{"id":11301,"date":"2019-08-17T19:12:44","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T00:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grockit.com\/blog\/?p=11301"},"modified":"2020-09-11T20:41:23","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T20:41:23","slug":"whats-tested-dat-perceptual-ability-pat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/dat\/whats-tested-dat-perceptual-ability-pat\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#039;s tested on the DAT: Perceptual Ability (PAT)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Perceptual Ability Test (PAT) is the second section of the DAT and for many students one of the most challenging. The DAT PAT tests your spatial\u00a0visualization skills, including your ability to interpret two-dimensional (2D) representations of\u00a0three-dimensional (3D) objects. These DAT Perceptual Ability skills will be very useful to you as a dentist since you will\u00a0need to construct mental images of teeth from X-rays, deal with casts and fillings, and otherwise\u00a0work with complicated 2D and 3D objects.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<div  style='padding-bottom:10px; ' class='av-special-heading av-special-heading-h3    avia-builder-el-0  el_before_av_heading  avia-builder-el-first  '><h3 class='av-special-heading-tag '  itemprop=\"headline\"  >Perceptual Ability Test Format<\/h3><div class='special-heading-border'><div class='special-heading-inner-border' ><\/div><\/div><\/div><br \/>\nThe PAT contains a total of 90 questions that you must complete within 60 minutes. The 90\u00a0questions are divided into six categories consisting of 15 questions each: Keyholes (apertures),\u00a0Top-Front-End (view recognition), Angle Ranking, Hole Punching (paper folding), Cube\u00a0Counting, and Pattern Folding (3D form development). All the questions for a given subsection\u00a0appear together, and the subsections always appear in the same order.<br \/>\nThe American Dental Association has released a practice test they call the <a title=\"DAT Sample Test Items\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ada.org\/~\/media\/ADA\/Education%20and%20Careers\/Files\/dat_test_sampleitems.ashx\">Sample Test Items<\/a> that shows how the PAT questions looked when the DAT was administered on paper. Since then, the DAT has changed to be a computer-based test, but the format is still similar.<br \/>\n<div  style='padding-bottom:10px; ' class='av-special-heading av-special-heading-h3    avia-builder-el-1  el_after_av_heading  el_before_av_iconlist  '><h3 class='av-special-heading-tag '  itemprop=\"headline\"  >Perceptual Ability Timing<\/h3><div class='special-heading-border'><div class='special-heading-inner-border' ><\/div><\/div><\/div><br \/>\nSome question types are more time-consuming than others, so you&#8217;ll need to pace yourself accordingly rather\u00a0than only considering the average amount of time per question for the entire section.<br \/>\n<div  class='avia-icon-list-container   avia-builder-el-2  el_after_av_heading  el_before_av_sidebar '><ul class='avia-icon-list avia-icon-list-left av-iconlist-big avia_animate_when_almost_visible avia-iconlist-animate'>\n<li><div  class='iconlist_icon  avia-font-entypo-fontello'><span class='iconlist-char ' aria-hidden='true' data-av_icon='\ue87b' data-av_iconfont='entypo-fontello'><\/span><\/div><article class=\"article-icon-entry \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='iconlist_content_wrap'><header class=\"entry-content-header\"><h4 class='av_iconlist_title iconlist_title   '  itemprop=\"headline\"  >Angle Ranking and Hole Punching<\/h4><\/header><div class='iconlist_content  '  itemprop=\"text\"  ><p>These questions tend to be the fastest because they only involve 2D images\u00a0and should take you approximately 20 seconds each.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><footer class=\"entry-footer\"><\/footer><\/article><div class='iconlist-timeline'><\/div><\/li>\n<li><div  class='iconlist_icon  avia-font-entypo-fontello'><span class='iconlist-char ' aria-hidden='true' data-av_icon='\ue90a' data-av_iconfont='entypo-fontello'><\/span><\/div><article class=\"article-icon-entry \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='iconlist_content_wrap'><header class=\"entry-content-header\"><h4 class='av_iconlist_title iconlist_title   '  itemprop=\"headline\"  >Keyhole and Top-Front-End<\/h4><\/header><div class='iconlist_content  '  itemprop=\"text\"  ><p>These questions\u00a0require understanding of how 2D images correspond with 3D shapes and will likely take closer\u00a0to 50 seconds each.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><footer class=\"entry-footer\"><\/footer><\/article><div class='iconlist-timeline'><\/div><\/li>\n<li><div  class='iconlist_icon  avia-font-entypo-fontello'><span class='iconlist-char ' aria-hidden='true' data-av_icon='\ue8b7' data-av_iconfont='entypo-fontello'><\/span><\/div><article class=\"article-icon-entry \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='iconlist_content_wrap'><header class=\"entry-content-header\"><h4 class='av_iconlist_title iconlist_title   '  itemprop=\"headline\"  >Pattern Folding<\/h4><\/header><div class='iconlist_content  '  itemprop=\"text\"  ><p>These questions also require 2D-to-3D manipulation and tend\u00a0to be some of the most challenging, so they may take up to 60 seconds each.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><footer class=\"entry-footer\"><\/footer><\/article><div class='iconlist-timeline'><\/div><\/li>\n<li><div  class='iconlist_icon  avia-font-entypo-fontello'><span class='iconlist-char ' aria-hidden='true' data-av_icon='\ue929' data-av_iconfont='entypo-fontello'><\/span><\/div><article class=\"article-icon-entry \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='iconlist_content_wrap'><header class=\"entry-content-header\"><h4 class='av_iconlist_title iconlist_title   '  itemprop=\"headline\"  >Cube Counting<\/h4><\/header><div class='iconlist_content  '  itemprop=\"text\"  ><p>This section is unique because it contains several questions associated with one figure, so\u00a0it is easier to think about it as taking two minutes per figure (which corresponds to about 40\u00a0seconds per question).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><footer class=\"entry-footer\"><\/footer><\/article><div class='iconlist-timeline'><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div><br \/>\nYou may find certain subsections on the Perceptual Ability Test to be easier or more challenging for you\u00a0personally, but these guidelines are a good place to start, and you can modify them based on your\u00a0personal needs.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Perceptual Ability Test (PAT) is the second section of the DAT and for many students one of the most challenging. The DAT PAT tests your spatial\u00a0visualization skills, including your ability to interpret two-dimensional (2D) representations of\u00a0three-dimensional (3D) objects. These DAT Perceptual Ability skills will be very useful to you as a dentist since you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11301"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41732,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11301\/revisions\/41732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpapp.kaptest.com\/study\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}