questions, the MCAT reading section prepares you well for this.
If I were you I would start off with a RC section from the DAT book to get my feet wet and then practice with the MCAT stuff. Do buy and practice some of those electronic DAT tests and do them every day for a few days before the test as they will help you with timing and give you valuable practice in taking the test on the computer (this is key).
Also some people reccomend reading the first paragraph of the reading portion, going to the questions, answering them, skimming the second para, answer questions type of approach. I would not reccomend this as the RC now seems to have a lot of tone/title this essay type of questions. I read(note-did not skim, but read it fast) about half of the essay at once and then answered questions. Key to this section is practice, practice, practice............................oh and luck helps too as some of those RC are impossible

 

[psupredental]

thanks for all your advice

 

[wooju116]

I practiced the RC from the MCAT princeton review book and would highly recommend it. It helped me score a 23 in the RC and I'm not a native speaker. I had started practicing from the DAT RC stuff (Kaplan blue book, electronic practice tests I bought online) and was kicking ass because they were so easy and targeted the old type of RC sections, the ones in which the answers are straight forward............lately the RC section has included more and more tone/infrence (sp?) type questions, the MCAT reading section prepares you well for this.
If I were you I would start off with a RC section from the DAT book to get my feet wet and then practice with the MCAT stuff. Do buy and practice some of those electronic DAT tests and do them every day for a few days before the test as they will help you with timing and give you valuable practice in taking the test on the computer (this is key).
Also some people reccomend reading the first paragraph of the reading portion, going to the questions, answering them, skimming the second para, answer questions type of approach. I would not reccomend this as the RC now seems to have a lot of tone/title this essay type of questions. I read(note-did not skim, but read it fast) about half of the essay at once and then answered questions. Key to this section is practice, practice, practice............................oh and luck helps too as some of those RC are impossible

This helps!
I am reading the mcat examkracker 101
I am currently do badly on rc section, I only have about month to study, would it work?
Any specific suggestion?

 

[pbure9]

I've been using the 101 and i gotta say i do pretty bad in it (7, 8's and 9s while i get 21-23s on Kaplan and Acheiver so far). It is really different from the dat because the answers to the DAT passages are in the text 9 out of 10 times (if not more). While I think its good practice, it could be a little demoralizing 😀. The strategy is just a little different. For DAT, you can search and destroy while in MCAT you HAVE to read and understand the whole passage and exactly what the author is trying to say (its kind of a different mindset)

 

[lazybummy]

I dont recommend it. I personally did dozens of MCAT passages.. and they are NOTHING like the DAT RC sections. Use use search and destroy.. take as much DAT practice tests as possible. No point of reading random articles and doing MCAT passages.

 

[BaylorDDS]

I studied for and took the mcat. I got a 9 on verbal. On the dat I got a 22. They are not similar at all. Study dat rc not mcat. You will be completely wasting you valuable study time with the mcat rc.