Customer Reviews

DSST Technical Writing (DANTES series) (Dantes Subject Standardized Tests Passbooks)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I must admit that when I received this item I was not impressed by its appearance, and the copy that I purchased was new! However, after getting over my initial dissatisfaction, I was able to make of it what I could. This item is, almost entirely, composed of practice exams. As such; I immediately circled all of the appropriate answers based on the answer key provided at the end of each chapter. I then spent about four hours reading the practice questions and the correct answers several times through. I also read the brief summary of the course provided at the end of the packet. Without any further study material or time devoted to the subject, I passed the exam on the first attempt by a fairly substantial margin. I will not take another exam without first repeating this process with similar packets for other subjects. If nothing else, I would recommend purchasing this product as a backup plan in case the opportunity to properly prepare for the exam does not present itself, as was the case in my situation.

I bought this book wondering if it would be good or not. I was really happy to find that it was a great help and made me feel like I spent my money well. It was much more organized than any other study guide that I had purchased. I will recommend this book to anyone that is taking the Technical Writing Dante Test and needing a good study guide..

I bought this as an aid to the DSST Technical Writing exam. It is not a helpful book. I passed the exam with a 67, but only because I gave up on this and turned to some books and websites that were actually geared for teaching someone how to do technical writing.

1. This book is very dated (even though the front says copyright 2007). There was, for instance, a section on how to write telegrams! The font looked very dated too. So it raised questions in my mind as to whether some things the book said were really right for today's society.

2. It is NOT geared very well to the actual test. There were a LOT of concepts that this book kept pounding on that were not even covered on the real exam.

3. There is very little explanation in the book about the specifics of various types of technical communications. There is a brief overview in the back of the book but it is not detailed enough to be of much help. It was a nice skeleton introduction but didn't give me anywhere near the amount of detail I needed for the actual exam.

4. There are no explanations of answers to the practice tests--simply an answer key. This makes it difficult to know WHY an answer is right or wrong--you have to simply rote memorize things.

5. For a book that is supposed to teach you about writing clearly, I thought this book was a poor example. There isn't even an index--every time you want to find something you have to flip-flip-flip through the book trying to find the section. No glossary either.

Overall, I found this a very poor study aid. Buy a book about technical writing or google the topic--don't waste your money on this one.

You will be better off googling the phrase 'Technical Writing' than buying this book.

1) Inaccessible layout and organization:

The book is a loose cobbling together of some cut-and-paste material about the Dante's tests, 50 or 60 practice tests, and a few dozen unattributed excerpts from teachers manuals. The book does not contain an index, nor a table of contents, and rarely contains page numbers. As a result of being a collection of other sources, the pages are formatted with inconsistent margins, inconsistent fonts, and meaningless headings.

2) Unhelpful content:

Approximately 80% of the book is composed practice of tests. To a certain extent, these tests lend the book a redeeming quality that could have justified giving it a 3-star or higher rating. Unfortunately, the tests only contain an answer key. None of the answers of the answers are explained, which leaves the reader wondering why some answers are correct. As a result, these tests cannot increase the readers comprehension of technical writing.

I would recommend finding other resources to help you prepare for the Dante's test.

I used this book to study and pass the DSST exam, excellent aid for study