Whats Worse!?

[denticus]

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A 14 on the Quantative Reasoning or a 14 on Reading Comprehension. Yes, I realize that both utterly suck and are horribly bad scores👎, but I was wondering if you had to pick either one or the other before you took the DAT, which would it be? Thanks

 

[denttiger]

I would have to say a 14 in the RC would be worse b/c many schools really pay attention to that score. Think about it.. you will be reading TONS of brand new scientific information the first 2 years of D-school. How much trig. and probability are you going to do in the rest of your life? I've personally heard that the RC score is definately something that they look at. Just my .02 though.

 

[bruinpredent]

I would have to say a 14 in the RC would be worse b/c many schools really pay attention to that score. Think about it.. you will be reading TONS of brand new scientific information the first 2 years of D-school. How much trig. and probability are you going to do in the rest of your life? I've personally heard that the RC score is definately something that they look at. Just my .02 though.

apparently bio and rc are the two most important scores that most schools look at, since they correlate well with national board performance. 14 in rc is pretty much an automatic rejection, i'd say...

 

[DentalHope]

apparently bio and rc are the two most important scores that most schools look at, since they correlate well with national board performance. 14 in rc is pretty much an automatic rejection, i'd say...

Comments like this are why some people hate SDN.

 

[thefifthbeatle]

a 14 in RC is devastating. I heard from Mr. Dalsky at Case that RC is the most important section...(I don't understand why it is.....yes we will have to read lots of information.....but we aren't timed!!)

 

[denticus]

I agree with your statement about the time issue. I do think that reading is very important but if you are doing research as a dentist, this could take hours, days, months, years at a time before you are thoroughly familiar with the material you are researching.

 

[toothfairy85]

Well... I got accepted with a 14 QR, so I would say RC would be worse. It seems to be a universal thing that dental schools want to see a strong RC score.

 

[Yellow Snow]

Also accepted w/ a 14 QR.

 

[DrSmiles12]

[/b]

Comments like this are why some people hate SDN.

What are you talking about!?

 

[Fonz]

RC is worst definitley. I mean its understandable if you are ESL i guess but otherwise its like almost all the answers are right there in front of you!!

 

[997GT3]

Yeah it makes sense since QR had some ridiculous questions that required some thinking back to algebra 2. When are dentists ever going to need them? SAT type reasoning word problems make sense, but otherwise....

 

[djeffreyt]

[/B]

Comments like this are why some people hate SDN.

Allow me to reiterate the other poster...a 14 in RC is pretty much an automatic rejection, and it is definitely worse than a 14 in QR. Many schools have automatic minimal cutoff for the sciences and for RC, and 14 is below all the cut offs that I know of.

For someone to say they hate SDN for comments like these is just saying they hate SDN because people on SDN give honest opinions rather than sugar coat answers and give false hope.

 

[OceanBlue]

[/b]

Comments like this are why some people hate SDN.

I know that it's disappointing, but sometimes the truth is not what you want to hear.

 

[UNC2008]

What if English is not your first language? Would that be good alibi to score 14 on your RC?😀

 

[bruinpredent]

What if English is not your first language? Would that be good alibi to score 14 on your RC?😀

what if i'm an art major...would that be a good excuse for a low TS score?

🙄🙄🙄


i know plenty of people whose first language isn't english who still managed a 20+ on rc, so i don't think that one would fly

 

[OceanBlue]

What if English is not your first language? Would that be good alibi to score 14 on your RC?😀

They might be a little bit more sympathetic toward you if it's your second language, but a 14 will not cut it. I know a person who's from another country and she had a low score on her RC on her first DAT (i pretty sure it was higher than 14) and she was rejected, but she studied and took it over again and her RC score improved ...she was able to get in the second time around. Think about it....you have to be on the same page with everybody in dental school, especially if you're applying to a competitive school.

 

[OceanBlue]

I just want to point out that it's extremely difficult to learn a second language and score high on an standardized test.....and be judged with natural English speakers. It's sorta like you study German and take a German MCAT verbal part or a German RC part....and be judged with real German students. Give these second language speakers some credit.

what if i'm an art major...would that be a good excuse for a low TS score?

🙄🙄🙄

 

[lemoncurry]

From my limited anecdotal experience with the only interview that I got last year, they seemed very concerned with RC scores. I agree with the consensus that RC is much more impt than QR. I've always been a fan of math, but the truth is, you can teach a monkey to do math. Being able to comprehend and/retain what you read is a skill that takes a lot of practice.

 

[Red Falcon]

You definitely want the lower score in QR. I was accepted with a 13 in QR last cycle. My RC score was 23. The adcom said he could care less about scores in QR and mentioned that he's had students with low QR scores that have done exceptional on the NDBE exams and saw little reason to use that as a sole indicator of giving out interviews.

The main problem with QR on the DAT is that it requires speed, speed, speed and not necessarily whether you can actually solve the problem or not. The only way to get that speed is through repetition of thousands of problems, which certainly takes time away from preparation in PAT, sciences, and RC. Everything else on my DAT and application checked out, so I think that's why they weren't too worried about it.

 

[NAVY DDS 2010]

You definitely want the lower score in QR. I was accepted with a 13 in QR last cycle. My RC score was 23. The adcom said he could care less about scores in QR and mentioned that he's had students with low QR scores that have done exceptional on the NDBE exams and saw little reason to use that as a sole indicator of giving out interviews.

The main problem with QR on the DAT is that it requires speed, speed, speed and not necessarily whether you can actually solve the problem or not. The only way to get that speed is through repetition of thousands of problems, which certainly takes time away from preparation in PAT, sciences, and RC. Everything else on my DAT and application checked out, so I think that's why they weren't too worried about it.

I disagree that the only way to get speed is through thousands of repetitions. I had a 22 or 23 in QR (around 94th %ile) - good, but not great. That said, I had not had a single math class or stats in 14 years, and hadn't had general chem/physics for the conversions in 13 years, but was still able to do well. It's about understanding the info and knowing how to do the problems. Speed comes with knowledge. I am not claiming to be the most intelligent person, just that if you review properly and learn the matieral and are confident with it, you can do well wihtout having to devote time repeating and repeating the questions thousands of times.

 

[denticus]

Nevertheless, I would have to say that SPEED is very important for the DAT. I can honestly say that I am money when it comes to geo/trig/alge problems and can do them quickly. Furthermore, I am also money on word problems. Nevertheless, I got rocked on the Quant not just because I didn't know how to do word problems but because they simply take more time to do them (generally) then all of the "evaluate:" type problems. I really think that I just got a stream of bad luck on the Quant (I had 21 word problems). I am not afraid to tell adcoms that for me I can rock most if not all word problems but that they simply take me around 2 minutes as opposed to the 1.25 minutes needed on the DAT. As for whether working over "thousands of problems" is an effective way or not to gain speed on the QR section of the DAT, I would have to say that for me and many other people that really is the most effective way. However, we're all different and some people are more effecient by using other techniques as well (NAVY DDS 2010).

 

[lgwdnbdgr]

RC is so important to admissions committees because studies have shown that it is the best predictor of NBDE I scores.

I suspect they'd argue that you ARE timed when reading in dental school. You have 24 hours to complete all the tasks you need to perform in a single day. At least during your first two years, reading is probably involved in most of that. The faster you can read (with comprehension), the more material you can cover.