most important sections on DAT?

[dentalchick2016]

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which two sections on the DAT are the most important and which are the two least important?!

I've been reading the RC has high priority over the others and cant find out anything about how much the gc and oc are weighed.

help is appreciated!

 

[DDS Perez]

They are ALL important, except QR. RC is a big deal for many schools but it depends on your situation. I got an 18 and still have some interviews, but i managed to do great in everything else. I am URM and english is a struggle for me. I can comprehend but i don't have the speed. Just go above the cut off 17 (for some schools) and you will be fine as long as you can perform well enough in other sections. Good Luck!

 

[dentalchick2016]

They are ALL important, except QR. RC is a big deal for many schools but it depends on your situation. I got an 18 and still have some interviews, but i managed to do great in everything else. I am URM and english is a struggle for me. I can comprehend but i don't have the speed. Just go above the cut off 17 (for some schools) and you will be fine as long as you can perform well enough in other sections. Good Luck!

alrighty. I was just thinking maybe gen chem and qr would be least important b/c most of the time ppl take it their freshman year and end up forgetting it all, and was hoping adcoms have some mercy on low scores.

 

[DDS Perez]

you already took the DAT, i remember your nickname 😀 Good luck if you plan to retake!

 

[DDS Perez]

alrighty. I was just thinking maybe gen chem and qr would be least important b/c most of the time ppl take it their freshman year and end up forgetting it all, and was hoping adcoms have some mercy on low scores.

Perhaps this should make them even more important, since it really shows how hard the student studied. I am sure gc is very important, is one of the pre reqs!

 

[dentalchick2016]

Perhaps this should make them even more important, since it really shows how hard the student studied. I am sure gc is very important, is one of the pre reqs!

i agree, I was just wanting to get some other opinions. yup, I took it already, but am taking it again. lol I just feel like we wont ever use the chemistry we've taken while in dental school, so why should they be high priority, but yes b/c they are prereqs is exactly it. I just wish it wasn't such a big deal. just ranting! 🙄 and thanks!

 

[wcombs]

All schools are different. If I was an adcom I would value AA and TS the highest. QR is the least important. I don't find RC important because you can easily cheese that section by search and destroy which is what I did. I'm a terrible reader and did great on RC.

 

[Tunaman]

None of the sections on the DAT will be seen again in D-school, it's simply there to level out the playing field. With that said, I understand that QR is least important. RC is pretty important because adcoms want to make sure we're capable of reading through sometimes dense material with the ability of extracting only the important information...as we'll experience in D-school

 

[DDS Perez]

All schools are different. If I was an adcom I would value AA and TS the highest. QR is the least important. I don't find RC important because you can easily cheese that section by search and destroy which is what I did. I'm a terrible reader and did great on RC.

😀 Well Said!

 

[cluckyducky]

The reading comprehension subscore is the greatest predictor on the DAT of how students end up doing for the Part I of the NBDE, so some schools weigh this heavily. It seems that the general consensus is that QR doesn't matter too much, but everything else is fair game.

 

[ushaseos]

You S&D guys are crazy!!! Maybe I was just doing it wrong, or am not brash enough to risk it, but I did RC the honest way (read passages, answer).

I agree with Tunaman though, NONE of the sections of DAT are important for dental school. Its just a tool to assess you relative to your peers in a standardized way.

That said, probably the most important: TS, AA, RC, Bio

Important to some and not so much for others: PAT, RC, GC/OC

Unimportant to most: QR

doc_toothache has a list compiled which has these rankings clearly listed.

 

[Tunaman]

You S&D guys are crazy!!! Maybe I was just doing it wrong, or am not brash enough to risk it, but I did RC the honest way (read passages, answer).

I agree with Tunaman though, NONE of the sections of DAT are important for dental school. Its just a tool to assess you relative to your peers in a standardized way.

That said, probably the most important: TS, AA, RC, Bio

Important to some and not so much for others: PAT, RC, GC/OC

Unimportant to most: QR

doc_toothache has a list compiled which has these rankings clearly listed.

👍

 

[rootz02]

.

 

[cschoet]

Hopefully the ones I scored the highest on.

 

[Tunaman]

Dont let anyone here fool you. Each section, including QR, is very important. QR tests analytical skills... Left brain cognitive abilities.. Do not take any section lightly. Ironically, if I had to value them independently, the PAT would rank lowest in my opinion, and I teach all the pre health professional entrance exams for Kaplan test prep and admissions. The PAT is an IQ test, and bears little weight into science comprehension levels. Even less than intelligent people can know science "well enough".

As well as you attempted to articulate your response, you sound absolutely ******ed...especially coming from a Kaplan Test prep instructor...thats why PAT stands alone...get a clue 😴

 

[mustardseed5]

As well as you attempted to articulate your response, you sound absolutely ******ed...especially coming from a Kaplan Test prep instructor...thats why PAT stands alone...get a clue 😴

come on tunaman, who amongst us current applicants has any more to offer than an educated (eg. i knew a guy who knew a guy...) guess for most of the questions thrown around on here? We all know it's generally the blind leading the blinder here, but rootz is just trying to help the OP, who posed a silly question in the first place.

I didn't say it was a stupid question, I do not believe it is a bad question, just silly-- They're all important sections for one reason or another, or else they wouldn't be on the test! It is more than likely that each school values each section slightly differently, but that's just my best guess on the subject..

 

[goffdent]

MOST important sections... = NAME & DATE

 

[rootz02]

.

 

[mustardseed5]

MOST important sections... = NAME & DATE

i like you

 

[cschoet]

 

[ushaseos]

Dont let anyone here fool you. Each section, including QR, is very important. QR tests analytical skills... Left brain cognitive abilities.. Do not take any section lightly. Ironically, if I had to value them independently, the PAT would rank lowest in my opinion, and I teach all the pre health professional entrance exams for Kaplan test prep and admissions. The PAT is an IQ test, and bears little weight into science comprehension levels. Even less than intelligent people can know science "well enough".

I'd have to disagree and say that QR is more an IQ test. Its not a test that measures your math skills, its just something that measures how quickly you can figure out the correct algorithm to answer the question in the allotted minute. Yes your brain can be trained to get better tat this, but it is much more a test of intelligence than PAT.

PAT isn't an intellectual challenge but again it has its own difficulty - namely timing and developing that 3D thinking. More spatial and visualization based - probably with the intent that these skills will be necessary to take all those dental mirror images and convert them into 3D structures mentally. All hypothesis here since none of us know the real truth behind the test.

Since I am not in dental school I am not going to say one will be more useful. But I'll venture a guess and say pretty much every section of the DAT is useless and just a measuring stick for adcoms.

 

[goffdent]

PAT really does come in handy.. namely looking at radiographs which is essentially a "TOP-FRONT-END" question. Key-Hole is useful, other than that. the rest don't really help with dental school

 

[ushaseos]

Wha? Are you kidding me? Angle ranking is clearly the most important, when isn't it necessary to be able to tell apart 62 degrees from 64? And cube counting...definitely the second most important because it teaches you how to count. If it weren't for CC I'd not know where to start...
/ END FEIGNED SARCASM

Yeah TFE and Keyhole are useful. Pattern folding and hole punches are interesting but pointless. Cube counting is easy, pointless and tedious. Angle ranking needs to go somewhere quiet and kill itself.

 

[cschoet]

I personally think the plant questions of the biology section are the most relevant. If we don't understand how the trees and bushes outside our office reproduce; how can I focus on my patient?

 

[goffdent]

just wait till you get to part 1 boards. Cases are presented where you are the investigative dentist with people dying of snake bites and stab wounds.. pretty grim.

 

[Tunaman]

Very articulate and diplomatic yourself for a future professional. The PAT is disregarded by many adcoms from many schools, filled with minds far superior than yours. And you're right, I am a Kaplan test instructor.. And for good reason - I have plenty of clue.

You should take the MCAT. Measure your score to my 39Q. See if your key hole and angle ranking skills get you a score anywhere near there. Good luck. 👍

You do realize that you're on a pre-dent thread bragging about your MCAT scores...your test scores are the only reason you might be a kaplan instructor...you guys are a dime a dozen...on top of that, you guys can't even teach, merely robots reading out of a lesson book, poor kids that have paid into this nonsense

 

[Stacker]

I always thought this sufficed. http://www.jdentaled.org/content/70/3/258.full.pdf+html

But then again, "While our study has served to confirm the notion that DAT scores are relatively poor predictors of NBDE Part I subtest
performance, there is a need for a large-scale study across various populations of dental students to make definitive generalizations about this relationship. In addition, other covariates, such as undergraduate general and science GPAs and undergraduate majors should be evaluated as potentially important determinants of NBDE Part I performance. Such studies may help to redefine the importance placed upon such factors in considering dental school admissions."

🙂

I think what's important to the admissions committee is whether you are likely to be competent enough to do well on the boards and to determine if you would be a "good" dentist (hard to measure w/o interviewing).

I'd vote for RC. I can't say it's Biology b/c it has plant biology, evolution, phylogeny which I find quite random for dentistry. Regardless, the science sections measure if you have a firm foundation on what's necessary to learn in dental school so I'd weigh Bio, GChem, and Ochem as equally important. Least important is definitely QR. Certain sections on the PAT can be important but definitely not all.

 

[Smurf12]

Wha? Are you kidding me? Angle ranking is clearly the most important, when isn't it necessary to be able to tell apart 62 degrees from 64? And cube counting...definitely the second most important because it teaches you how to count. If it weren't for CC I'd not know where to start...
/ END FEIGNED SARCASM

Yeah TFE and Keyhole are useful. Pattern folding and hole punches are interesting but pointless. Cube counting is easy, pointless and tedious. Angle ranking needs to go somewhere quiet and kill itself.

TFE's are definitely great for other stuff, if you get my drift 😉

 

[predentlove]

The PAT is disregarded by many adcoms from many schools, filled with minds far superior than yours.

Hi do you know which schools in particular weigh PAT less?

 

[Dancindarlin23]

which two sections on the DAT are the most important and which are the two least important?!

I've been reading the RC has high priority over the others and cant find out anything about how much the gc and oc are weighed.

help is appreciated!

It really depends on the school. But the overall AA and the TS, definitely. I went to one school and they told me they didn't care at all about Perceptual Ability and visited another and they said they considered it very important. I think Reading Comprehension is the same way that some schools consider it very important, others not as much. The least important I have always gotten the impression is Quantitative Reasoning based on the averages that I've looked at (Only 17 for the Texas applicants who matriculate) and also from talking to people. But you can pretty much bet that all of the sciences are going to be important to pretty much all of the schools.

 

[PointEstimate]

I agree with Tunaman though, NONE of the sections of DAT are important for dental school. Its just a tool to assess you relative to your peers in a standardized way.

That said, probably the most important: TS, AA, RC, Bio

Important to some and not so much for others: PAT, RC, GC/OC

Unimportant to most: QR

doc_toothache has a list compiled which has these rankings clearly listed.

I've always wondered this. If AA = (Bio + GC + OC + RC + QR) / 5, then how can QR be not important since it is responsible for 20% of the academic average? Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but are we under the assumption that on its own QR is a relatively useless statistic, but taken in context, it's pretty important (as it influences the AA)?

 

[shootingstar7]

I've always wondered this. If AA = (Bio + GC + OC + RC + QR) / 5, then how can QR be not important since it is responsible for 20% of the academic average? Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but are we under the assumption that on its own QR is a relatively useless statistic, but taken in context, it's pretty important (as it influences the AA)?

Thats how I looked at it. Just wanted to do well enough in QR to avoid dragging down my AA too much.

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