Rating: 
Summary: Review from a Returning Student
Review: Come on "reader from MS". I work at ScholarWare as a support tech, and I'm a dental student. Can you pick up the phone and call us? We have 24 hour support, voice mail 24 hours a day, email, a Support Request Form at www.scholarware.com/support.htm . I don't think you have tried very hard to "contact us". We always respond and we guarantee the software to work for at least 7 months without the free exension. It seems suspicious that you gave up so easily? Don't you think it is strange that you pay $45 and you are the only one that doesn't get a response? My name is Jason. Our company phone is 678-461-9300. If I'm off when you call, leave a message with the Support department and I will personally resolve your problem. Be sure you have a copy of your receipt handy so we know you really did buy the software. We take care of our customers, guaranteed.
Rating:
Summary: Effective Preparation Tool for Great Price
Review: First of all, you can't beat the price for three full-length DAT exams that simulate the computer-based format. The simulation is exactly like the actual test, with some nice bonus features.The TopScore Pro is a good indicator of your success on the actual DAT, except for the science sections. In the sciences it is considerably more difficult. In the other sections, I found it to be very closely correlated. For example, I scored 14-17 for the sciences on the TopScore. On the actual exam, I scored 22, 21, 23 for Bio, Gen. Chem., and Org. Chem. respectively. It is good to know this ahead of time, or you may be unnecessarily discouraged with your science scores. For reference, I had been out of my undergraduate sciences for about 7-8 years. As with preparation for any important exam, do not rely on any one preparation tool. The TopScore Pro is most effective when combined with other forms of preparation. The Schaum's outlines for the sciences are excellent, easy to read, and give you exactly what you need to review. Kaplan books and CD-ROMs are mediocre in my opinion. I never took an actual preparation course. I believe it is a huge waste of money - paying $1300 for someone else to cheer you on in your studying. The Barron's DAT book was actually very helpful for me early on in my preparation. Its science sections correlate more closely to the actual exam than TopScore Pro. Overall, the TopScore Pro was great preparation for me immediately before the DAT. Its exams helped show my weak areas in the final hours. And it prepared me for what to expect when I sat in front of the computer screen before the real test. I would highly recommend this product to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Effective Preparation Tool for Great Price
Review: First of all, you can't beat the price for three full-length DAT exams that simulate the computer-based format. The simulation is exactly like the actual test, with some nice bonus features. The TopScore Pro is a good indicator of your success on the actual DAT, except for the science sections. In the sciences it is considerably more difficult. In the other sections, I found it to be very closely correlated. For example, I scored 14-17 for the sciences on the TopScore. On the actual exam, I scored 22, 21, 23 for Bio, Gen. Chem., and Org. Chem. respectively. It is good to know this ahead of time, or you may be unnecessarily discouraged with your science scores. For reference, I had been out of my undergraduate sciences for about 7-8 years. As with preparation for any important exam, do not rely on any one preparation tool. The TopScore Pro is most effective when combined with other forms of preparation. The Schaum's outlines for the sciences are excellent, easy to read, and give you exactly what you need to review. Kaplan books and CD-ROMs are mediocre in my opinion. I never took an actual preparation course. I believe it is a huge waste of money - paying $1300 for someone else to cheer you on in your studying. The Barron's DAT book was actually very helpful for me early on in my preparation. Its science sections correlate more closely to the actual exam than TopScore Pro. Overall, the TopScore Pro was great preparation for me immediately before the DAT. Its exams helped show my weak areas in the final hours. And it prepared me for what to expect when I sat in front of the computer screen before the real test. I would highly recommend this product to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: TOPSCORE is
Review: Hey guys,....OK, topscore is NOT this miracle CD that you can buy and just do super well on your DAT. I thought topscore was useful for the math but as far as the sciences go, it was absolutely useless. The sciences on the real DAT are a lot easier, especially the chemistry and organic. Biology was a bit challenging and that's just because the questions were pretty general and I had prepared for more detailed questions. so basically for those who are studying, yea if you dont mind spending 44$..why not buy the CD, at least u'll see what the real format is going to be like. I also took Kaplan, which I thought was ok, not great. so you know, study, take practice exams, and just take the DAT and get it out of the way. I'm pretty happy with my results. I got above 20s for my academic and just about average on the PAT(I didn't expect to do well on this section to beging with).....Good luck to all...hope this helped
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Prep for the DAT
Review: I bought this CD about a month before taking the DAT. I didnt actully use it until a week before the test. The tests are harder here but worth taking for practice. Reviewing what you got wrong is key! I saw several exact duplicates of some O-Chem questions on the real test. Don't be discouraged if you score low on the practice tests. I consistently scored in the mid-teens on the practice tests, but scored a 25 overall on the real exam. The graphics for the PAT were poor this year on the actual DAT. There isn't much you can do about that. I also recommend taking a Kaplan course. They have so many resources that no one ever gets through them all. It is expensive, but it is worth it to get the score you want. Plus if you score high enough on the test, they will hire you to teach the DAT prep course, and they pay very, very well.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Prep for the DAT
Review: I bought this CD about a month before taking the DAT. I didnt actully use it until a week before the test. The tests are harder here but worth taking for practice. Reviewing what you got wrong is key! I saw several exact duplicates of some O-Chem questions on the real test. Don't be discouraged if you score low on the practice tests. I consistently scored in the mid-teens on the practice tests, but scored a 25 overall on the real exam. The graphics for the PAT were poor this year on the actual DAT. There isn't much you can do about that. I also recommend taking a Kaplan course. They have so many resources that no one ever gets through them all. It is expensive, but it is worth it to get the score you want. Plus if you score high enough on the test, they will hire you to teach the DAT prep course, and they pay very, very well.
Rating:
Summary: Good Choice For DAT Prep Material
Review: I had spent a month and a half preparing fairly intensely for the DAT with Kaplan's prep book (GREAT product by the way...BUY KAPLAN'S BOOK for sure), but decided I wanted some realistic testing experience, so I bought this CD. I must say that I was quite impressed with what TopScore had done in the overall environment of the test. The 3 tests on the CD opened my eyes to the type of questions I needed to be prepared for in each of the 4 sections of the DAT, and it also awakened me to a need to study certain parts more than others (mainly the science section).
I took my test today and scored well overall with a 22 Academic Average. My scores from the science section (Bio 23, G Chem 20, O Chem 23) turned out well, but I was a little disappointed with the PAT. With TopScore I was getting 22-24's, but on the real test, I got a 19. Not bad...not great. TopScores PAT sections were quite a bit easier than the real thing. The shapes on the actual test are much more complex and the choices for answers vary only slightly so that distinguishing between right and wrong is more difficult. On a plus side, though, TopScore really helps with the Reading Comprehension (I scored a 24 today) by giving you an understanding of how to toggle between the questions and passage, plus giving an overall feel of the type of material you need to be prepared to have to read and respond to. The Quantitative Reasoning was also very realistic in TopScore. I was getting 18-20's with the CD and scored an 18 today on the real thing. Again, not bad...not great. I just seemed like there wasn't enough time to get through everything. But, this was also the feeling I had from TopScore, so it will prepare you for the real thing fairly well.
Overall, I'd say this product is well worth the money. Do NOT rely on TopScore to teach yourself the info you need for the DAT, but DO use TopScore to help climatize yourself to the real DAT testing environment. Best wishes on studying and testing!
Rating:
Summary: Good for Test Prep, but not materials
Review: I just took the DAT a few days ago, and thanks to the other reviews mentioning the difficulty of the Topscore sections I didnt freak out prior to the test. I know a few of these reviews say that the actual test is harder. Nothing in my experience could be farther from the truth. I was scoring 15's with a 17 maybe twice in the science sections. On test day I ended up with a 21, 20, 25 in bio, gen chem, and orgo respectively. The best way to prep is the study the type of questions that your will find on the DAT. Much of the topscore questions go too far into detail. I would have to say that the bio section was the most similar. I good example is the green booklet put out by the ada which discusses how to sign up and gives a sample science and math section. That practice science section will give you a good idea of the question types. My actual DAT science was still a bit harder than this but that definitely helped me not to get bogged down on information that I didnt need. Yet if you can master the topscore questions, im assuming you will do pretty well (still keep the "big-picture" in mind when studying) Topscore's stregnth though is its simulation of the actual exam. It is important to prepare before the exam in a manner where you are used to not writing or outlining on a printed practice exam. You begin to realize that unless your good with playing with equations and figures in your head for the chem, orgo, PAT and quant sections, you will need to write out the problem which can throw off your rhythm if your not used to doing so. I took a Kaplan course at the same time which helped, but thier practice test come in printed form, where you can outline and mark paragraphs in the reading section, balance equations right on the form and make marks on the pattern folding just to mention a few. WHile the PAT section is a bit easier than the actual PAT, getting used to just seeing the structure, with the bad graphics makes it a realistic simulation. My PAT through Kaplan was consistently 21-24, my topscore was 20-21, and my actual score on the DAT was a 19 (my best section became my worst). BE READY for bad graphics!!. THe angle ranking wasnt quite the automatic free points they were before. The reading was similar but I could see how some may say it was easier than the real thing. My scores went up though from a 20 to a 24. THe math I felt was realistic also.
So, In summary:
The Real science sections are easier
The Real PAT is harder
Reading and Quant are about the same.
For $45 you really cant lost with topscore (why i give it 4 stars instead of 3). Getting used to the computer format is key to doing well. Just dont get bogged down when you see you cant score above a 16 for the life of you on the software. Yet keep in mind that the DAT is NOT EASY in any sense!. Just because some of these reviews tell you that 15's on the topscore got them a 23+ in each section is no guarantee. THese people are probably in the 97+ percentile region in regard to their test scores.
Rating:
Summary: Not a magic CD, but helpful
Review: I looked at other people's reviews before I took my DAT two weeks ago. I think those reviews are very helpful, so I am sharing my experience with this product and DAT. As said by others, the science part is difficult in this disk. I'd made 18 to 20s with this CD, but 22 for Bio, 28 for Gen, and 25 for Org in the real test. I am very happy with my scores especially about biology because I'd never got 20 with this CD. I had been studying biology intensively for the last one week before the test. You really have to know a lot about it to get a good score. I had a few questions about enzyme in the real one. I knock one star down because the PAT in this CD is far too easy compared to the real one. I got 22 or 23 with the three tests on this CD, so I didn't work on PAT at all. However I only got 19 in the real one. I should have done better than this, but I was kind of overwelmed in the first few minutes in that section. Reading and quantatition were fairly easy. Well, that's about it. The CD simulates the real test pretty well and it helped a lot with my study. Just don't totally rely on it. Good luck to you guys.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, Excellent, Excellent
Review: I looked far and wide for a study material for the DAT. I bought "Barron's 2000" edition and it proved to be very successful. However, I did not know what to expect on the DAT after I had put in the time of studying. So, I bought TopScore's DAT prep tests. These tests were unbelievable! When I took all of the tests, I never was satisfied with my scores. In fact, the following were my scores on one of the tests: Biology - 16, Gen. Chemistry - 15, Org. Chemistry - 13, PAT - 19, Reading Comprehension - 21, Quantitative Reasoning - 19. I was really worried about the Science part of the exam. Taking the tests let me know where my weaknesses were. I went back and studied more for the exam until I thought I was ready. (However, my science score didn't improve much after taking another practice exam.) I then went and took the actual DAT and here are my scores: Biology -24, Gen. Chemistry - 19, Org. Chemistry - 17, PAT - 19, Reading Comprehension - 20, Quantitative Reasoning - 19. My Academic average was 20! My PAT was 19. I thought that the actual DAT was much easier than TopScore's version. I would advise any pre-dental student to buy this software. You wouldn't believe the joy that I had after getting my actual results.
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