Kaplan DAT with CD-ROM, 2007-2008 Edition

 (15 customer reviews)

This book is absolutely HORRIBLE. Everything was just WAY too easy. The biology and chemistry portions consist of one-liners that barely scratch the surface of a topic. The spatial aptitude review problems are way too easy to even compare to anything you would see on the actual DAT. Plus, there aren't alot of them to practice on. I have never felt more "scammed" in the purchase of a book. I can't believe that such a well respected company like Kaplan would dare publish a test aid that was so watered-down.

The Kaplan review book is average at best. The DAT requires a greater understanding and detail than is presented in the review sections. For example, the probability section features only one of the three equations that examinees could be asked to utilize. Furthermore, I give the CD-ROM a poor rating because the reading comprhension passages can not be properly navigated. When the scroll tool is used, it jumps past several lines, making it difficult and sometimes impossible to read and/or retrieve the information needed to answer the question(s). This issue resurfaces when scrolling through any explanations with higher word counts.

The science portion of this book was pretty comprehensive in "topics" however I found myself referring back to my text book many times for details, clarification and examples. I am "horrible" and "slow" with math and QR in this book did not help at all. Putting off the math section until week before the test earned me 15 on QR though I ended up making a "wild", not educated, guess in more than half of the questions (I am still proud I managed 15 :) I have taken the Kaplan course and did not find the class itself useful other than instructions in how to take the test(it is not worth $1000+)! However, their online subject tests (similar to 6-7 full length test with explanation) were pretty darn useful. I thought it prepared me well for the science section, and was surprised how easy the science section felt while taking the actual DAT (got me 22 in science avg). I havent tried the "Top-score Pro computerized DAT product, but many be you can get the same benefit for $50 for what it...Read more