Let me just begin by saying THANK YOU to the SDN community! Having the DAT behind me is a huge relief, but I know that I owe my success at least in part to the great advice given by others before me on this forum. Sure, there are the "takers" that don't search, repeat posts, and use this as personal tutoring, but there are far and away more "givers" who contribute invaluable advice and information to make this forum what it is. To them, truly, THANK YOU!
That being said, hopefully I can keep this going and this breakdown will help some of you who are still in the thick of it...
PA 27 99.7
QR 30 100.0
RC 22 84.4
BS 28 99.7
GC 26 98.8
OC 27 98.7
TS 27 99.9
AA 27 100.0
(Don't know how to get the table formatted right, but hopefully the columns are easy enough to read.)
Needless to say, I am beyond stoked...(youtube "happy dj"
)
PA: I didn't buy a whole lot for my prep because I still have most of my textbooks and whatnot, but CDP was awesome for this. I got the ten test version, but depending on how naturally good you are at this kind of stuff, five could be enough. I started in the low 20s and by my last few tests I was knocking out 28-30 depending on if the angle gods smiled upon me or not. Overall, keyholes and TFE were dead-on. On angles, CDP is good practice, but on the real DAT about 8-9 questions were relatively easy, and the rest you had to take a few chances on. Usually even on the hard ones it comes down to two choices and you just go with your gut. (Which is why you want to hone that instinct with CDP). For hole punch, I'm a huge fan of the 4x4 grid method. Do look at the folds carefully though, because they're not all 1/2 or 1/4 like in CDP. You can take advantage of the layout on this, though. The starting frame of the fold is lined up above choice A, second frame above choice B, etc. so you can line up the holes in the answers to the fold to see exactly where it lies. Cube counting is on par with CDP. As others have said, there are fewer cubes per structure, but on CDP I think I nearly always had 5 structures...on the real DAT, I got 6...so it evens out. You do gain minimal time by not having to remake that chart every time because on dry-erase you can just erase your tallies out. Pattern folding is easier than CDP, but the way they try to trick you is different. CDP loved using the shading patterns...the real DAT barely ever used those, but I did have a couple where the taper of the object was the difference between right and wrong answer choices (as in something that could be a rectange/square is actually a slightly angled trapezoid or parallelogram). Bottom line: CDP + confidence = you're golden.
QR: Math has always come easy to me, so I didn't study this at all. I finished with about 20 minutes left, so I did a once-over again, but I just got too antsy to see my score and hit end. Even if math isn't your thing, don't psyhe yourself out and make things worse. Most of the problems are middle-school level and a couple are high-school level. YOU CAN DO IT! Also, there's only so many different types of problems that get recycled on this section with different numbers, so find as many practice problems as you need and you'll be fine.
RC: Gotta say I didn't see this one coming. I consider myself a pretty fast reader, so I read each passage through completely and then answered the questions in order. Having the whole thing mapped out in my head though, I always found the exact sentence containing the answer before picking the right choice. I probably had about 6-8 interference type questions, so I guess I missed the majority of those and fell into a few traps on the fact-based ones.
BS: Bottom line: breadth before depth! I can't stress this enough. Your 40 questions can basically come from anything in Campbell's so you have to have the breadth, but whatever comes up is likely to be basic. You don't need to have the high-level detail to back anything up. I used Cliff's (read each chapter once, took notes on a second pass, and then answered chapter questions) and a couple chapters in Campbell's. I don't buy into the Ch. 19-21 thing for two reasons: (1) the detail level was so shallow on most questions that focusing so tightly on three chapters will do you no good anyway, (2) I, like many others, didn't get any questions from those chapters. You only get 40 questions; it's the luck of the draw. My advice: focus on everything you don't know at all before shoring up on things you know decently well.
GC: Not bad at all. I've IA'ed for both semesters of gen chem so I wasn't worried about this section. I guess I missed one or two somewhere by not being careful enough, but nothing caught me off-guard. Go through the list of DAT topics from the ADA and make sure you're solid and you should be fine. Very manageable compared to the breadth of Bio. I started with this section because I figured if time became an issue at the end I'd rather be finishing up bio than one of the chem's. That probably came back to bite me in the ass since I rushed GC and it cost me a question or two, and I still finished with a ****load of time left over. Really, no rush on TS. You'll have enough time, so be careful.
OC: Way, way, way simpler than I had prepared for. I knew everything from two semesters of o chem and one semester of the graduate course, but I probably could have taken this after first semester o chem and done fine. I focused on the advanced stuff too much and neglected reviewing the basics (I know one of the questions I got wrong was the nomenclature!). I used my textbook exclusively on this, which worked best for me because I have a sense for where everything is in that book and can find it quickly. Didn't have Destroyer or Chad or anything like that. From what everyone says, those are quality resources, but you can succeed without spending the cash if you do things right.
One last point I want to stress. The best preparation I had for all of this was doing well in my classes. It seems obvious but if you do things right and learn the first time around, reviewing is a lot less of a chore later on. Added bonus is that you have a good GPA to go with your DAT. I know this may be a case of hindsight is 20/20 for a lot of you who have the DAT coming up soon, but this really is the key for anyone who still has the opportunity.
Anyway, hope this helps someone, and I'll be happy to answer questions.
Don't fish for specific questions, though. I'll ignore those.
That being said, hopefully I can keep this going and this breakdown will help some of you who are still in the thick of it...
PA 27 99.7
QR 30 100.0
RC 22 84.4
BS 28 99.7
GC 26 98.8
OC 27 98.7
TS 27 99.9
AA 27 100.0
(Don't know how to get the table formatted right, but hopefully the columns are easy enough to read.)
Needless to say, I am beyond stoked...(youtube "happy dj"
)PA: I didn't buy a whole lot for my prep because I still have most of my textbooks and whatnot, but CDP was awesome for this. I got the ten test version, but depending on how naturally good you are at this kind of stuff, five could be enough. I started in the low 20s and by my last few tests I was knocking out 28-30 depending on if the angle gods smiled upon me or not. Overall, keyholes and TFE were dead-on. On angles, CDP is good practice, but on the real DAT about 8-9 questions were relatively easy, and the rest you had to take a few chances on. Usually even on the hard ones it comes down to two choices and you just go with your gut. (Which is why you want to hone that instinct with CDP). For hole punch, I'm a huge fan of the 4x4 grid method. Do look at the folds carefully though, because they're not all 1/2 or 1/4 like in CDP. You can take advantage of the layout on this, though. The starting frame of the fold is lined up above choice A, second frame above choice B, etc. so you can line up the holes in the answers to the fold to see exactly where it lies. Cube counting is on par with CDP. As others have said, there are fewer cubes per structure, but on CDP I think I nearly always had 5 structures...on the real DAT, I got 6...so it evens out. You do gain minimal time by not having to remake that chart every time because on dry-erase you can just erase your tallies out. Pattern folding is easier than CDP, but the way they try to trick you is different. CDP loved using the shading patterns...the real DAT barely ever used those, but I did have a couple where the taper of the object was the difference between right and wrong answer choices (as in something that could be a rectange/square is actually a slightly angled trapezoid or parallelogram). Bottom line: CDP + confidence = you're golden.
QR: Math has always come easy to me, so I didn't study this at all. I finished with about 20 minutes left, so I did a once-over again, but I just got too antsy to see my score and hit end. Even if math isn't your thing, don't psyhe yourself out and make things worse. Most of the problems are middle-school level and a couple are high-school level. YOU CAN DO IT! Also, there's only so many different types of problems that get recycled on this section with different numbers, so find as many practice problems as you need and you'll be fine.
RC: Gotta say I didn't see this one coming. I consider myself a pretty fast reader, so I read each passage through completely and then answered the questions in order. Having the whole thing mapped out in my head though, I always found the exact sentence containing the answer before picking the right choice. I probably had about 6-8 interference type questions, so I guess I missed the majority of those and fell into a few traps on the fact-based ones.
BS: Bottom line: breadth before depth! I can't stress this enough. Your 40 questions can basically come from anything in Campbell's so you have to have the breadth, but whatever comes up is likely to be basic. You don't need to have the high-level detail to back anything up. I used Cliff's (read each chapter once, took notes on a second pass, and then answered chapter questions) and a couple chapters in Campbell's. I don't buy into the Ch. 19-21 thing for two reasons: (1) the detail level was so shallow on most questions that focusing so tightly on three chapters will do you no good anyway, (2) I, like many others, didn't get any questions from those chapters. You only get 40 questions; it's the luck of the draw. My advice: focus on everything you don't know at all before shoring up on things you know decently well.
GC: Not bad at all. I've IA'ed for both semesters of gen chem so I wasn't worried about this section. I guess I missed one or two somewhere by not being careful enough, but nothing caught me off-guard. Go through the list of DAT topics from the ADA and make sure you're solid and you should be fine. Very manageable compared to the breadth of Bio. I started with this section because I figured if time became an issue at the end I'd rather be finishing up bio than one of the chem's. That probably came back to bite me in the ass since I rushed GC and it cost me a question or two, and I still finished with a ****load of time left over. Really, no rush on TS. You'll have enough time, so be careful.
OC: Way, way, way simpler than I had prepared for. I knew everything from two semesters of o chem and one semester of the graduate course, but I probably could have taken this after first semester o chem and done fine. I focused on the advanced stuff too much and neglected reviewing the basics (I know one of the questions I got wrong was the nomenclature!
). I used my textbook exclusively on this, which worked best for me because I have a sense for where everything is in that book and can find it quickly. Didn't have Destroyer or Chad or anything like that. From what everyone says, those are quality resources, but you can succeed without spending the cash if you do things right. One last point I want to stress. The best preparation I had for all of this was doing well in my classes. It seems obvious but if you do things right and learn the first time around, reviewing is a lot less of a chore later on. Added bonus is that you have a good GPA to go with your DAT. I know this may be a case of hindsight is 20/20 for a lot of you who have the DAT coming up soon, but this really is the key for anyone who still has the opportunity.
Anyway, hope this helps someone, and I'll be happy to answer questions.
Don't fish for specific questions, though. I'll ignore those.
