whats with the DAT scores?

[i like dat]

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It seems that most who have taken the DAT withen the last few weeks has been getting similar scores (total science between 19-20, academic average 19-21, quantitative reasoning 16, etc.). What happened to all the 24s of last year? Are the dental schools going to take into account this noticeable variation in scores from last year to this year? The test has obviously gotten harder, unless the applicant pool has gotten stupider, which is not likely. 😕

 

[powerdrill]

as far as i know, the scores have overall been going up.
why do you think that last year guys were getting 24?
i took my dat yesterday, got a 24 on bio, which was 98.7 percentile! thats a pretty good indicater that a 21 is still a very good score

 

[i like dat]

it seems that in the past few weeks the scores have dropped off a bit, at least from what i have seen on here. it might not be an overall trend, i really have no idea. i guess what i really would like to know is, if the scores have become lower overall due to the test becoming harder, will the schools take this discrepency in test difficulty into account? will they weight the scores differently?


ps, powerdrill, that 24 on bio is awsome!🙂

 

[predentn]

It seems that everyone who has taken the DAT withen the last few weeks has been getting similar scores (total science between 19-20, academic average 19-21, quantitative reasoning 16, etc.). What happened to all the 24s of last year? Are the dental schools going to take into account this noticeable variation in scores from last year to this year? The test has obviously gotten harder, unless the applicant pool has gotten stupider, which is not likely. 😕

I'll give you a hint; SDN is not representative of the applicant pool.

 

[i like dat]

I'll give you a hint; SDN is not representative of the applicant pool.

obviously, that is true. and what i said was not meant to be a reflection of all (or your) scores; however, what i have noticed on student doctor network, which is a population of pre dental students, and, hence somewhat of a representative of the whole, is that in the past few weeks, generally scores seem a bit lower. also true of my friends that are not on sdn, many of whom were scoring in the upper twenties on practice exams. i just wanted to know if schools would recognize such a trend, if it is a trend at all.

 

[golfer]

It seems like this thread comes up every week or month. If I remember right there is a link about the myth of the DAT getting harder posted about a week ago after this exact subject came up. A simple search would find it.
Remeber the DAT tests mostly on the application of principles that one learned in school. Principles don't change only the question and approach (which can get tricky in the QR). I doubt that you got bad scores but that you just scored lower than you hoped for. Good luck in your app process.

 

[Shunwei]

It seems like this thread comes up every week or month. If I remember right there is a link about the myth of the DAT getting harder posted about a week ago after this exact subject came up. A simple search would find it.
Remeber the DAT tests mostly on the application of principles that one should have learned in school. Principles don't change only the question and aproach (which can get tricky in the QR). I doubt that you got bad scores but that you just scored lower than you hoped for. Good luck in your app process.

Principles don't change but the ways in which questions testing the knowledge can easily, though. I took both of my DATs this year so I am not an authoritative source on whether the DAT has indeed gotten harder, but judging solely by the scores of people lately, as well as comparing these to those obtained by the applicants of the last two years, it does appear that QR, RC, and Bio has gotten tweaked. I am willing to put a modest wager on the scores of this cycle being lower than last year's.

 

[jigabodo]

Principles don't change but the ways in which questions testing the knowledge can easily, though. I took both of my DATs this year so I am not an authoritative source on whether the DAT has indeed gotten harder, but judging solely by the scores of people lately, as well as comparing these to those obtained by the applicants of the last two years, it does appear that QR, RC, and Bio has gotten tweaked. I am willing to put a modest wager on the scores of this cycle being lower than last year's.

I agree. Although the stats for this year won't come out in awhile, I have just recently dug up past years posts regarding DAT scores. I am quite positive that there were a lot more 21+ last year as opposed to this year.

As a matter of fact, I've probably read most, if not all the posts on DAT this year and last year. For the current cycle, I believe Shunwei probably has the highest AA score of 25 or 26, while there were more with similar scores like his last cycle.

 

[doc toothache]

It seems like this thread comes up every week or month. If I remember right there is a link about the myth of the DAT getting harder posted about a week ago after this exact subject came up. A simple search would find it.
Remeber the DAT tests mostly on the application of principles that one should have learned in school. Principles don't change only the question and aproach (which can get tricky in the QR). I doubt that you got bad scores but that you just scored lower than you hoped for. Good luck in your app process.

The myth is alive and well.

obviously, that is true. and what i said was not meant to be a reflection of all (or your) scores; however, what i have noticed on student doctor network, which is a population of pre dental students, and, hence somewhat of a representative of the whole, is that in the past few weeks, generally scores seem a bit lower. also true of my friends that are not on sdn, many of whom were scoring in the upper twenties on practice exams. i just wanted to know if schools would recognize such a trend, if it is a trend at all.

The only pre-dental student population that is representative is one that is randomly selected. The SDN group does not fit that bill. You do however, have company. See the post by sarmadpa.

 

[Montserrat]

It seems like this thread comes up every week or month. If I remember right there is a link about the myth of the DAT getting harder posted about a week ago after this exact subject came up. A simple search would find it.
Remeber the DAT tests mostly on the application of principles that one should have learned in school. Principles don't change only the question and aproach (which can get tricky in the QR). I doubt that you got bad scores but that you just scored lower than you hoped for. Good luck in your app process.

You've a bit of logical fallacy in your argument. You're assuming that because the principles haven't changed, then the questions are of comparable depth and thus the test isn't getting harder. I've taken courses from a liberal arts school and an ivy afterwards, and the depth of questions can certainly vary. The DAT is certainly no exception to that variance.

I took the test at the end of July, so I really don't have a frame of reference. My general feeling was that the test was fair. However, for those that have taken the exam multiple times and are finding it increasingly difficult, I think the makers of the DAT are to thank for it. They are finding ways to make the exam challenging in new ways, and a tool that can be used to properly stratify an increasing applicant pool size. I wouldn't casually dismiss it as myth, just intelligent test makers doing their job well.

 

[golfer]

You've a bit of logical fallacy in your argument. You're assuming that because the principles haven't changed, then the questions are of comparable depth and thus the test isn't getting harder. I've taken courses from a liberal arts school and an ivy afterwards, and the depth of questions can certainly vary. The DAT is certainly no exception to that variance.

I took the test at the end of July, so I really don't have a frame of reference. My general feeling was that the test was fair. However, for those that have taken the exam multiple times and are finding it increasingly difficult, I think the makers of the DAT are to thank for it. They are finding ways to make the exam challenging in new ways, and a tool that can be used to properly stratify an increasing applicant pool size. I wouldn't casually dismiss it as myth, just intelligent test makers doing their job well.

Im sorry this is what I meant by approach.
If you have any further questions direct them to this link or maybe just scroll above to the post by doc toothache he was the one who did all the work and it is the last link on below his post.
good luck
DAT Harder/Easier-The Myth http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=391238