HBomb said:
sxr71,
I have to humbly disagree with some of your statement about test-taking skills. I believe there are test-taking skills out there that can help improve your score. I do agree with you that by far, the most important skills are confidence and mastery of the material. That certainly comes with a lot of smart practice, as another poster mentioned above. Then there are other test taking skills like understanding the timing of the test and how you fit in to that. Also, perhaps, understanding why a certain question is asked in order to see its direction. Many times, if you don't know an answer, you still can reason it out. The PAT is one of these sections where you can deduce the answer without knowing it. Certainly practice will help here.
As for the original poster, it is my opinion that nervousness comes from the lack of mastery of the material. Don't just shoot for "knowing" the material, but rather go for understaning the material. Understand the test, the timing of the test. There are no surprises on the test. You should already have a very good idea about what's on the test before test day ever comes...that should be evident after many hours of practice. It is also possible that test taking nervousness comes from a lack of self-confidence, but my impression is that this just seems very unlikely in your case based on your post.
Well, I agree on the fact that PAT and QR are sections where test-taking skills are important. They are both aptitude related tests. I think even RC is an aptitude related section. Practice is the pretty much the only thing that really helps for those sections. As for science I still think it boils down to knowing the material.
After reading your post I think you are right that there are some skills that are important in taking even the science portions of the test. The number one skill is to be able to recognize what exactly the question is asking you. While I said that questions on the DAT are straightforward, I have to take that back to some degree. They actually are phrased in a way that you have to recognize what concept or fact is being questioned. Hence cannot be straightforward by definition. I still believe that the key to recognizing the intent of each question is, as you have said, to
understand the material well. If you understand the material, then you will intuitively recognize what concept is being "tested" by each question and the correct answer will just seem to stand out.
I suppose I composed my previous post over frustration of some people's perception that test taking skills without mastery of the material can lead to a good DAT score. Some people like to argue that they know the material well, but have not mastered "test-taking skills" as a way of explaining their lower than desired performance. My argument is more that if you understand the material well, your ability to recognize the concepts being tested and hence possess good "test-taking skills" come naturally. However, one should practice to gain those skills which easily come to someone who has mastered the material by just taking one or two practice DATs.
I think understanding and developing timing for the QR, PAT and RC sections is paramount. However on science sections, my personal opinion and experience is that if you know your material and easily recognize the concept being asked by each question then you will have plenty of time. I actually finished science with between 15-20 minutes left.
This may not be everyone's situation, but I think that if you know the material well there is no reason why it shouldn't be your case also. Most of the questions in the science sections are "instant recognition" type questions. You recognize what they are asking and you eliminate wrong choices and mark the correct within seconds of seeing the question. A few questions require some thinking or recollection, but again those are few.
When you practice just ask yourself "What is this question really asking me?" For example, it could be asking if you know which point gets attacked in a Markovikov addition and under which conditions such an addition takes place (which is something you should know if you have mastered your material). They will not just point an arrow at several points and ask you which point, but they will provide you with the reagents and conditions which effect a Markovnikov addition and give you a choice of products. You need to look at the question and the choices and see that all the choices show addition products (if you even need to since you should know that the reagents will effect a Markovnikov addition assuming you know your material). So the question isn't asking you if you know that an addition will take place since all the choices are additions. Then look at what is different among the choices, the only differences will be the location of the addition. Now you know that the question requires you to recognize what type of addition is taking place (Markovnikov) and the properties of that type of addition to answer correctly. This is where you really have to just use your knowledge of Markovnikov addition to know that it is indeed the type of addition that will take place and to know exactly which position the addition will occur and pick the right choice. If you don't know how a Markovnikov addition works, even godly test-taking skills will not guarantee a correct answer. If you really know your material, you will have a picture of the resulting molecule in your head as soon as you finish reading the question and the question will be answered correctly in seconds. If you understand your material, then recognition of what the question is asking comes instantly as does the answer. To improve accuracy you should still rule out all the other choices just to be sure, but it still takes a few seconds. Some of the GCHEM questions take a while to answer because they require calculation.
Also remember that the actual DAT is far easier than Top Score. If you are used to Top Score, the actual DAT will seem like a breeze.
Also, I'm glad you disagreed. It helped me reconsider my opinion on this.
