ACE the RC

Okay so this part is no brainer, but very hard to score high and very, very important for you application, as some of the Canadian universities only look at RC and PAT scores to examine your aptitude for dentistry. This part was difficult, especially since I am an immigrant, I moved to Canada when I was 10, so English is not my first language. I don’t read for fun or anything. The only reading I get is from reading my textbook, assignments, and assigned articles. I went to UofT undergrad majoring in life sciences so I had my fair share of scholarly articles to read, so I was familiar with the format, tone, style, and words of a scientific article. The key for this part of the exam is that they usually give you a really hard and lengthy paper for the first passage, just to throw you off, and sink your time. Remember, the questions you answer all have the same weight so the more questions you get, the higher you score. So, if you get stuck on a question, then leave it and come back to it, it is probably a time-sink and you can get more questions if you use your time wisely. Next, is actually doing what I just said, since it was a problem for me as well. My friends kept telling me to leave questions and come back to it but I would not listen, and for my first DAT exam I ran out of time before I could finish the test, so I guessed 5 questions. I made the wise choice not to leave anything blank, but I received a 20 on my first Exam. On my second try on the DAT, I received a 21 on my RC section. I mean only one-mark difference but it brought me from a 86th percentile to 92nd percentile. How did I get to improve my mark? I printed passages, scientific passages, none from any of the DAT helper websites, since none of them reflected the difficulty and style of the passages on the actual DAT. DAT crusher is most disappointing in is content and level of difficulty, and DAT boot camp Reading comprehension practice tests are so much more difficult and detailed compared to the Canadian DAT exam, which didn’t prove useful since the passages where not sectioned, the strategy that I used for boot camp RC tests would not work on paper, and the style of the questions are completely different from the Canadian DAT. The second time around, I decided to choose the RC practice test that most resembled the actual DAT style test, and PRINT THEM! Again, printing them helped me get more comfortable with the style of the test, and synthesize a strategy that worked best for me to answer all the questions. Timing is crucial, understanding as you read is also crucial, and I know this sounds dumb but when you are doing the exam, you will be so nervous that you will end up reading a passage but will not understand it, so take a breath and remind yourself to score high you must slow down to grasp the content. The fact is you have to find a strategy that makes you understand the passage without having to read it, and one that worked best for me, was to read the introduction, and first paragraph of the body section, move to last paragraph of the body section and conclusion. After I did this I would know what the passage was about, and I could answer 40% of the questions in matter of minutes. Then, I would go back and with my understanding of the passage, and best guess where I would find the answers to the following questions. So, I actually didn’t read the whole passage to answer all the questions for the passage, which may not make sense and be scary but it works. Next up, I will do a full detailed outline of how I breakdown passages and do questions relating to details of the passage. Also, must say that not all the passages will be a scientific article but mostly will be related to science somehow.