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Hey yall (Im from the mtns of NC so YES, yall is a word - haha). Anyway, I want to have a discussion about the DAT. As most of us already know, there are tons of books out there to teach you the information on the test, and even more that try and teach you how to take it. Well, it seems common knowledge that the material on the test is standard, but everyone seems to have a different way of analyzing it on test day. I think when it came to me taking the DAT, I was not so much worried about the content, but more on how I actually need to analyze each question and interpret the information given. Everyone tests different and everyone has their own techniques for coming up with the right answer in ANY section.
I want to start this thread as means for people to discuss some of their PERSONAL techniques, methods , hints and so forth for each of the different parts of the test. I know we are all technically in competition with each other when it comes to this test, but Im a fond believer in teamwork and I feel it is important to share good wisdom once attained, especially to some of my potential colleagues. Sorry this is long winded to actually get to what I really wanted to write here haha. (oh yea, please dont just put DAT destroyer, crack PAT, etc, as well all know what materials are out there to study with. Please put, HOW you studied each section, or HOW you answer a particular type of question in a given section)
Ill start
PAT here are just of my own personal techniques I used when I took the test. Might I add, I never really studied for this section. I only read the content of each section of the PAT and took just ONE practice PAT test on topscore, and I made lower 20s on the real thing. Here is how I did it:
Hole Punch: POE!!!! The first fold is ALWAYS symmetrical once unfolded. This I found to be the most beneficial when coming to a harder looking problem.
Top/Front/End: try and look at the different shapes profile from a given view and try to figure out how many solid/dashed lines there would be in the view in question. Then try and look at the spacing between them and see if one of the answers fit. If an answer has too many, or too little solid/dashed lines, get rid of it (POE)
Blocks: count the total # of blocks first. make a small chart ( 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ). Go through and figure the painted sides out per-block (yes, all of them) and tally them up. Dont even look at the question first unless youre running out of time. Then just make sure your total block # and your tallies match up and proceed to the questions.
Folding: this is a key POE section for me! see which shape is adjacent to which while unfolded. Also, if there are shaded shapes, see what all that shaded part is touching, or would touch once folded up. This is because it will be touching the SAME shapes once folded up. Also, if you see an answer choice that has a side with an awkwardshape that you cant see on the unfolded view, its wrong!
Angles: GOOD LUCK!! Sorry, I just cant see the difference in a 23 degree angle and a 24 degree angle. Although, with some, finding the highest and lowest degreed first allowed me to do POE a little better.
Key Hole: I tried to use the same concept from the folding. I would look at the shape from either a top, front, or end view and see if one of the answers fit. If that didnt work, I would look at my answer choices and see which one it COULDNT be because of the shape of the hole in relation to my perception of the top, front, end view in my head (POE)
I think that is all the sections from what I can remember. For me, the take home message is PROCESS OF ELIMINATION!! On almost ever single question you can take out at least 2 answers by using common sense (minus the block counting). For the ones that POE doesn't work, try testing each of the answer choices against the given problem to see if it works...oh wait, that is POE too!!
I think you get my point.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=60977 (this is an old thread I found that gives other peoples advice on what they studied)
some thanks goes out to johnsdv as I got the idea to start this from his original thread regarding the PAT.
I want to start this thread as means for people to discuss some of their PERSONAL techniques, methods , hints and so forth for each of the different parts of the test. I know we are all technically in competition with each other when it comes to this test, but Im a fond believer in teamwork and I feel it is important to share good wisdom once attained, especially to some of my potential colleagues. Sorry this is long winded to actually get to what I really wanted to write here haha. (oh yea, please dont just put DAT destroyer, crack PAT, etc, as well all know what materials are out there to study with. Please put, HOW you studied each section, or HOW you answer a particular type of question in a given section)
Ill start
PAT here are just of my own personal techniques I used when I took the test. Might I add, I never really studied for this section. I only read the content of each section of the PAT and took just ONE practice PAT test on topscore, and I made lower 20s on the real thing. Here is how I did it:
Hole Punch: POE!!!! The first fold is ALWAYS symmetrical once unfolded. This I found to be the most beneficial when coming to a harder looking problem.
Top/Front/End: try and look at the different shapes profile from a given view and try to figure out how many solid/dashed lines there would be in the view in question. Then try and look at the spacing between them and see if one of the answers fit. If an answer has too many, or too little solid/dashed lines, get rid of it (POE)
Blocks: count the total # of blocks first. make a small chart ( 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ). Go through and figure the painted sides out per-block (yes, all of them) and tally them up. Dont even look at the question first unless youre running out of time. Then just make sure your total block # and your tallies match up and proceed to the questions.
Folding: this is a key POE section for me! see which shape is adjacent to which while unfolded. Also, if there are shaded shapes, see what all that shaded part is touching, or would touch once folded up. This is because it will be touching the SAME shapes once folded up. Also, if you see an answer choice that has a side with an awkwardshape that you cant see on the unfolded view, its wrong!
Angles: GOOD LUCK!! Sorry, I just cant see the difference in a 23 degree angle and a 24 degree angle. Although, with some, finding the highest and lowest degreed first allowed me to do POE a little better.
Key Hole: I tried to use the same concept from the folding. I would look at the shape from either a top, front, or end view and see if one of the answers fit. If that didnt work, I would look at my answer choices and see which one it COULDNT be because of the shape of the hole in relation to my perception of the top, front, end view in my head (POE)
I think that is all the sections from what I can remember. For me, the take home message is PROCESS OF ELIMINATION!! On almost ever single question you can take out at least 2 answers by using common sense (minus the block counting). For the ones that POE doesn't work, try testing each of the answer choices against the given problem to see if it works...oh wait, that is POE too!!
I think you get my point.http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=60977 (this is an old thread I found that gives other peoples advice on what they studied)
some thanks goes out to johnsdv as I got the idea to start this from his original thread regarding the PAT.
