DAT test

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Vaneer1000

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Hi I was wondering how bad the dat test was compared to the MCATS. I took the MCATs and did all right. I got a 30 on it but i dont want to become a physician anymore. Any insight is useful

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I have not taken the DAT yet but I have a couple of friends that have taken both. From what they have told me, the DAT is a little bit easier simply because it doesn't have physics on it. However, it does have the perceptual ability section. So I guess it depends if you are better at physics or 3D objects. Good luck to you!
 
I have heard that it is a little bit easier as well...only because the questions are a little more straight forward...
 
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Personally, I thought it was a lot easier as a test. However, I would have to say that I prepped almost just as hard for both tests.
The questions on that DAT were very straightforward and you didn't have to make implications from any passages. In addition, the DAT RC is also a lot more straightforward than the MCAT Verbal (but you need to change your strategy slightly). All in all, if you got a 30 on the MCAT, and you study hard (and you can get the PAT down), you should do well on the DAT.
 
I've taken both the mcat and the dat. i took the mcat back in april 2005 when it was still paper-based. i took the dat this past march. i'll explain my views on both tests after sharing my scores for comparison.

mcat: 35 composite (95th percentile), 13 physical sciences (gchem+physics), 11 biological sciences (ochem+bio), 11 verbal

dat: 21 aa, 21 ts, 20 gchm, 21 ochem, 22 bio, 22 pat, 24 rc, 20 qr

after taking the dat, i thought to myself that the experience of taking the dat was much tougher than my mcat experience. i think i didn't like that the dat was computer based. the dat was my first cbt testing experience, and though i did prep for it by using topscore and achiever, the actual testing experience at the prometric center was different enough that it bugged me while i was taking it.

when taking the mcat, i loved that i could mark up the testing booklet as much as i liked. i think answer choice elimination is the most valuable strategy for both the mcat and dat, but with the dat being cbt, you find you're not able to implement that strategy as well.

also, you take the mcat in a room full of other test takers, so while others may have found that distracting, it actually allowed me to feel more comfortable. there's just something about being in a room full of people going through the same thing. i picked up on a certain test-taking rhythm in the room. the dat, in contrast, you take in a smaller room with each computer in its own little desk cubicle, and it's hush quiet in there with no ambient test-taking noise from pencil strokes and page turns. you might think those noises would be distracting, but when you think of it, we've gone through school all our lives in a classroom environment full of page flipping and pencil stroke noises -- you've adjusted to it by now. in contrast, the mouse clicks you hear in the dat testing center are harder to tune out when you're trying to concentrate on your test.

content-wise, i also found the dat to be tougher. someone posted earlier here that the dat material is more straightforward, and that's true. but studying for it requires that you rely so much more upon memorization compared to the mcat. and then scoring well when you're actually taking it requires that you're absolutely on the ball in your recall ability that day. in contrast, the mcat, ive found at least, only requires that you learn the basic to medium-advanced fundamentals and principles of each subject really well. and the vast majority of the questions are passage-based (meaning you have a passage of some sort followed by a set of related questions). this means that you rely more on your reading and critical thinking skills than pure memorization and recall. on the mcat, you'll never have to worry about encountering some biology question that seems like it came out of nowhere, because if it's a very detailed, trivia-like question asking you something that would be beyond your ability to answer simply based on your foundation knowledge of the subject, you'll be able to find the answer based on the passage. the dat, however, especially in the bio section, will throw some questions at you that are just completely absent of any helpful context and ask you to correctly name the excretory organ of some type of worm or another. it's simple in what you're asked to do, but if you weren't lucky enough to have memorized that bit of trivia during your studying, you're left to guessing. you might find a question like that on the mcat, but it would accompany a relevant passage.

as for physics on the mcat, you are required to memorize the basic equations in order to do well on that section, but it's very straightforward. it's what you've been doing in your physics course all semester long. most people seem to do well on the gchem portion of the dat, saying it's pretty straightforward, and i think the same holds true for the mcat physics section. personally, however, the gchem portion i encountered on my actual dat had more theory-oriented questions, instead of calculation-based ones like i was preparing for and like what you'd see on the mcat. so i got stumped on that portion.

the mcat verbal is much tougher than the dat reading comprehension. when it was paper based, there were 11 passages consisting of one-and-a-half to two dense columns of text on just about any subject from science-related to history to sociology to literature, etc. i used to read the 'smithsonian' and other periodicals to prep for this section. subject matter-wise, the dat passages are always going to be science-related. but what makes the mcat verbal really different is that the questions rely so heavily on critical thinking and your ability to infer the correct answer. answer elimination was what i relied upon the most in this section, because while 90% of the correct choices seem arguable (they're never clear-cut and dried), all of the wrong choices are definitely wrong for one reason or another. what makes it tough is that a choice may be wrong for an explicitly obvious reason or a very subtle, whew!-glad-i-caught-that reason, and anything in-between. this section must be much tougher now with the mcat going computer based. the dat rc questions are very straightforward in comparison, with just a few inference and find-the-authors-tone questions sprinkled in to the mix. in short, if you can do well on the mcat verbal, you oughta be set on the dat rc.

the pat and qr sections are unique to the dat, but there are just no secrets to these sections. they are what they are, right? i guess qr is challenging because of the time constraint. i was scoring at least 25-29 on topscore and achiever qr sections, but ended up with a 20 on the actual dat due to time and not having been prepared for how awkward it was to write using a fat marker and laminated sheets. and oh, the mcat has a writing section where you write two short essays based on prompts like "what makes someone a hero and why?" but you can basically use this section as a restroom break because medschools don't give much credence to it, like what most people say about the qr section. although if you scored badly on this section and had bad grades in your english composition courses to go along with it, then you might have to explain yourself to adcoms.

anyhow, that was pretty lengthy. and please remember these are all simply my opinions based on personal experience of both tests. most people wouldn't have paid attention as much about the different testing environments, testing format, etc. i think most people care strictly about the differences in the material, content, question-type, etc. but i wish the dat would've been paper based, though that would mean it could be given out only a few times a year with three month score reporting times.
 
I've taken both the mcat and the dat. i took the mcat back in april 2005 when it was still paper-based. i took the dat this past march. i'll explain my views on both tests after sharing my scores for comparison.

mcat: 35 composite (95th percentile), 13 physical sciences (gchem+physics), 11 biological sciences (ochem+bio), 11 verbal

dat: 21 aa, 21 ts, 20 gchm, 21 ochem, 22 bio, 22 pat, 24 rc, 20 qr

after taking the dat, i thought to myself that the experience of taking the dat was much tougher than my mcat experience. i think i didn't like that the dat was computer based. the dat was my first cbt testing experience, and though i did prep for it by using topscore and achiever, the actual testing experience at the prometric center was different enough that it bugged me while i was taking it.

when taking the mcat, i loved that i could mark up the testing booklet as much as i liked. i think answer choice elimination is the most valuable strategy for both the mcat and dat, but with the dat being cbt, you find you're not able to implement that strategy as well.

also, you take the mcat in a room full of other test takers, so while others may have found that distracting, it actually allowed me to feel more comfortable. there's just something about being in a room full of people going through the same thing. i picked up on a certain test-taking rhythm in the room. the dat, in contrast, you take in a smaller room with each computer in its own little desk cubicle, and it's hush quiet in there with no ambient test-taking noise from pencil strokes and page turns. you might think those noises would be distracting, but when you think of it, we've gone through school all our lives in a classroom environment full of page flipping and pencil stroke noises -- you've adjusted to it by now. in contrast, the mouse clicks you hear in the dat testing center are harder to tune out when you're trying to concentrate on your test.

content-wise, i also found the dat to be tougher. someone posted earlier here that the dat material is more straightforward, and that's true. but studying for it requires that you rely so much more upon memorization compared to the mcat. and then scoring well when you're actually taking it requires that you're absolutely on the ball in your recall ability that day. in contrast, the mcat, ive found at least, only requires that you learn the basic to medium-advanced fundamentals and principles of each subject really well. and the vast majority of the questions are passage-based (meaning you have a passage of some sort followed by a set of related questions). this means that you rely more on your reading and critical thinking skills than pure memorization and recall. on the mcat, you'll never have to worry about encountering some biology question that seems like it came out of nowhere, because if it's a very detailed, trivia-like question asking you something that would be beyond your ability to answer simply based on your foundation knowledge of the subject, you'll be able to find the answer based on the passage. the dat, however, especially in the bio section, will throw some questions at you that are just completely absent of any helpful context and ask you to correctly name the excretory organ of some type of worm or another. it's simple in what you're asked to do, but if you weren't lucky enough to have memorized that bit of trivia during your studying, you're left to guessing. you might find a question like that on the mcat, but it would accompany a relevant passage.

as for physics on the mcat, you are required to memorize the basic equations in order to do well on that section, but it's very straightforward. it's what you've been doing in your physics course all semester long. most people seem to do well on the gchem portion of the dat, saying it's pretty straightforward, and i think the same holds true for the mcat physics section. personally, however, the gchem portion i encountered on my actual dat had more theory-oriented questions, instead of calculation-based ones like i was preparing for and like what you'd see on the mcat. so i got stumped on that portion.

the mcat verbal is much tougher than the dat reading comprehension. when it was paper based, there were 11 passages consisting of one-and-a-half to two dense columns of text on just about any subject from science-related to history to sociology to literature, etc. i used to read the 'smithsonian' and other periodicals to prep for this section. subject matter-wise, the dat passages are always going to be science-related. but what makes the mcat verbal really different is that the questions rely so heavily on critical thinking and your ability to infer the correct answer. answer elimination was what i relied upon the most in this section, because while 90% of the correct choices seem arguable (they're never clear-cut and dried), all of the wrong choices are definitely wrong for one reason or another. what makes it tough is that a choice may be wrong for an explicitly obvious reason or a very subtle, whew!-glad-i-caught-that reason, and anything in-between. this section must be much tougher now with the mcat going computer based. the dat rc questions are very straightforward in comparison, with just a few inference and find-the-authors-tone questions sprinkled in to the mix. in short, if you can do well on the mcat verbal, you oughta be set on the dat rc.

the pat and qr sections are unique to the dat, but there are just no secrets to these sections. they are what they are, right? i guess qr is challenging because of the time constraint. i was scoring at least 25-29 on topscore and achiever qr sections, but ended up with a 20 on the actual dat due to time and not having been prepared for how awkward it was to write using a fat marker and laminated sheets. and oh, the mcat has a writing section where you write two short essays based on prompts like "what makes someone a hero and why?" but you can basically use this section as a restroom break because medschools don't give much credence to it, like what most people say about the qr section. although if you scored badly on this section and had bad grades in your english composition courses to go along with it, then you might have to explain yourself to adcoms.

anyhow, that was pretty lengthy. and please remember these are all simply my opinions based on personal experience of both tests. most people wouldn't have paid attention as much about the different testing environments, testing format, etc. i think most people care strictly about the differences in the material, content, question-type, etc. but i wish the dat would've been paper based, though that would mean it could be given out only a few times a year with three month score reporting times.

I agree. My Kaplan instructor said that women tend to do well on the PAT section more than men since it is spatial related. So if you are women, you are set for PAT. Ohlalala
 
I agree. My Kaplan instructor said that women tend to do well on the PAT section more than men since it is spatial related. So if you are women, you are set for PAT. Ohlalala

i wonder if spatial talents as an athlete would transfer to the pat. id love to see how well basketball player steve nash would do on the pat. he displays unbelievable spatial/perceptual abilities on the court with some of those amazing passes he makes. he can thread a bounce pass between a defender's legs, while moving, at the exact angle and lead necessary for his teammate to catch it without breaking stride for an easy hoop. often, he does this looking the other way. incredible.

id also guess chess players would do incredibly well on the pat. i always assumed chess relied more on mathematical ability, but i remember reading that good chess players rely on spatial-perceptual skills mainly. it's the "feel" for the game that people talk about.
 
did oyu end up attending dental school or med school?

back in 05 when i took the mcat, i was still looking into both dentistry and medicine. i received some bad advice that the mcat would be accepted by dental school admissions as well, so i studied for that and took it since i was undecided. that of course isn't true, turned out. and ive decided to apply to dental school this year, not medicine.
 
I've taken both the mcat and the dat. i took the mcat back in april 2005 when it was still paper-based. i took the dat this past march. i'll explain my views on both tests after sharing my scores for comparison.

mcat: 35 composite (95th percentile), 13 physical sciences (gchem+physics), 11 biological sciences (ochem+bio), 11 verbal

dat: 21 aa, 21 ts, 20 gchm, 21 ochem, 22 bio, 22 pat, 24 rc, 20 qr

after taking the dat, i thought to myself that the experience of taking the dat was much tougher than my mcat experience. i think i didn't like that the dat was computer based. the dat was my first cbt testing experience, and though i did prep for it by using topscore and achiever, the actual testing experience at the prometric center was different enough that it bugged me while i was taking it.

when taking the mcat, i loved that i could mark up the testing booklet as much as i liked. i think answer choice elimination is the most valuable strategy for both the mcat and dat, but with the dat being cbt, you find you're not able to implement that strategy as well.

also, you take the mcat in a room full of other test takers, so while others may have found that distracting, it actually allowed me to feel more comfortable. there's just something about being in a room full of people going through the same thing. i picked up on a certain test-taking rhythm in the room. the dat, in contrast, you take in a smaller room with each computer in its own little desk cubicle, and it's hush quiet in there with no ambient test-taking noise from pencil strokes and page turns. you might think those noises would be distracting, but when you think of it, we've gone through school all our lives in a classroom environment full of page flipping and pencil stroke noises -- you've adjusted to it by now. in contrast, the mouse clicks you hear in the dat testing center are harder to tune out when you're trying to concentrate on your test.

content-wise, i also found the dat to be tougher. someone posted earlier here that the dat material is more straightforward, and that's true. but studying for it requires that you rely so much more upon memorization compared to the mcat. and then scoring well when you're actually taking it requires that you're absolutely on the ball in your recall ability that day. in contrast, the mcat, ive found at least, only requires that you learn the basic to medium-advanced fundamentals and principles of each subject really well. and the vast majority of the questions are passage-based (meaning you have a passage of some sort followed by a set of related questions). this means that you rely more on your reading and critical thinking skills than pure memorization and recall. on the mcat, you'll never have to worry about encountering some biology question that seems like it came out of nowhere, because if it's a very detailed, trivia-like question asking you something that would be beyond your ability to answer simply based on your foundation knowledge of the subject, you'll be able to find the answer based on the passage. the dat, however, especially in the bio section, will throw some questions at you that are just completely absent of any helpful context and ask you to correctly name the excretory organ of some type of worm or another. it's simple in what you're asked to do, but if you weren't lucky enough to have memorized that bit of trivia during your studying, you're left to guessing. you might find a question like that on the mcat, but it would accompany a relevant passage.

as for physics on the mcat, you are required to memorize the basic equations in order to do well on that section, but it's very straightforward. it's what you've been doing in your physics course all semester long. most people seem to do well on the gchem portion of the dat, saying it's pretty straightforward, and i think the same holds true for the mcat physics section. personally, however, the gchem portion i encountered on my actual dat had more theory-oriented questions, instead of calculation-based ones like i was preparing for and like what you'd see on the mcat. so i got stumped on that portion.

the mcat verbal is much tougher than the dat reading comprehension. when it was paper based, there were 11 passages consisting of one-and-a-half to two dense columns of text on just about any subject from science-related to history to sociology to literature, etc. i used to read the 'smithsonian' and other periodicals to prep for this section. subject matter-wise, the dat passages are always going to be science-related. but what makes the mcat verbal really different is that the questions rely so heavily on critical thinking and your ability to infer the correct answer. answer elimination was what i relied upon the most in this section, because while 90% of the correct choices seem arguable (they're never clear-cut and dried), all of the wrong choices are definitely wrong for one reason or another. what makes it tough is that a choice may be wrong for an explicitly obvious reason or a very subtle, whew!-glad-i-caught-that reason, and anything in-between. this section must be much tougher now with the mcat going computer based. the dat rc questions are very straightforward in comparison, with just a few inference and find-the-authors-tone questions sprinkled in to the mix. in short, if you can do well on the mcat verbal, you oughta be set on the dat rc.

the pat and qr sections are unique to the dat, but there are just no secrets to these sections. they are what they are, right? i guess qr is challenging because of the time constraint. i was scoring at least 25-29 on topscore and achiever qr sections, but ended up with a 20 on the actual dat due to time and not having been prepared for how awkward it was to write using a fat marker and laminated sheets. and oh, the mcat has a writing section where you write two short essays based on prompts like "what makes someone a hero and why?" but you can basically use this section as a restroom break because medschools don't give much credence to it, like what most people say about the qr section. although if you scored badly on this section and had bad grades in your english composition courses to go along with it, then you might have to explain yourself to adcoms.

anyhow, that was pretty lengthy. and please remember these are all simply my opinions based on personal experience of both tests. most people wouldn't have paid attention as much about the different testing environments, testing format, etc. i think most people care strictly about the differences in the material, content, question-type, etc. but i wish the dat would've been paper based, though that would mean it could be given out only a few times a year with three month score reporting times.

wow, i was going to type just about the same response... :thumbup:

35 MCAT

20/20/17 DAT first attemp, and 22/22/18 second attempt

i agree that the mcat was much more enjoyable than the DAT. although the Q's on the dat are asked in a straightforward manner.... the detail in which you need to know the actual material is much deeper than the MCAT.

if you know the BASICS than you can do well on the MCAT if you can analyze passages and use logic/reasoning. the DAT is exactly the opposite....no logic/reasoning except for the PAT, but you need to have a very very strong science background to rock the SNS section.

that's my opinion, jb!:)
 
Hi I was wondering how bad the dat test was compared to the MCATS. I took the MCATs and did all right. I got a 30 on it but i dont want to become a physician anymore. Any insight is useful

I see you are upgrading......good for you!
 
Just curious, didn't taking the MCATs impede ur attempts at dental schools? Or was it just something brought up in the interviews, and u guys just explained ur reasons behind it.
 
I agree. My Kaplan instructor said that women tend to do well on the PAT section more than men since it is spatial related. So if you are women, you are set for PAT. Ohlalala

This may be generally true, but in my case, my PAT score was proportionate to the size of my man junk (above average... 93rd percentile).
 
I've taken both the mcat and the dat. i took the mcat back in april 2005 when it was still paper-based. i took the dat this past march. i'll explain my views on both tests after sharing my scores for comparison.

mcat: 35 composite (95th percentile), 13 physical sciences (gchem+physics), 11 biological sciences (ochem+bio), 11 verbal

dat: 21 aa, 21 ts, 20 gchm, 21 ochem, 22 bio, 22 pat, 24 rc, 20 qr

after taking the dat, i thought to myself that the experience of taking the dat was much tougher than my mcat experience. i think i didn't like that the dat was computer based. the dat was my first cbt testing experience, and though i did prep for it by using topscore and achiever, the actual testing experience at the prometric center was different enough that it bugged me while i was taking it.

when taking the mcat, i loved that i could mark up the testing booklet as much as i liked. i think answer choice elimination is the most valuable strategy for both the mcat and dat, but with the dat being cbt, you find you're not able to implement that strategy as well.

also, you take the mcat in a room full of other test takers, so while others may have found that distracting, it actually allowed me to feel more comfortable. there's just something about being in a room full of people going through the same thing. i picked up on a certain test-taking rhythm in the room. the dat, in contrast, you take in a smaller room with each computer in its own little desk cubicle, and it's hush quiet in there with no ambient test-taking noise from pencil strokes and page turns. you might think those noises would be distracting, but when you think of it, we've gone through school all our lives in a classroom environment full of page flipping and pencil stroke noises -- you've adjusted to it by now. in contrast, the mouse clicks you hear in the dat testing center are harder to tune out when you're trying to concentrate on your test.

content-wise, i also found the dat to be tougher. someone posted earlier here that the dat material is more straightforward, and that's true. but studying for it requires that you rely so much more upon memorization compared to the mcat. and then scoring well when you're actually taking it requires that you're absolutely on the ball in your recall ability that day. in contrast, the mcat, ive found at least, only requires that you learn the basic to medium-advanced fundamentals and principles of each subject really well. and the vast majority of the questions are passage-based (meaning you have a passage of some sort followed by a set of related questions). this means that you rely more on your reading and critical thinking skills than pure memorization and recall. on the mcat, you'll never have to worry about encountering some biology question that seems like it came out of nowhere, because if it's a very detailed, trivia-like question asking you something that would be beyond your ability to answer simply based on your foundation knowledge of the subject, you'll be able to find the answer based on the passage. the dat, however, especially in the bio section, will throw some questions at you that are just completely absent of any helpful context and ask you to correctly name the excretory organ of some type of worm or another. it's simple in what you're asked to do, but if you weren't lucky enough to have memorized that bit of trivia during your studying, you're left to guessing. you might find a question like that on the mcat, but it would accompany a relevant passage.

as for physics on the mcat, you are required to memorize the basic equations in order to do well on that section, but it's very straightforward. it's what you've been doing in your physics course all semester long. most people seem to do well on the gchem portion of the dat, saying it's pretty straightforward, and i think the same holds true for the mcat physics section. personally, however, the gchem portion i encountered on my actual dat had more theory-oriented questions, instead of calculation-based ones like i was preparing for and like what you'd see on the mcat. so i got stumped on that portion.

the mcat verbal is much tougher than the dat reading comprehension. when it was paper based, there were 11 passages consisting of one-and-a-half to two dense columns of text on just about any subject from science-related to history to sociology to literature, etc. i used to read the 'smithsonian' and other periodicals to prep for this section. subject matter-wise, the dat passages are always going to be science-related. but what makes the mcat verbal really different is that the questions rely so heavily on critical thinking and your ability to infer the correct answer. answer elimination was what i relied upon the most in this section, because while 90% of the correct choices seem arguable (they're never clear-cut and dried), all of the wrong choices are definitely wrong for one reason or another. what makes it tough is that a choice may be wrong for an explicitly obvious reason or a very subtle, whew!-glad-i-caught-that reason, and anything in-between. this section must be much tougher now with the mcat going computer based. the dat rc questions are very straightforward in comparison, with just a few inference and find-the-authors-tone questions sprinkled in to the mix. in short, if you can do well on the mcat verbal, you oughta be set on the dat rc.

the pat and qr sections are unique to the dat, but there are just no secrets to these sections. they are what they are, right? i guess qr is challenging because of the time constraint. i was scoring at least 25-29 on topscore and achiever qr sections, but ended up with a 20 on the actual dat due to time and not having been prepared for how awkward it was to write using a fat marker and laminated sheets. and oh, the mcat has a writing section where you write two short essays based on prompts like "what makes someone a hero and why?" but you can basically use this section as a restroom break because medschools don't give much credence to it, like what most people say about the qr section. although if you scored badly on this section and had bad grades in your english composition courses to go along with it, then you might have to explain yourself to adcoms.

anyhow, that was pretty lengthy. and please remember these are all simply my opinions based on personal experience of both tests. most people wouldn't have paid attention as much about the different testing environments, testing format, etc. i think most people care strictly about the differences in the material, content, question-type, etc. but i wish the dat would've been paper based, though that would mean it could be given out only a few times a year with three month score reporting times.

I didnt even read this....its too long...
 
I agree. My Kaplan instructor said that women tend to do well on the PAT section more than men since it is spatial related. So if you are women, you are set for PAT. Ohlalala

Really? I always heard the opposite... that men are better at spatial relations and statistically do better on the PAT section.
 
Really? I always heard the opposite... that men are better at spatial relations and statistically do better on the PAT section.

According to the ADA (and this is published on their dental school guide), men do better on the PAT. The margin is considerable, also. Something around 0.5-0.8 points better.

Don't go around telling a group of people this. One chic I told got offended, even though it's statistics. She started lyin' about her PAT score, and inflated it by 5 points (I secretly know her real score).
 
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