Help on PAT

[kreuzerl]

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Hi Guys. I am taking the DAT in 2 wks and i am very worried because i am not doing well on the PAT section at all. I have the red/blue Kaplan books and the Barron's DAT review book. i did all the problems already and i ran out of material to exercise on. does anyone know any other study aids that are helpful with the PAT? what should I do?
Thanks guys!

 

[speter33]

Don't worry. If you do good in all other sections the PAT won't matter much to many schools.

 

[HangOnSloopy]

I disagree, because I had 18+ across the board, except for a 15 in PAT, and I keep finding all these schools telling me to retake it. I am planning on taking it again in a few months, and I think the only thing you can really do is just try as many practice questions as possible. Look around, and for the right price they shouldnt be too hard to find.

 

[JRogoff]

I disagree, because I had 18+ across the board, except for a 15 in PAT, and I keep finding all these schools telling me to retake it. I am planning on taking it again in a few months, and I think the only thing you can really do is just try as many practice questions as possible. Look around, and for the right price they shouldnt be too hard to find.

They might be saying to re-take it because they have a minimum on all sections. This does not mean that all schools will think that a 15 is too low, because i know some schools have a minimum of 15 on all sections.

 

[sxr71]

Hi Guys. I am taking the DAT in 2 wks and i am very worried because i am not doing well on the PAT section at all. I have the red/blue Kaplan books and the Barron's DAT review book. i did all the problems already and i ran out of material to exercise on. does anyone know any other study aids that are helpful with the PAT? what should I do?
Thanks guys!

The DAT registration booklet - not big on quantity, but perfect in quality. What you get on that will be very close (closer than any other practice test I know of) to what you will get on the actual test.

 

[Bebe1126]

Have you tried Princeton Review? Ask any friend of urs who has taken the DAT courses from Princeton. THere is at least 400 to 600 questions more in there ( including the practice test ). Also, do you have the CD, the 3 practice test provided to simulate the real test on computer? Its a must buy !! 300 more questions in there (and it is as real as it can be for the real DAT)... PAT on paper is very different from computer.. so be sure you get use to do it and seeing it on computer. My advise on the PAT section is that practice, practice and practice..

Ps. The angle measuring section is the hardest on real DAT!! Good luck and best wishes..

~Bebe

 

[ecdoesit]

Practice makes perfect.
Topscore is another source of computer test.
I donno what else to say, but practice.
Focus on strategy that works for u and learn from barron's book.

 

[HangOnSloopy]

They might be saying to re-take it because they have a minimum on all sections. This does not mean that all schools will think that a 15 is too low, because i know some schools have a minimum of 15 on all sections.

Just because I'm curious, are there any specific schools where you think a 15 would be ok? I'm dead set on the school I want to attend, but I can afford to apply for a few more if I think I'll be competitive.

 

[Viraj]

Hi
I had a 15 PAT and 17 Acad on my DAT's , but i had a 3.9 GPA. I am a second year at Tufts. Also I was accepted to NYU, BU, Nova, USC, UPitt, and Marquette. So I think there are schools that do look at other credentials instead of just DAT scores.
Viraj

 

[Typo]

My study aid: video games. No joke. 🙂

Another thing to try is just visualize things differently in your head all day long. Turn the room upside down. What would it look like? Where would the furniture be? Imagine what a mirror image of the world outside your front window would look like. The better you get at visualizing things in your mind's eye, the better you'll do on the PAT.

You can make your own material, too. Try actually folding a paper and punching a hole in it, or imagine what it would be like with two holes punched in it. Practice the examples you do have on the paper folding (the very last PAT section) until they've become absolute second nature, and you can see the things folding and unfolding and then doing a little dance and spinning around. Look at everyday objects like your stereo or your printer and imagine what the different shapes of keyholes are that it would fit through.

Even though other posters above have suggested that some schools don't emphasize the PAT, don't forget that it's one of the 2 most important scores on the test. If the score were unimportant, it wouldn't be listed and averaged for each school in ADEA's guide to dental schools (only the academic average and PAT scores are listed in that book). Keep practicing - improving it certainly won't hurt you.

 

[djsux]

I'm an old schooler - having taken the DAT back in 2002. I've resurfaced on sdn, and here's my advice on PAT and how it compared to my study aids...

Personally, all the threads that I've read about the PAT was that it was harder than the practice tests (back when I took it). I thought it was about the same, though the angles were a bit tougher, and there were some funky paper folding (not all the folds were 1/4 paper folds, some were in btwn, like at 1/8) cubes, keyhole, pattern, topleftright were about the same as topscore & kaplan & the registration matl.

i thought the topscore pacer worked well b/c it let me see which question i should be on. then it was just getting used to the speed.
- keyhole - i had a lot of trouble getting used to the keyholes until i realized that it usually was not as tricky as i made it out to be. conc. on curves and whether a corner is pointed or has a plateau at top and then just rotate it.
- topleftright - just practice and start to recognize that a curved or slant cutout can look just like a rect. most impt. just know how to rotate the obj from top to st8 to left. str8 to side view is you just take the right side (they give you options sometimes where it is the left side to trick you i guess)
- cube counting - i used the baron's mthd. write down # sides of cubes level by level, moving left to right, keeping track, then go back and answer.

hope this helps - I ended up with a 20 on the PAT (mostly luck, some skill, and lots of video game, heh, as Typo mentioned). Practice is really the key to improve your speed and to see how different shapes can be represented.

Cheers & GL.