RC Emphasis

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babygi05

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Does anyone know how much emphasis schools place on RC scores? Mine was a 16 and I'm worried it will hurt me even at my state school (OU).
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I recall Dean Simonsen at MWU stated that there was a trend in RC scores and dental school success and so I can assume that MWU stresses importance on this score. I would say it is safe to say that all of the schools value the individual scores differently. My best advice is the person who picks up the phone at student services at the school will be able to give you an answer as to which component of the DAT they assign a minimum or recommended score for admittance. Good luck.
 
god...i hated reading comprehension...
 
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RC is just as important, if not more so, than your science marks.

jb!:)
 
Some say that RC is the most important section...I don't know about all that, but there sure is a lot of reading in d-school. It is a good bet that schools want to make sure that you are able to comprehend what you are reading. You may want to perfect a different strategy and retake, depending on your other scores of course.
 
I had a 19/19/20 with my RC at 16. Sad times....
 
I know that Houston says that the RC is the most important section.
 
I got into Houston with RC 17 . I think I was really lucky. :)
 
I got into Columbia, NYU and Nova with an 17 RC...RC is important...especially for CASE, I called them and asked about it....they said they are looking for 19+ on RC...
If your RC is below a 19...you need to try to get a 21+ AA to be competitive at any school! ;)
 
RC's the biggest indicator of dental school success, or so say some research. Bottomline, understand what's printed on paper!
 
dentstd said:
RC's the biggest indicator of dental school success, or so say some research. Bottomline, understand what's printed on paper!
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I hear that RC score correlates the most to how successful one is in D school.
 
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My interviewer at Pitt told me that they felt RC to be a good measure of general intelligence. If other schools feel the same way, then I think that RC would be considered very important. I fortunately had a very high RC score, and I think it helped me out a lot! I do think that its a silly section of the DAT though. I think its more about how fast you can read more than anything!
 
Anatomy Fanatic said:
My interviewer at Pitt told me that they felt RC to be a good measure of general intelligence. If other schools feel the same way, then I think that RC would be considered very important. I fortunately had a very high RC score, and I think it helped me out a lot! I do think that its a silly section of the DAT though. I think its more about how fast you can read more than anything!
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'general intelligence' is pretty vague and can't really be quantified. i would disagree with that assessment. even an IQ test might not necessarily be a reliable indicator of intelligence.
 
dackmonkey said:
'general intelligence' is pretty vague and can't really be quantified. i would disagree with that assessment. even an IQ test might not necessarily be a reliable indicator of intelligence.
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Great RC scores dackmonkey and Anatomy Fanatic! How did you approach this section? On my first DAT I used the Kaplan method of writing down keywords. It worked when I did practice tests but not so much on the actual DAT. I felt the passages on the actual DAT were a little longer which caught me off guard. I think for my retake I'm not going to write down anything and just read the passages and go to the questions.
 
Dirty Bird said:
Great RC scores dackmonkey and Anatomy Fanatic! How did you approach this section? On my first DAT I used the Kaplan method of writing down keywords. It worked when I did practice tests but not so much on the actual DAT. I felt the passages on the actual DAT were a little longer which caught me off guard. I think for my retake I'm not going to write down anything and just read the passages and go to the questions.
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i didn't practice too much for the RC before the DAT. my biggest concern was trying to establish a pace that would allow me to read all the passages thoroughly enough such that i wasn't memorizing everything, but not simply skimming either. for me, i didn't think there was anything else to really practice for this section. just making sure you are getting through the material at an appropriate pace and having sufficient time to answer the questions is the most important thing i would say. sounds pretty obvious but sometimes it's not. i know someone who didn't practice RC while timing himself and took too long reading the passages on the real thing and didn't do so hot.
 
I did the "Kaplan Method" for RC. It worked perfectly for their practice tests but not on the actual test. Oh well, I was pretty sure I would have to take it again.
 
Dirty Bird said:
Great RC scores dackmonkey and Anatomy Fanatic! How did you approach this section? On my first DAT I used the Kaplan method of writing down keywords. It worked when I did practice tests but not so much on the actual DAT. I felt the passages on the actual DAT were a little longer which caught me off guard. I think for my retake I'm not going to write down anything and just read the passages and go to the questions.
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For me, it was all about speed. I quickly read all the questions to get a feel for what to focus on, and then I just went as fast as I could through the passages while still understanding what they were saying. While reading through the passages I would remember what was discussed in each section. Then I could just read the question, and if I didn't know the answer immediately I could say to myself, "That was discussed near the bottom of paragraph two" and then I could re-read that section to find the right answer. If you can do all of that really quickly, then you are golden. I think I ended up finishing that section about 10 minutes early and felt really good about it.
 
bump.

RC scores 17/18 good enough for a 20TS and 20AA, GPA 3.4?
 
It's weird, because I actually applied to dental school without any knowledge of the "importance" of certain DAT sections. My RC was 20 the both times I took it, the first time I didn't use any aid, and the second time I did some practices. To me, I guess RC is just this one part that you don't really study for. I personally do not consider myself a fast reader, so when I took the DAT RC section, I took my sweet time and did a little over half the questions with the given time. I didn't care how many questions I got right so as long as I was sure of the answers of the ones I did answer! :laugh:
 
I never read any of the passages. My goal was to answer the questions correctly, so needless to say my eyes got a work out jumping around and searching for keywords. I got a 23 on RC and I didn't practice for that section because I don't think a person can do much to improve there RC abilities by that point in their life.
 
I'm lucky, its always been my strongest section (25). I wouldn't say its an indicator of general intelligence, but I do think its very useful, especially for digesting textbooks and scientific papers. Still though, I'm more proud of my 22 ts than my 25 rc. Everyone develops their own methods of studying after all, and I think if you did well on the sciences that shows that a low reading comprehension score doesn't have any bearing on your ability to learn the material, so I don't know why schools get so weird about it.

unc definately told me they think its the most important section though... which just makes me even more frustrated that I didn't get in with a 25 (still bitter about that).
 
Having a high RC means you can read very fast and that is important in dental school since you will need to read FAST to get all your work done...There might not be enough hours in the day for a slow reader to finish reading EVERYTHING thats required...:rolleyes: which worries me b/c I have a 17 RC...:eek:
 
SHC1984 said:
Having a high RC means you can read very fast and that is important in dental school since you will need to read FAST to get all your work done...There might not be enough hours in the day for a slow reader to finish reading EVERYTHING thats required...:rolleyes: which worries me b/c I have a 17 RC...:eek:
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Ok this section should have been called scan reading, and look for answers. Nobody is actually reading this stuff, or comprehending it by any matter. Yeah schools say this section and bio have the most importance, that may be true for some students, but do yourself a favor and look at the test format for the NBDE part 1. The NBDE part 1 is very similar to the questions in the bio section(short questions). SHC1984 you will be fine. Don't be freaking out or anything.
 
SHC1984 said:
Having a high RC means you can read very fast and that is important in dental school since you will need to read FAST to get all your work done...There might not be enough hours in the day for a slow reader to finish reading EVERYTHING thats required...:rolleyes: which worries me b/c I have a 17 RC...:eek:
Click to expand...

Ok this section should have been called scan reading, and look for answers. Nobody is actually reading this stuff, or comprehending it by any matter. Yeah schools say this section and bio have the most importance, that may be true for some students, but do yourself a favor and look at the test format for the NBDE part 1. The NBDE part 1 is very similar to the questions in the bio section(short questions). SHC1984 you will be fine. Don't be freaking out or anything.
 
must have been a glitch or something, lol
 
jswizdent said:
Ok this section should have been called scan reading, and look for answers. Nobody is actually reading this stuff, or comprehending it by any matter. Yeah schools say this section and bio have the most importance, that may be true for some students, but do yourself a favor and look at the test format for the NBDE part 1. The NBDE part 1 is very similar to the questions in the bio section(short questions). SHC1984 you will be fine. Don't be freaking out or anything.
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lol, of course SHC1984 should be fine! SHE'S already accepted! and i'm not...:mad: and I have 18/17 RC..shouLD I BE WORRIED??
 
MB111 said:
lol, of course SHC1984 should be fine! SHE'S already accepted! and i'm not...:mad: and I have 18/17 RC..shouLD I BE WORRIED??
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Hey your stats look ok, as long as the rest of the app is up to par. It just looks like you applied to late. If you don't get anything this year reapply next year in may. Keep your head up, everything will work out.
 
That's good to know! Bio section wasn't that bad. If the Boards are similar to that then I should be fine. I am a slow reader so I just can't really read A LOT of material in a short amount of time.








jswizdent said:
Ok this section should have been called scan reading, and look for answers. Nobody is actually reading this stuff, or comprehending it by any matter. Yeah schools say this section and bio have the most importance, that may be true for some students, but do yourself a favor and look at the test format for the NBDE part 1. The NBDE part 1 is very similar to the questions in the bio section(short questions). SHC1984 you will be fine. Don't be freaking out or anything.
Click to expand...
 
SHC1984 said:
That's good to know! Bio section wasn't that bad. If the Boards are similar to that then I should be fine. I am a slow reader so I just can't really read A LOT of material in a short amount of time.
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Same here :D. I guess that's good news for us.
I think RC is important but some schools overlook it if your application is strong overall.
 
SHC1984 said:
That's good to know! Bio section wasn't that bad. If the Boards are similar to that then I should be fine. I am a slow reader so I just can't really read A LOT of material in a short amount of time.
Click to expand...

mut9ya said:
Same here :D. I guess that's good news for us.
I think RC is important but some schools overlook it if your application is strong overall.
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I am hoping for the same :confused:
 
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