TopScore Vs REAL DAT

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FutureDentist888

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Hi guys!! I am debating if I should buy the practice exams from topscore since I already have kaplan course exams.

But the more practice the better. I just want to make sure that if I buy topscore, it is similar to the real DAT. thoughts?

Are the topscore exams very similar to the DAT?


Thanks in advance!!

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So take my advice with a grain of salt because I haven't taken the real DATs yet (June 8th for me! eeek!) but I have my opinions on Topscore. I JUST bought and downloaded it yesterday and took the first practice exam and I must say, the whole program really really sucks, especially compared to a lot of other programs.

My thoughts/rants:
- The interface is not user-friendly and looks "cheaply made". Like amateur coders got together and assembled Topscore...it's ridden with technical issues and when you look on their support page, they straight up blame your computer and Norton's Antivirus for the glitches and say to disable Norton's and "complain" directly to Symantec for the issue. WTF?!
- The only way to go over your answers after the test is to fake "take" the test again and click the solution button on the lower right to see if you got it right and an explanation. You can see your score and which questions you got right or wrong on the "report" tab, but you can't see the actual question or your answer until you go out of the report and back to fake taking the same exam and go through each question one by one...SO DUMB!
- Solutions/explanations to are worthless. Seems almost like someone was so lazy they copied and pasted the answer from a textbook. Some of the explanations don't even really address the correct answer and there are no explanations why other answer choices are wrong. I just went over my exam and one of the solutions/explanations for a gen chem question was literally "determine the entropy change". No numbers, no help. WTF?!
- There are mistakes in the test and rather than fixing them in the actual program, they have a page on their website devoted to corrections.
- I don't think their PAT section is representative of the real thing. I KNOW that the real DATs has a bunch of half-holes on the hole-punching section but I got only 1 in the entire section! I got a 25 when I've been getting 22-23 on Kaplan, Bootcamp, and CDP. And in the angles section, the lines aren't "straight". They look pixelated, kind of like when you drew lines on Paint and they looked dashed instead one continuous line?

Honestly, I wish I went with Achiever (even though I hear it's harder, last thing I needed was killing my confidence) but some of my friends used Topscore and got similar scores to the real DATs so I went with it. If you need multiple exams, check out DAT Bootcamp. I already went through all the exams (5 whole practice exams) and am going over them again. The explanations are by far the best and the interface looks nicer and is user friendly. Only reason I needed another program was to get a few more whole practice exams before the real thing. Get Topscore not to learn anything but purely for the testing experience. I'm so upset with Topscore right now! I tried calling/contacting them too (I almost want a refund) and left a message but have yet to receive any response. Go figures...

I'd like to know if Topscore is similar to the DATs because it might be my only motive for sticking with it.
 
imo timing is most important part of real DAT. Remember all questions are worth the same so for the sciences if I had no clue when I read the question the first time, marked it and kept on trucking. After you go through all the questions you can usually eliminate a few of the answers then pray and guess ha.
 
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So take my advice with a grain of salt because I haven't taken the real DATs yet (June 8th for me! eeek!) but I have my opinions on Topscore. I JUST bought and downloaded it yesterday and took the first practice exam and I must say, the whole program really really sucks, especially compared to a lot of other programs.

My thoughts/rants:
- The interface is not user-friendly and looks "cheaply made". Like amateur coders got together and assembled Topscore...it's ridden with technical issues and when you look on their support page, they straight up blame your computer and Norton's Antivirus for the glitches and say to disable Norton's and "complain" directly to Symantec for the issue. WTF?!
- The only way to go over your answers after the test is to fake "take" the test again and click the solution button on the lower right to see if you got it right and an explanation. You can see your score and which questions you got right or wrong on the "report" tab, but you can't see the actual question or your answer until you go out of the report and back to fake taking the same exam and go through each question one by one...SO DUMB!
- Solutions/explanations to are worthless. Seems almost like someone was so lazy they copied and pasted the answer from a textbook. Some of the explanations don't even really address the correct answer and there are no explanations why other answer choices are wrong. I just went over my exam and one of the solutions/explanations for a gen chem question was literally "determine the entropy change". No numbers, no help. WTF?!
- There are mistakes in the test and rather than fixing them in the actual program, they have a page on their website devoted to corrections.
- I don't think their PAT section is representative of the real thing. I KNOW that the real DATs has a bunch of half-holes on the hole-punching section but I got only 1 in the entire section! I got a 25 when I've been getting 22-23 on Kaplan, Bootcamp, and CDP. And in the angles section, the lines aren't "straight". They look pixelated, kind of like when you drew lines on Paint and they looked dashed instead one continuous line?

Honestly, I wish I went with Achiever (even though I hear it's harder, last thing I needed was killing my confidence) but some of my friends used Topscore and got similar scores to the real DATs so I went with it. If you need multiple exams, check out DAT Bootcamp. I already went through all the exams (5 whole practice exams) and am going over them again. The explanations are by far the best and the interface looks nicer and is user friendly. Only reason I needed another program was to get a few more whole practice exams before the real thing. Get Topscore not to learn anything but purely for the testing experience. I'm so upset with Topscore right now! I tried calling/contacting them too (I almost want a refund) and left a message but have yet to receive any response. Go figures...

I'd like to know if Topscore is similar to the DATs because it might be my only motive for sticking with it.


thank you so much for the information you just provided! It deff really helps in making my decision haha. I am also thinking of getting bootcamp bc i hear it is verrrrry similar to the real DAT!
 
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imo timing is most important part of real DAT. Remember all questions are worth the same so for the sciences if I had no clue when I read the question the first time, marked it and kept on trucking. After you go through all the questions you can usually eliminate a few of the answers then pray and guess ha.
thanks!! When did you take the DAT and what materials did you use and recommend?
 
I took it last Sept. but taking it again June 20. I did bad on RC and QR aka the pointless sections so I gotta retake it. But I use Chad's vids, his quizzes, BC, qvault, CDP, and destroyer. If you got anymore questions msg me.
 
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I completely agree with CustomGrills51!

Since every question is worth the same amount, there is no point to spend excess time on any one question. Especially in the QR section, you HAVE to learn to "mark" a question, make a guess (hopefully somewhat of an educated guess), and move on. My first 4 practice exams I ran out of time in the QR and randomly guessed the last 3-5 questions -- didn't even have time to read the questions! I couldn't get myself to just "mark and move on" but having tried it once on my last exam, it was extremely helpful. Same with PAT (but mainly QR x_x)

The DAT's seem more of a battle against time, more than anything else for me. If I had 2 hours for each section (meaning I can take my darn old time), I bet I can score at least 2 points higher! But we don't have that luxury so it's about timing, efficiency, and of course, know you stuff! LOL :p
 
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