Kaplan MAT, 2009-2010 Edition

Comment: This study guide was useful because it gave examples of test questions that would not have made sense before reading.

Comment: I purchased the Kaplan MAT Fifth Edition guide to prepare for the exam. I have found numerous errors in information in a variety of areas, such as Music, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Art and vocabulary. If you study with this guide, you'll get many answers wrong. Just to be sure, I purchased at my expense another study aid and their answers were correct. For example, an Anthropology question, Kaplan has "Diane Goodall-Africa" as the correct answer but her name is Jane Goodall. Also, the symbol they use for Tin is Sa but it is Sn. One question asked about the national currency for four countries. Well, if they had updated their info, the Lira would not be Italy's currency, it would be the Euro! The study guide also has two different answers for the same question asked in different sections, so lots of inconsistencies. Don't buy this aid.

Comment: The book has been useful so far! I don't know anything about the MAT and it's taught me good stratgies so far, hope it helps me to get a good score on the MAT

Comment: My book arrived with perfect timing and in perfect condition. I could not ask for more.

Comment: The book has a lot of information but in my case when I took my test I hardly saw anything I was told to look out for in the book. I felt the same way when I took my first practice test as when I took the actual test, lost and unsure of my performance. The study lists contained in the book were very helpful I just felt like the practice tests were not comparable with the actual test.

My first issue was the practice tests, there was no way to allow for the 20 questions that do not count so you score could vary up to 20 points in either direction. My suggestion would be to select 20 random questions and exclude those from the score. This in theory can give you a more accurate score but YMMV. The second issue was the actual test seemed not to follow the books description of getting progressively harder questions as you took the test. They seemed to be very random with very easy questions next to difficult questions. the trick questions that dealt with word and letter play didn't even appear in my test but there are numerous ones that are abundantly clear in the practice tests. Of course this may be a result of the randomly selected set of questions I got.

The bottom line is that I did well on my test scoring in the 80th percentile which is the high end of the average scores for the masters program I am perusing. If you have the opportunity and money, (30 bucks per practice test), purchase a computer based practice test so you are familiar with the computer based test format before taking the actual test. FYI, the score you receive at the end of the test is a scaled score so you really have no clue what you actually got till you get your result in the mail.

Good luck!