TOP FRONT END PAT

[csulapredental]

one month into my studying and I can't get one TFE right... Wtf is wrong With me I literally don't get this section in any shape and form. Don't link me no wicked sick pat crap because I read every page of the forum and I still don't get ****. I've watched every YouTube video possible. I tracked down some dental guy that got a 29 and skyped with him to tutor me still don't get..: wtf else do I do ? Is this normal? To be this far in and not get anything right? I'm using BOOTCAMP like wtf dude it's pissing me off !!!! There has to be some frekin trick to this stupid section . Sorry for the rant but like I'm about to go nuts

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[Charles_Darwin]

Practice practice practice! The same case was with me and angle ranking, there was definite improvement though. It helps to always learn why you were right or wrong

 

[Mountain_man7]

if all else failed, use the line trick to maybe eliminate one answer choice and take a random guess.

 

[Pugmom]

I think this is very common..I didn't start to get TFE questions right until about 1-1.5 months into my studying. Although I was never completely able to imagine the whole 3D structure, I usually was able to imagine what at least 1 part of the figure looked like based on the lines and then went and eliminated answer choices until I narrowed it down to 1 0r 2 choices. What I'm talking about is the shared sides and events common to each and what they must look like from the 3rd view. Hopefully that helps. You have to start by really understanding the lines/dashes and the shared edges, at least this is my opinion. Keep your head up and practice a little each day and it will pay off!

 

[schmoob]

if all else failed, use the line trick to maybe eliminate one answer choice and take a random guess.

I would advise against this. ADA caught on to the line trick so they know the deal.

one month into my studying and I can't get one TFE right... Wtf is wrong With me I literally don't get this section in any shape and form. Don't link me no wicked sick pat crap because I read every page of the forum and I still don't get ****. I've watched every YouTube video possible. I tracked down some dental guy that got a 29 and skyped with him to tutor me still don't get..: wtf else do I do ? Is this normal? To be this far in and not get anything right? I'm using BOOTCAMP like wtf dude it's pissing me off !!!! There has to be some frekin trick to this stupid section . Sorry for the rant but like I'm about to go nuts

Not trying to put you down, but TFE is one of the easier ones. But before it becomes easy, it takes that oh $h!t moment when you finally get it. After that, it becomes much easier. But in the beginning I was just as frustrated. Don't worry about your rant. If I was pulling out my hair at 2AM like you, I'd likely show less restraint than you did lol.

Have you tried picking out random objects in the room and trying to TFE them? Or when you get an answer wrong, do it backwards: meaning use the object to create a TFE figure. Start with something very simple.

Oh and also, pay attention to the top view, it will have both the width and the length. So if they give you the front and end views, you'll know how wide and how long the top view will be.

Keep plugging away, your moment will happen and you'll figure it out. Head to the DAT discussion section and ask for more help if you're still having trouble.

 

[Mountain_man7]

I wouldn't even use bootcamp for pat. Bootcamp pat is way too hard, especially keyhole, tfe, and folding. I was struggling to even finish bootcamp Pat, but on the real thing I had 15 minutes to spare. My average for bootcamp was 17, but the real thing I got 21. Use crack DAT pat, it slightly easier than the real thing but it will build your confident. Bootcamp will kill your confident on pat. Just use bootcamp for the sciences.

 

[schmoob]

I wouldn't even use bootcamp for pat. Bootcamp pat is way too hard, especially keyhole, tfe, and folding. I was struggling to even finish bootcamp Pat, but on the real thing I had 15 minutes to spare. My average for bootcamp was 17, but the real thing I got 21. Use crack DAT pat, it slightly easier than the real thing but it will build your confident. Bootcamp will kill your confident on pat. Just use bootcamp for the sciences.

I've never used CDP, but in BC I like how they show you the figure and how the highlighted lines identify why it's the answer. I don't know if CDP does that or not.

 

[csulapredental]

if all else failed, use the line trick to maybe eliminate one answer choice and take a random guess.

whats the line trick buddy

 

[Mountain_man7]

whats the line trick buddy

Honestly with the line trick you can eliminate one of the answer instantly. After that you just got to figure if it a solid or dash line. Not saying if it will work for you, but for my DAT that the strategy I used. I came out with a 21pat with 15 minutes to spare. I skipped the keyhole instantly and did tfe first.

It hard to explain, but look it up on YouTube for the strategy then use CDP to master it. The line trick won't work with bootcamp. Bootcamp pat is extra hard.

 

[Mountain_man7]

Totally disagree.

Your opinion. I just saying what work for me.

 

[Graffix]

TFE is my jam. 2 things made it click for me: 1. Understand that they will only give you 1 of 3 axis - x, y, or z. And its the same for every single question. This idea really helps with rounded objects. 2. understand that everything has to be drawn to exact scale. So if they give you a side view with a notch exactly in the middle... the top view HAS to have that same notch exactly in the middle (off that face that was in the side view). DAT genius's TFE tutorial really helps with this.

 

[Mountain_man7]

If you can average around 21/22 on CDP then you can easily get at least a 19 on the real thing. They wont give you crazy keyhole like what bootcamp gives you where all the answer choices are almost identical. It took me 15 minutes just to do bootcamp keyhole and I can only manage to get half right. That was the reason I skipped keyhole entirely and did it last because bootcamp destroyed my confident. Most ppl will agree that bootcamp Pat is harder than the real thing.

 

[csulapredental]

TFE is my jam. 2 things made it click for me: 1. Understand that they will only give you 1 of 3 axis - x, y, or z. And its the same for every single question. This idea really helps with rounded objects. 2. understand that everything has to be drawn to exact scale. So if they give you a side view with a notch exactly in the middle... the top view HAS to have that same notch exactly in the middle (off that face that was in the side view). DAT genius's TFE tutorial really helps with this.

i have no idea what u talking bout but i want to know what ur saying. wheres that tutorial at????!

 

[schmoob]

whats the line trick buddy

Every solid line indicates a change in distance between your eye and the figure. Every dashed line is a change in distance as well, but there is something in between your eye and the distance change.
Here is an example of 2 very simple problems:

In the first one, you see how they give you the top and front view, and they're the same, right? That's because the solid line shows the distance change between the shape and your eye. From the front view, it's showing the top step is farther away from you, and from the top view it's showing the top step is closer to your eye. The grayed out side is the end view.
The second example is the same thing, but rotated 180 degrees. It's the same shape, just turned around. That's why the gray part is turned around. But notice how the front view line is dashed. It's the same shape, so it has a change in distance from your eye no matter which way it faces. The dashed line just indicates that the view is blocked by something, in this case it's the back of the "stepstool," or whatever you want to call that shape.

I really hope I didn't confuse you even more.

OK, so take a look at your cell phone directly in front of you, just the screen. It's a rectangle. So your front view would be a rectangle with no lines. Now look at the top, directly down. It's a very thin rectangle that's very narrow, but just as long as your front view. Now look at it from the side; it's just as thin as your top view and it's just as tall as your front view.

Now something that I personally did, I would try to "connect" them. Let me know if you understand what I first described, then I'll explain how I did that. Otherwise I don't want you to get confused.

Trust me, once it clicks you'll realize it's actually one of the easier ones. Keep your head up, you'll get it!

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[schmoob]

While I don't suggest you give up yet, and @schmoob 's advice seems solid, I managed to get a 22 on the PAT while guessing on every single TFE question. I tried as hard as I could to learn it and a week before the actual DAT I was still getting no more than 6/15 TFE questions correct on practice exams. I realized that I needed to pick my battles and take my points where I could get them. If I took a 10 second estimated guess on a TFE or took the whole time, I wasn't more likely to get the answer doing one vs the other. So on the real exam, I took my time on all the other sections, made sure I was 100% confident in all of my answers, and then with three minutes left in the section I skimmed through the TFE and took my best educated guess. I wish I could see a breakdown of the 22 by section, but I would be willing to bet that I got less than half of the TFE correct and only select few incorrect from the other sections.

This is a bold strategy and not one I would recommend for everyone, but if you're confident in your abilities on the other sections and never figure out TFE I highly suggest this strategy.

It's a good strategy. I used it for keyhole lol. They were much harder than I expected.

 

[Alikhan9]

Totally disagree.

Where is your thread when you analyzed a tfe question?

 

[Roy Williams]

Where is your thread when you analyzed a tfe question?

Here you go.

Alright so this is the problem that I chose:

You'll notice right away that the line counting method won't get you the final answer. Sure, sometimes it can help you eliminate an answer or two, but I found in the long run, it was just a waste of time because you weren't guaranteed anything. A lot of people say to try and visualize the 3-d object, but I found that was a little difficult sometimes. If you can do it, it helps a ton. If not, It's best to try and eliminate answer choices based on seeing what types of lines should be where.

So the first thing I do is try to find something that is very distinct and easy to find. So I look at the the front view and see the right angle on the right side. From the end view, this right angle will form a solid line because we can directly see where shape changes. So then we go to look at the answer and try to find that solid line. Every answer choice has that solid line right there, so we are unable to eliminate any answers.

Now I just move my eyes down a bit from that right angle on the front view and see that little indention. Because we can see the indention from looking on from the end view, we know that the closest line up from the bottom will be solid. This shows us that we can eliminate Answer Choice A.

Now I move up to that circle we can see on the front view image. If we find where that circle is supposed to be on the top view, we'll notice that it forms a cylinder shaped whole through the entire object (this is important because in some problems you'll see something like this that will only go halfway through or something. From the end view, we can't actually see that cylinder shaped hole through the object, so it will have to be a dashed line. But how many? The circle doesn't form any angles like a triangle would, so we should see a dashed line representing the bottom edge of the circle as well as the top edge of the circle. If we look at our remaining answer choices B, C, and D, we'll see that D is the only that has these two dashed lines, and therefore, D is the Correct Answer.

Notice we didn't even have to deal with any of that top part of the image from the end view. Speed is key in this section of the test, so instead of trying to find an image that will fit everything you see, I think it's best to just find ways you can eliminate other answers and decide on an answer choice from there.

 

[Graffix]

i have no idea what u talking bout but i want to know what ur saying. wheres that tutorial at????!

The tutorial is located on the DATGenius site!

 

[csulapredental]

Here you go.

Alright so this is the problem that I chose:

You'll notice right away that the line counting method won't get you the final answer. Sure, sometimes it can help you eliminate an answer or two, but I found in the long run, it was just a waste of time because you weren't guaranteed anything. A lot of people say to try and visualize the 3-d object, but I found that was a little difficult sometimes. If you can do it, it helps a ton. If not, It's best to try and eliminate answer choices based on seeing what types of lines should be where.

So the first thing I do is try to find something that is very distinct and easy to find. So I look at the the front view and see the right angle on the right side. From the end view, this right angle will form a solid line because we can directly see where shape changes. So then we go to look at the answer and try to find that solid line. Every answer choice has that solid line right there, so we are unable to eliminate any answers.

Now I just move my eyes down a bit from that right angle on the front view and see that little indention. Because we can see the indention from looking on from the end view, we know that the closest line up from the bottom will be solid. This shows us that we can eliminate Answer Choice A.

Now I move up to that circle we can see on the front view image. If we find where that circle is supposed to be on the top view, we'll notice that it forms a cylinder shaped whole through the entire object (this is important because in some problems you'll see something like this that will only go halfway through or something. From the end view, we can't actually see that cylinder shaped hole through the object, so it will have to be a dashed line. But how many? The circle doesn't form any angles like a triangle would, so we should see a dashed line representing the bottom edge of the circle as well as the top edge of the circle. If we look at our remaining answer choices B, C, and D, we'll see that D is the only that has these two dashed lines, and therefore, D is the Correct Answer.

Notice we didn't even have to deal with any of that top part of the image from the end view. Speed is key in this section of the test, so instead of trying to find an image that will fit everything you see, I think it's best to just find ways you can eliminate other answers and decide on an answer choice from there.

ILY

 

[schmoob]

ILY

Is it clicking yet?
You got this!

 

[csulapredental]

l

Is it clicking yet?
You got this!

much better than 2 days ago for sure. lol

 

[Elvisthepelvis]

Here you go.

Alright so this is the problem that I chose:

You'll notice right away that the line counting method won't get you the final answer. Sure, sometimes it can help you eliminate an answer or two, but I found in the long run, it was just a waste of time because you weren't guaranteed anything. A lot of people say to try and visualize the 3-d object, but I found that was a little difficult sometimes. If you can do it, it helps a ton. If not, It's best to try and eliminate answer choices based on seeing what types of lines should be where.

So the first thing I do is try to find something that is very distinct and easy to find. So I look at the the front view and see the right angle on the right side. From the end view, this right angle will form a solid line because we can directly see where shape changes. So then we go to look at the answer and try to find that solid line. Every answer choice has that solid line right there, so we are unable to eliminate any answers.

Now I just move my eyes down a bit from that right angle on the front view and see that little indention. Because we can see the indention from looking on from the end view, we know that the closest line up from the bottom will be solid. This shows us that we can eliminate Answer Choice A.

Now I move up to that circle we can see on the front view image. If we find where that circle is supposed to be on the top view, we'll notice that it forms a cylinder shaped whole through the entire object (this is important because in some problems you'll see something like this that will only go halfway through or something. From the end view, we can't actually see that cylinder shaped hole through the object, so it will have to be a dashed line. But how many? The circle doesn't form any angles like a triangle would, so we should see a dashed line representing the bottom edge of the circle as well as the top edge of the circle. If we look at our remaining answer choices B, C, and D, we'll see that D is the only that has these two dashed lines, and therefore, D is the Correct Answer.

Notice we didn't even have to deal with any of that top part of the image from the end view. Speed is key in this section of the test, so instead of trying to find an image that will fit everything you see, I think it's best to just find ways you can eliminate other answers and decide on an answer choice from there.

omg okay I know this was posted a while ago, but anyone dealing with the DAT in 2018..this seems to work! I was getting 5/15 on this section and just did some practice problems are got them all right! Best way is not see which choice matches but instead to eliminate! eliminate! eliminate! Thank you!! You gave me hope!

 

[Roogbyman]

I'm not sure if it's been said but try to visualize things in real life as TFE. I would go out on runs and imagine different objects as they'd look on a TFE. This definitely helped make visualization more intuitive. It'll take time but things will start to "click" if you just stick with it.

 

[smile matters]

omg okay I know this was posted a while ago, but anyone dealing with the DAT in 2018..this seems to work! I was getting 5/15 on this section and just did some practice problems are got them all right! Best way is not see which choice matches but instead to eliminate! eliminate! eliminate! Thank you!! You gave me hope!

Are you willing to explain it in your words? I am still confused