Good book for PAT

[DoctorSaab]

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What is a good book to prepare for the PAT?

 

[megabot]

barrons...thats the only book decent for the pat. however, i heard there are some books designed for engineers that deals with orthographic projections. Lippincott does a decent job and kaplan dooes an above average job. Use those three books and I think you will be fine.

 

[zimaad]

a good engineering book that is paperback (not too expensive) and you can write in is Principles of Engineering Graphics by Giesecke, Mitchell, Spencer, et al... I got this like 8 years ago so it may not be in print anymore. When I started studying for PAT it was the first thing I went to. Once you understand how to construct the projections and draw them...seeing them on the tests are MUCH easier.

 

[JavadiCavity]

A book that will be published in February called "PAT Buster" will contain something like 500 practice problems exclusively for the PAT. Should be a good way to get lots of exposure to PAT-type questions.

 

[AT03]

JavadiCavity,

Who is going to publish it? And where can I learn more about it ?

 

[Comet208]

I only used Kaplan book and watched their videos to understand what PAT is about and that still earned me a respectable 18. Training wasnt easy and took a while... but i used a strategy that made sense to me and it actually worked.
I looked at every object around me as a learning tool. As if it was going to appear on the DAT.. what does it look like from different sides??? tried tracing things, used cut outs... and i am in NO way an artzy person. for angles.... look at the inner and outer angles... try to actually wrap weird objects in a piece of paper and see how things fold (for wrapping section)... just train your eyes in a way that makes sense to you and you can adapt to it. (believe me, things will start looking different to you after a while of doing this)
PAT isnt that bad... its the MOST interesting and the LEAST studied section for me.

and don't let the poor resolution of the screen on the actual DAT intimidate you.

Good luck.

Comet

 

[jes1ca]

Barrons is good. I got 19 without studying more than what was given there. And i think it's a pretty good score. Just do the exercises.

 

[JavadiCavity]

I'm not sure on the publisher . . . I'll try to find out and post it later.

 

[rsweeney]

Barnes & Noble has an engineering book that focuses on spatial and mechanical skills practice, such as cube counting, key-holes, and pattern development. It is a very helpful book. Actually, Barnes & Nobles placed this book next to Kaplan's DAT big blue book! I hope you find this book. If I can find it in my house I will give you the ISBN number and complete title and author. This may be the same book zimaad is referring to. Good luck to you!

-Richard

 

[davedefunk]

rsweeny...please check ur pm... thanks

 

[rsweeney]

Here is the link where you can buy it:

Mechanical and Spatial Aptitude

 

[Blackstars]

A book that will be published in February called "PAT Buster" will contain something like 500 practice problems exclusively for the PAT. Should be a good way to get lots of exposure to PAT-type questions.

What happend to the PAT BUSTER, I knew all along you were lying. You seem to make references to having this book with 100+ PAT problems but can't seem to give us the name of the book or the author.

 

[ShakaZulu]

One more thing.....Don't buy the Mechanical and Spatial Aptitude book from Barnes and Noble. The book is truly worthless.

 

[woohoo]

One more thing.....Don't buy the Mechanical and Spatial Aptitude book from Barnes and Noble. The book is truly worthless.

I don't completely agree. I got this book from my library and it gave me more practice on angles, blocks, and pattern folding. I would not recommend buying this book however, because only a small fraction of the book is useful for our purposes.

 

[sxr71]

I got hurt pretty badly on PAT. I can tell you that the only accurate source for questions is the paper DAT registration packet. Too bad it has only a few questions per question type - it's hardly enough to practice.

Given that terrible climate in PAT prep materials, I would just practice until I got a 28 or higher on Kaplan or Top Score Pro practice tests. Even still, I think that the real PAT questions are structured differently from those on Kaplan and Top Score Pro tests so I can't say even that strategy will work well.

A few people have mentioned Barron's as a better source for PAT questions, I can't really say anything on that as I didn't use Barron's for DAT prep. Perhaps people here can elaborate on their Barron's practice test scores vis a vis actual PAT test scores. It would be even better if someone could comment on the similarity between Barron's PAT questions and those they encountered on the actual PAT and/or the DAT registration booklet. I realize that this latter information will be subjective, but it is very important to know. Perhaps you can do the comparison yourself, start with Barron's, switch to Kaplan, and then maybe Barron's again and then do the official DAT registration booklet. This will let you compare and contrast. If Barron's is close to the DAT registration booklet, then you have found a good resource for PAT practice.