coreascott Posted February 15, 2009 Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 Hey All!!! It's only 7 days left until the feb DAT. I'm very nervous.. I don't have much exp with carving. I hope all you DAT takers are doing better than me. Just wonder if there are some advices you guys can give me as it is my first time writing DAT. Also, one question: does less number of people take DAT in feb than nov? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mare Posted February 15, 2009 Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 Start practicing the carving! The trick is basically getting used to using the knife to make smooth, precise cuts/surfaces in the soap - most people aren't born with this ability (it's awkward!) but your skills will improve a lot with practice! Be aware of the time constraints. The test wouldn't be too bad if you had more time to think about the answers. But if you spend too much time on certain questions, especially in the PAT section, you WILL run out of time! Maybe bring a watch and have it on the table in front of you so you can budget your time well. If you really don't know an answer, GUESS!!!!! Don't leave anything blank! (Hopefully that's obvious to people!) You are not penalized for wrong answers. Less people tend to take the Feb DAT. Good luck (Don't stress too much... you can always re-write it!) M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDSJA Posted February 15, 2009 Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 I took the DAT back in November, my advice to you at this point would be to try and get used to the time constraint that you will face on the actual DAT. When carving, time yourself and make sure that you finish below the time limit (which I think is... 30min?). On the week approaching the DAT, I carved 3 or 4 soaps a day at 830 in the morning, so when the DAT came, I'd be used to carving while pretty much asleep. For PAT, time is another factor. I'm not sure which sections of PAT gave you the most trouble, but for me it was Pattern-folding and Top-Front-End. So, I did the sections that took the least amount of time first. Angles> Cube Counting> Keyholes > Top-Front-End > Pattern-folding. I somehow managed to finish with about 8 minutes to spare and was able to look over cube counting and catch the mistakes which easily occur. I ended up with a 17 in soap (which is decent for me considering I wasn't very good at it) and a 23 in PAT. Luckily, most schools don't really care about the carving section, so I would just focus on killing the PAT section. Hope that some of this helps you and GOOD LUCK! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xylem29 Posted February 16, 2009 Report Share Posted February 16, 2009 I am pretty nervous about the soap carving. I haven't even touched any RC yet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mare Posted February 16, 2009 Report Share Posted February 16, 2009 The carving really does come with practice. Your planes should be VERY flat and smooth to get a good mark, so try to be as picky as you can with your practice soaps. I'm not sure if this is the way they mark you on the DAT or not, but generally in dental school if we go OVER a measurement by a little bit (ie take too much material off) we are penalized more than if we didn't quite take enough off. Perhaps keep that in mind when doing the carving. For the RC, you can skim the questions first, then skim the article for the answers as you read it. Some schools may not take the carving into great consideration, but doing really well on the carving boosted my entire DAT average - so it certainly helps!!! M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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