About Davar

[inkleind]

Davar seems like the best fit for me to finish my courses but, and I couldn't find a good thread about this in the search, I would love some feedback about the Davar experience in relation to other providers. 

Those of you who have taken courses with Davar, how would you compare them to other providers? 
Are their tests clear and do they make sense? (unlike saylor) 
On a scale of difficulty, were the tests what you expected them to be or easier/harder? 
Did you only use their study materials or did you have to outsource? 
How long did you spend studying before testing?

[ctcarl]

Davar is a fairly unusual provider.  As a practical matter, they offer credit by exam, but they do include study materials.  The quantity and quality of the study materials varies somewhat depending upon the course, but Davar's real value comes from a well-targeted study guide in the form of a PPT deck of roughly 50-100 pages or so.  For a handful of courses, they provide a YouTube video read-through of the study guide, which I found very helpful, as you can speed it up or slow it down to suit you.

I took ENG103 from them, and was, quite frankly, thrilled to find a way to satisfy my ILR duing the pandemic shutdown.  I bought the recommended textbook online for $15 (it was the previous edition).  Between that and the study guide there were no surprises.  They also included a decent textbook on .pdf.  I didn't time myself.  I read through the textbook two or three times, read the provided pdf book twice, went through the PPT deck six or eight times, and watched it on YouTube a number of times while working on other tasks.  I felt well-prepared for the test, but if I had to do it over again, I might skip the book.  I just like to have one, but it probably wasn't necessary.

CIS315 was more challenging, but that's to be expected, since it's an UL course.  In addition to the targeted study guide, a link to a pdf textbook was provided.  I didn't purchase the book, but I probably should have.  Again, it was available cheaply online in a previous edition.  I read through the pdf textbook a number of times, reviewed the chapter quizzes and hit the study guide hard, and it was enough to pass, but I have an IT background.

I also completed MAN310 for 3 UL credits.  It dovetailed fairly well with other business courses I've taken, so the material wasn't all new to me.  If you have time to get the book, it's probably worthwhile.  As usual, the provided study guide and chapter quizzes were well-targeted and I felt well-prepared for the exam.  

Overall, I would say the difficulty level is what you would expect, given 100/300 level courses.  "Where did THAT come from?" questions were rare, somewhat less than one per exam, roughly on a par with Sophia, as an example.  Nothing like the experiences I've heard about Saylor.  The exams are very much reflective of the material.  Speaking of the exams, all I took were 60 multiple choice and 10 essay or "short answer", for which you are expected to type one to three sentences.  My answers were pretty direct, I rarely went more than two sentences.

One thing I greatly appreciated with Davar (unlike Coopersmith, which is otherwise a nearly identical experience) is that they allow you to choose either RPNow or ProctorFU.  I chose RPNow every time and had a smooth experience, unlike when I had to use ProctorFU with Coopersmith which sucked.

[inkleind]

This was a really great and thoughtful response, you answered basically all of my fears. Saylor was such a terrible experience with so many out of left field questions that it really threw me off trying on new providers.

After this review though, I'm feeling pretty confident!

Anyone else have a similar or totally different experience with Davar?

[Muldoon]

I took two courses with Davar, Organizational Behavior and Managerial Communication. I only studied from the PPT slides, I did not buy the suggested books. I would say the majority of the questions were directly from the slides, in fact many questions were verbatim. And I had made sure to review them right before I actually took each exam, so it was helpful. There were a few questions that seemed to come out of nowhere but they could have been from the book I didn't read. The multiple choice questions were fine, I felt prepared for them. The only hard part -for me- was the short answer. It would be something like, "List the 5 principles of x" or "what is the last step in the X process" and I'm REALLY bad at recalling details out of thin air for that type of answer. It was stressful. Some of them I just wrote one or two sentences. I did pass both exams though. I would recommend them - just make sure you memorize any lists and the order of steps from the slides.

[inkleind]

I ran in to that same thing on the short answers and I also suck at that kind of memory recall, especially since my motorcycle wreck.

Do you happen to remember how long grading took?

[Muldoon]

I don't remember exactly, but it wasn't very long for grading. I want to say it was just a few days.

[inkleind]

Question:
Does anyone know what the minimum score you can get in Davar is for it to still be worth credit at TESU? I've not been able to find that information anywhere and I'm hoping one of y'all know.

[Muldoon]

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the lowest score accepted for credit through Davar is 70%, similar to most alternative credit providers. When Davar emails you, the scores will come back listed as a percentage and the email will also say if you've passed or not.

[inkleind]

You're right! I saw it before I started an exam yesterday. Need a 70 to pass. (I got 72 on that exam lol)

[Ilianasmile]

You're right! I saw it before I started an exam yesterday. Need a 70 to pass. (I got 72 on that exam lol)

Have you taken the CIS 315 exam at Davar? How was it? Hard?