Cracking the MAT, 3rd Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation)Cracking the MAT, 3rd Edition (Graduate School Test Preparation)
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·Use Process of Elimination and our three-pass system to attach test questions
·Improve your score by focusing on the material most likely to appear on the test
·Build your knowledge with study lists for each area tested
·Practice your test taking skills on our comprehensive sample tests
This book includes 7 full-length practice MAT exams. All of our practice test questions are just like the ones you’ll see on the actual MAT, and we fully explain every solution.
- Paperback: 224 pages (2002-09-10)
- Publisher: Princeton Review; 2002-09-10
- Label: Princeton Review
- Studio: Princeton Review
- ISBN: 0375762647
- Average Customer Review: based on 7 reviews
- Sales Rank in Books: #493983
I used this guide along with the practice tests in Kaplan's an hour or so each day for a week preceding the exam and got a scaled score of 461 - 99th percentile in my field and overall. Highly recommend.
It was divided up really well and had great time management solutions. The MAT is 60 mins with 20 "test" questions that do not count, of course you do not know which those are. The guides on culture and geography helped me the most! DO not be scared to buy this guide, it was worth it...
Unfortunately, the book is so replete with erroneous information, that I've starting to question the credibility of the company that published it. Just a few examples:
P. 85 "Alexander Hamilton: First head of the U.S. Treasury, his face is on the twenty dollar bill."
[If you believe that, I'll give you a Hamilton for every Jackson you give me.]
P. 97 "Veins: The tubes that carry blood to the heart, the most major of which is the jugular vein, in your neck."
[Good thing you're not taking the MCAT. In actuality, the internal jugular veins, of which there are two, join the subclavian veins to form the brachiocephalic veins, and the two brachiocephalic veins join to form the superior portion of the vena cava, which is the "most major" vein, bringing blood directly to the right atrium of the heart.]
P. 107 "Richter Scale: A logarithmic scale, from 0 to 8, that measures the magnitude of tremors, earthquakes ..."
[Perhaps the 1964 earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska was not really 8.4 on the Richter Scale, as reported, but of too great a magnitude to be measured.]
The analogies included in the practice tests are also of very poor quality, and in a number of cases the analogy clearly has more than one answer. For example:
P. 109-110 Analogy: 7 : 5 :: 17 : (a. 16, b. 15, c. 14, d. 13) Answer: "(b) Seven plus 10 is 17, and 5 plus 10 is 15."
[And here I thought 7, 5, 17 and 13 might all be prime numbers]
P. 118-119 Analogy: (a. pans, b. plants, c. grows, d. trats) : START :: POTS : STOP Answer: "(d) Stop is pots reversed, and the same is true of start and trats. Pans are not the opposite of pots if that's the one you chose; think about it---they are the same things, just variations"
[I did think about it. I thought that pots were deep containers and pans were shallow containers of earthenware, metal, etc, used for domestic purposes. Each of the dictionaries that I consulted corroborated my bold supposition. On further thought, I realized that anyone preparing to take the MAT who believes that "variation" is synonymous with "same," as implied by the author, may be in for a rude awakening when their score report arrives. After all, the MAT is an analogy test. This is why I decided to write a review.]
Regarding preparation for the MAT, there is a Latin expression that may be important to know:
Caveat Emptor!! (let the buyer beware)
