Cracking the MAT, 3rd Edition (Graduate Test Prep)

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)


Good study guides, but there are errors in the answer keys!   March 2, 1998
 39 out of 39 found this review helpful

This book consists of sections where they tell you how to figure out the questions and how to "out think" the test writers. This part was informative, but if you've ever taken any kind of standardized test before, this is all second nature. The part I found the most useful was the actual "study guides". They had a vocab section with words and definitions, a science where they went over the major information on the MAT, a culture section, where they reviewed famous authors, artists, etc (the most useful to me, since I didn't know any of that stuff!!). I took a practice test before I did the little review sections, and the tests after I studied the review sections showed huge improvements in my score. However, **BE CAREFUL WITH THE ANSWER KEY! THERE ARE ERRORS!** I've found several so far, am I'm not done with the book yet!!! However, they're fairly easy to spot, if you use common sense. If you sincerely doubt an answer's validity, look it up. I found the correct answers elsewhere in the book.