Desperate for advice on PAT

[boburnham]

Hello all,

I just took my first PAT test from DAT bootcamp, and yikes.

I got a 31/90, and I had to skip TFE, Angle ranking, and Pattern folding completely because I didn't have enough time.

On keyholes I got a 6/15. I definitely need to go over this again, and it sucked up a ton of time for me.

Hole punching I got 10/15 (I got maybe 4 wrong total on all of the practice sets, but this test had a bunch of tricky ones)

Cube counting I got 13/15, and felt that this section was extremely easy.

I have 6 weeks until the DAT, so what would be the best course of action? Go through PAT academy again?

Advice would be extremely appreciated.

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[IdleKoala]

You still have a lot of time to improve. I would make sure to do something relating to PAT everyday. The generators on DAT BC are perfect for that. Also going thru PAT academy again can help as well. For me, PAT was just a time in material thing, the more problems you do the better you'll get.

 

[DocDoom]

PAT is all about speed and pattern recognition. So practice on a daily basis and review the solutions on DAT bootcamp.

 

[boburnham]

Thanks for the replies so far! I was also wondering how many out of 90 would I need to get right for an 18-19?

 

[IdleKoala]

I don't know exactly, but from what i've seen it looks like 59-69 is 18-19.

 

[jLaws]

One thing I found really helpful in angle ranking is if some of them are close to right angles it is easy to look closely and see which are slightly over or under 90 degrees and move forward based on that. Also, look for the smallest or largest first, whichever is stands out the most. Finally, a really good technique when angles are close in measurement is imagining putting one angle inside the other, just imagine trying to fit it in, if it fits in it's smaller. You just have to figure out a technique that matches with how your mind works.

 

[deleted782438]

One thing I found really helpful in angle ranking is if some of them are close to right angles it is easy to look closely and see which are slightly over or under 90 degrees and move forward based on that. Also, look for the smallest or largest first, whichever is stands out the most. Finally, a really good technique when angles are close in measurement is imagining putting one angle inside the other, just imagine trying to fit it in, if it fits in it's smaller. You just have to figure out a technique that matches with how your mind works.

Is it possible to use my ID card for angles?
I heard you were able to use it and put it up to the screen

 

[jLaws]

Is it possible to use my ID card for angles?
I heard you were able to use it and put it up to the screen

No, but you won't need to. It's easy to see a right angle, and you should be able to notice if it's slightly above or below 90.

 

[tiper15]

Is it possible to use my ID card for angles?
I heard you were able to use it and put it up to the screen

You aren't allowed to touch the screen is what it says in the rule book. What I did for angle ranking is use my thumbs instead of my ID card ( tbh didn't think about using the ID card till now ) and would hover it over the angles on screen to cover up the longer lines and only show a small triangle. It helps to prevent the length of the lines from messing up your perception. From there you can compare two angles with approximately the same size of lines so the difference in angle is easier to see. I found with angle ranking a lot of it can stem from what your initial thought of the order is based on your gut, and then check with the thumb rule on angles you aren't sure about. Thumb thing works the best for acute angles. Kinda works for obtuse, but for obtuse you can just maybe use the ID card and see which one is closer to 180 degrees and therefore the larger one.
Keyhole is practice really. You have to learn how to quickly scan the shapes and eliminate areas that look incorrect. Look at all the answers and see where each one differs vs the other answers and then check the object to see which ones you can eliminate in each area that differs. Ex. Two answers have short side projections and one has one long one short and one has one with a slant on one. So this is an area that differs between the answers, and you would look at the object and go oh there should be a slant so the first 3 are eliminated and 4 is your answer.

 

[deleted782438]

You aren't allowed to touch the screen is what it says in the rule book. What I did for angle ranking is use my thumbs instead of my ID card ( tbh didn't think about using the ID card till now ) and would hover it over the angles on screen to cover up the longer lines and only show a small triangle. It helps to prevent the length of the lines from messing up your perception. From there you can compare two angles with approximately the same size of lines so the difference in angle is easier to see. I found with angle ranking a lot of it can stem from what your initial thought of the order is based on your gut, and then check with the thumb rule on angles you aren't sure about. Thumb thing works the best for acute angles. Kinda works for obtuse, but for obtuse you can just maybe use the ID card and see which one is closer to 180 degrees and therefore the larger one.
Keyhole is practice really. You have to learn how to quickly scan the shapes and eliminate areas that look incorrect. Look at all the answers and see where each one differs vs the other answers and then check the object to see which ones you can eliminate in each area that differs. Ex. Two answers have short side projections and one has one long one short and one has one with a slant on one. So this is an area that differs between the answers, and you would look at the object and go oh there should be a slant so the first 3 are eliminated and 4 is your answer.

thank you so much
that helps alot

would you recommend doing keyholes at the end? I'm worried i'll miss easier PAT questions due to time