Incomplete questions on DAT!

[Career Change]

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hello,

first time posting - thanks for all the good tips, it's been very helpful to read some of these entries.

So I just took my DAT this past Monday. Did okay. Not great, not horrible, but okay. But I had some wierd stuff going on. 3 questions in my science section (1 in each of bio, chem, ochem) were incomplete - as in, there wasn't enough info to answer them!
- the bio question referred to some picture of a mountain and the picture was missing
- the chem question had as 4 of the options, letters (as in "w","x","y","z") but nothing about what those letters were referring to
- the ochem question asked how many signals a certain compound would give in an NMR spectrum, but guess what? no compound!

and then there was a PAT question that added a fold, but didn't make parts of the line dotted so you couldn't tell which way it was folded!

I wanted to be mad, but hey, what could I do? The ppl at the test center filed a report & I've sent a fax to ADA. I must say, I'm not as mad as this may sound, but this is pretty bad, isn't it? I mean, ppl are staking their futures on this test and clearly someone hadn't even done a simple click thru test on this to make sure it was functioning properly.

Just wondering if anyone else ran into this sort of issue and what came of it.

Thanks!!

 

[jackbauer!]

hi...sorry to hear about your situation.

i ran into some problems on the PAT paper folding, where the folds made absolutely no sense (too many folds, impossible folds) ...i'm certain of this. i wish i could go into further explanation but i took the exam in august so i don't remember specifics.

during the science section, i thought that some of the questions were missing information but it turned out i just had to scroll down farther on the page. i'm assuming you checked this?

good luck with getting your unfortunate situation cleared up. let us know how it turns out.

jb!🙂

 

[bebegirl01]

hey,

dude- i think we may have taken the same exam. i took mine 12/05 and i remember thinking 'what the hell' to some of those questions. i didnt know if it was just me being paranoid or if something was really wrong. what do you think they will do?

 

[kt9497]

hey careerchange,

i am sure i had the same test you had. i thought it was just me. please update what ADA says about the test.

thanks

 

[Career Change]

so I was told to contact the ADA and that I'd end up talking to Kathy Hinshaw (a gal in one of my classes overheard me & shared her story of 4 fire alarms going off). sure enough, I call ada's 800 # and I'm told to fax her a written letter of what went on so I sent a fax over the weekend.

The operator said Kathy's busy but that she's been trying to get back to ppl within a few days. Once I hear back from her, I'll let y'all know.

But after talking w/ the operator to scope out some idea of what may happen, the only option I think I may get is to take the test again before the 90 days is up for free. But w/ deadlines coming up and not really having any time to study more (in the hopes of getting a better score), I'm not sure yet I'd want to take that option.

Aaaanyways. that's just speculation until I hear from Kathy herself.

I'll let y'all know how our talk goes. I'll mention that there are others.

On a side note, I think we got a jacked test - not that I have a right to complain, but NONE of those supposed achiever test q's came up on this one, right? bummer. but like I said, no right to complain. but if I take another one....tempting!

 

[bebegirl01]

hey guys,

i have talked with kathy about this and was told to fax a letter so her team could review the test. this process will take a few weeks. she later told me that if indeed we are right abt test errors, then our tests would be adjusted for. however, being able to retake the test would be nice too! she then told me that these errors were errors with the testing center and that if they restarted the computers, everything would have been fine. i guess we all had bad testing centers! 😳

 

[kt9497]

Hey

what is the number where you can fax a complaint to kathy? also, what do you have to include in the fax? like testing site? date of taken? etc...?

thanks

 

[Career Change]

Kathy Hinshaw
fax 312-587-4105
phone - I'm still not sure, I've been using different numbers
here's the one I'll be trying tomorrow that she last left me:
312-440-2680

The operator suggested this info:

Name
SSN
Test date, time
Test location
What happened

I added my DAT confirmation #

I'm just curious - did you others get the problems happening on the same questions as mine or different ones? and same # of them?

But yeah, I got the same message today from Kathy - that a team's gonna look into it and that it'll take a few weeks. By then, it'll be too late since I'm applying so late in the cycle. Oh well - being late is my fault. But the test not running correctly - that's someone else's fault.

I definitely plan on giving a stern complaint. This is pretty dang serious - esp since those questions looked pretty easy.

 

[kt9497]

hey careerchange,

I had the exact same problems you listed on your first post. I told my friend about it and he was the one that actually found this thread. To be honest, I think our version of the test was pretty hard. I was looking forward to more problem solving on gen chem etc... I felt the questions they asked were more in depth thinking which requires more time. Thanks for the info.

 

[Japin]

hey careerchange,

I had the exact same problems you listed on your first post. I told my friend about it and he was the one that actually found this thread. To be honest, I think our version of the test was pretty hard. I was looking forward to more problem solving on gen chem etc... I felt the questions they asked were more in depth thinking which requires more time. Thanks for the info.

How's the rest compared to gen chem? I just hope this things wouldn't happen to me.

 

[kt9497]

hey japin,

to be honest, i thought my version was kind of hard. dont get me wrong. there were some easy questions that you should know. the main thing was the time thing. in my opinion, the only two sections i didnt like was bio and gen chem. the organic section was not bad. i used orgoman which really helped. the QR was ok, but you really have to work on your time thing. like i said you have to be quick. hope this helps.

 

[Career Change]

so I called, talked to a few different ppl, including one manager to whom I finally started getting upset that NO ONE was being helpful at all. Basically, if you call, the only answer you'll get is "we're investigating your test and that's all we can say or do at this point".

I was hoping to get some sort of letter from them (that I could fax w/ my unofficial scores) to the effect of "we're investigating some problems from this guy's test & so they might be late or even different". But they just refuse to do so. I was quite disappointed by their utter lack of apologetic tone.

But the manager guy, Dr. Tsai, got me on one point - which was that the manual says that the expected time for them to get the scores out is 3 weeks. if they're later than that, then I could call them, but before then, I've got to at least give them that much time. and I admit, I had seen this and knew of it. so what can I say? At least I finally got to vent to someone.

not only that, but by that point in our converation, I could see that with or without a letter from them, I'd be stuck making the call on whether or not I'd want to send my unofficial scores. The plus for sending it being that (for the schools that will let me fax it to them) I could get my app "in process" sooner; the minus being that it's possible it could go up when the official ones come out (albeit only by one mark at best) but they'd be looking at my lower ones. The minus for not faxing it is of course is being that much more late.

After talking it over w/ my dentist bosses, we agreed that faxing it w/ a note would be the better approach.

Anyways, everyone else has been so good about posting their scores, I figure I should share mine:

PAT: 21
Math: 21
RC: 20
Bio: 18 (yuck)
Chem: 21
Ochem: 18 (yuck)
TS: 19
AA: 20

Not great, not horrible; just okay. We'll see...
Please let me know if you have any additional thoughts about the faxing idea.

Anyways, so if you're out there and this happened to you, fax the ADA so that you're on their list of ppl for whom to investigate.

Good luck!