- Joined
- Jan 27, 2011
- Messages
- 741
- Reaction score
- 325
Scores below:
In case picture doesn't show up for those of you with poor technology:
PAT - 25 (99.1)
QR - 24 (99.4)
RC - 25 (99.5)
Bio - 23 (98.9)
GC - 29 (99.9)
OC - 25 (98.4)
TS - 25 (99.9)
AA - 25 (100.0)
Not sure where to start. I guess first things first...a big thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way on SDN. It doesn't matter if you just gave me a few words of encouragement before my test or if you were someone I got to really know during this past month.. you all contributed to my success today and that is something that I don't believe I will ever find on any other forums than SDN.
I'd like to go more in depth about my warm and fuzzy feelings towards all of you guys but let's just get down to business.
Background/preparation
I'm going to be a junior this year studying biomedical engineering at University of Michigan. Yup, the same one as the dental school that's probably sending you an interview invite right now.
I'm glad this turned out the way it did because this summer has been pretty much a failure until today. When school initially let out in early May, I wasn't planning on taking the DAT this summer. But all of a sudden, a lot of things went wrong. I got fired from my research lab because my sponsor said my interest in dentistry could be put to better use in a dental lab (logical excuse, but an excuse nonetheless). Throughout last year, I was doing research under him for a grade, and what do you know, I end up with a B+, which resulted in a very measly 3.45 for both semesters. This dropped my GPA from a 3.7 to a 3.6.
So I went and found a position in a dental lab that required a 2 month training period. After 2 months, I got the bad news that the department began to cut pay, meaning my chances of getting formally hired were gone. At that point, I realized that my summer so far has amounted to zilch. I still haven't volunteered in a hospital setting and I've shadowed an outstanding 0 hours.
Thus, I decided to start studying for the DAT around the middle of July. But I didn't really begin to study until beginning of August due to all the distractions that happen in Ann Arbor this time of year. So I told my parents to come pick me up, and I locked myself in my room for a month. Basically, everyday was wake up at 8 am, go on SDN, run through as much practice stuff as I could, eat 2 or 3 meals while watching TBS, go to bed. It wasn't exactly heaven, but I can't thank my parents enough for their support and for putting up with my "leave-me-alone" attitude. Especially my M.O.M., aka my own maid. If any of you still enjoy the benefits of having one, do not take her for granted
The Test
I'll try to include as much of what prepared me for each section as I can:
PAT (25):
This was probably my favorite section going into the test, probably because I like shapes (OC was my 2nd favorite section). Although I think CDP was good practice, I want to stress that CDP by itself is not enough if you want to get a 25+. Yes, there probably are those of you who got a 25+ with just CDP, but if you want to be absolutely sure you're going to destroy this section, get Achiever...the 7-test edition.
Comparisons:
Keyhole: Proportions, proportions, proportions. You won't know what I or any of us mean until you take the real DAT, and this section was more like achiever than CDP by a mile. By the end of CDP, I would get 15/15 on this section...I could easily eliminate answers just by looking for missing spaces, extra holes etc. The real DAT had about 5 problems with 2 answer choices that had the same shapes, except a size difference..maybe half a millimeter difference. There was also one "wtf" question that required mental extrapolation...but asides from that one, I think the others were all doable. However, getting accustomed to CDP is a bad idea for this section. Definitely practice achiever for this. Finished in 10 minutes exactly.
TFE: I'd say this section was more on par with CDP than achiever, but to be honest, I was never as sure about TFE as I was with other sections. There were definitely one or two achiever style TFEs where you're given a triangle or square on the corner of a face and you have to determine whether that's a square or triangular indent on another face and if the indent is slanted to the top right, top left, etc. So make sure you know how to do those achiever TFEs, but other than that, I felt better about this section than I usually do when I'm doing TFE in CDP. Finished in 12 or 13 minutes.
Angle Ranking: The 2nd half of this section was a piece of cake, way easier than CDP, but the first half reminded me of achiever. It was like achiever not in the sense that the degrees were just as small but rather the angles themselves didn't have a side that lied horizontally or vertically, and I couldn't use the beach-chair or laptop strategy and had to just go with my gut. I think what made up for those problems was the fact that the angles themselves probably differed by 5 degrees or more on average, so my gut often was right. Finished in 8 or 9 minutes.
Hole Punching: Use xJtrandx's youtube strategy. CDP....achiever. All the same with this thing. 15/15 since day 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ud0ZX0eEFA
I am not even going to mention 1/3 folds or anything because with this strategy and a little practice on CDP and achiever, this section should be everyone's best section. Finished in 6-7 minutes.
Cube Counting: Figures were more like achiever, answers were more like CDP. What I mean is achiever usually only has answer choices from 1 Cube to 5 Cubes, whereas CDP can go from 1 Cube to 12 Cubes. I had one 20+ cube picture with 10+ 2-sided cubes or something. In fact, this was my first time actually counting the total number of cubes to check for errors. I had about 22 minutes coming into this section and finished with 13 or 14 minutes.
Pattern Folding: Unshaded figures more like achiever, shaded figures more like CDP, easiness as a whole is about in between the two. I see what people mean by "wtf" unshaded figures...the ones that make obtuse shapes that you don't ever see on CDP. However, I had 3 or 4 dice problems that were exactly like CDP, so do both achiever and CDP for this. Ended up with 5 minutes to go recheck marked keyhole/TFE.
Biology (23) Initial time spent: 17 minutes:
When I saw my scores, I was kind of swept up by all the 24+ scores that I kind of just went along with my 23 in biology. Now that I think about it, I truthfully do not know how I got a 23. I wouldn't have been surprised if I got a 21 or 20 actually because I marked about 10 questions my first time through. However, I didn't really get the same feelings as other people did.
First off, a lot of people have recently been complaining about biology having too many application style questions. This either did not happen on my test, OR those that felt the application questions were hard did not have a solid foundation, because I actually felt like the application questions were the easiest. There weren't any figure interpretation questions such as (this didn't appear on the test, just an example) "what can you tell by this oxygen affinity graph?" The application questions were more like (again, just an example) "If this kind of reaction occurred in this organelle, what can be implied for the following reaction in the following organelle?" The hardest questions were the ones that straight up asked for definitions of things I've never heard about.
The other thing was that most people said biology was all over the place. Although I agree that it covered a lot of stuff, what I disagree with is the fact that people can't handle the "randomness". Considering this was a multiple choice exam, it is absolutely doable. Yes I had questions containing things I've never heard of, about 10 of them. But what helped me answer probably 6-8 of them right was my ability to determine what was wrong. I mean if you know that a,b,c, & d are all wrong, then you basically knew e had to be right. Furthermore, you might not have ever heard of what e is, but perhaps the prefix or suffix is familiar, and based on that you can guess that it might be related to the question. All in all, my take on this was memorization only goes so far, you have to be able to connect everything that you learn together.
That being said, what I did to prepare for this section, in some people's opinion, might have been overboard. But considering this is my lowest score, I wouldn't have done it any other way:
Destroyer: There is no such thing as "overkill" in biology. I agree with "breadth over depth" but the thing is, destroyer IS breadth. Between qvault and destroyer, going back and forth built a strong foundation for what I needed to expect on the real DAT, and none of it was "too random" or "too detailed". Do all of the questions, then do them again, make notecards, memorize them at first if you have to, but eventually you need to know everything in destroyer as common sense so that you can apply your knowledge towards those "application" problems on the real DAT. Also, for every single question, make sure you know why the correct answer is right and why the wrong answers are wrong. This was probably the best aspect of destroyer because for every correct answer I selected, I was at the same time answering 4 other questions by eliminating the 4 wrong answers.
Qvault: Same study strategy as destroyer. The difficulty level and randomness were about the same as destroyer but the difference here is the timing. The test simulation that qvault uses was, in my opinion, extremely user friendly and motivational. Whereas you might get bored and procrastinate with destroyer, all you have to do is click start on qvault and that's an automatic 40 questions that you're gonna have to do if you don't want to end up with a demoralizing score. The urge to do better on qvault each time I started a new test pushed me through all of the information in about a week.
Misc.: Again, there is no overkill in biology. The day before I took this test, I actually went over some random nervous system stuff that I google searched because I felt shaky with the information, and today I got 2 questions on that topic. Whatever biology information you think is related to DAT biology, get your hands on them and know them.
GC (29) Initial time spent: 17 minutes:
Sorry for that super long biology rant, this isn't as long. I think this was pretty easy compared to destroyer, and not as repetitive/random as qvault. Overall, I marked 2 questions, can't really remember the 2nd one but the first one was a question asking which element can be classified as a "this". I narrowed it down to 2 choices easy and ended up guessing it right after looking it up on google after the test. I guess I must've missed the 2nd question that I marked.
The biggest difference between my test and other people's tests was that mine had quite a few calculations, which was good. I had to make 2 pure calculations, which weren't bad, and the 8 or 9 other calculation problems had it set up for me in the answer.
Destroyer: Unlike bio, there definitely is an "overkill" for GC. I don't think I even got a Keq/solubility question. However, that does not mean you shouldn't know how to do them. I would say go through destroyer twice at most, once is enough to familiarize yourself, but the key thing is to understand concepts here. It's not like bio, where you have to memorize everything and connect them to each other to apply your knowledge. GC was all about knowing individual topics/concepts and just getting good at them.
Qvault: It was very repetitive, but it was good practice. Definitely boosted my confidence as I was getting anywhere from 21-26 on them, and having something to time myself was good too. But as far as new material, nothing showed up here that didn't show up in destroyer.
Wait what no Chad??? Does NOT mean you shouldn't use his videos. Almost every single breakdown I've read, I've heard things like "Chad's videos/quizzes are all you need" or "Chad's the man, I want him to father my children". That being said, I'm just not the type to learn by listening to other people speak for 30 hours. The most I'd do is go on youtube for some clarification, but after watching a sample biology video, I knew 30 hours of Chad just wasn't gonna do it for me. And yes, I do fall asleep/skip lectures in college.
OC (25) Initial Time Spent: 20 minutes:
As I said earlier, OC was my 2nd most favorite section coming into the test. I got an A in orgo 1 and an A- in orgo 2 and I'm going to be a study group leader this upcoming semester for orgo 1. On the test, I think I probably got 2 wrong that I marked because they were definitely not things I've seen before. That being said, everything else was straightforward. I'm surprised I scored lower here than GC. Reactions were simple 1 or 2 steps, and didn't cover any outlandish reactions. One question even asked "what is the name of the following reaction?" I would say, know oxidation/reduction of alcohols/ketones/aldehydes/carboxylic acids, Diels-Alder, Friedel-Crafts, Fischer Esterification, Wolff-kishner reduction, Aldol Condensation, and all the SN1 SN2 E1 E2 stuff. Also know your acidity trends, carbo-cation trends, Hofmann vs Zaitsev....you know what, just ask me if you need to memorize so-and-so and I'll tell you.
Destroyer: Problems? Overkill. Roadmaps? Must know. That's really all I have to say. Just do it twice at most to familiarize yourself like GC, memorize roadmaps, then look over it before the test.
Qvault: Same level of repetitiveness and difficulty as GC was. Just do them for timing purposes, or if you easily develop paranoia.
No Chad Again???:
Misc. For those of you who took your 2 semesters of orgo already, I can't speak for bio and GC because I AP'd out of them. However, having taken orgo in college, I must stress that your best preparation for OC is what you have learned in your classes. Seriously, OC is like bio in that if you connect everything together, you're good to go. My orgo prof once told me that everything in orgo 2 was "electrophilic addition followed by elimination", and those of you who know mechanisms would probably agree that to some degree, you could predict -everything- if you know how to predict those 2 steps. For those of you who haven't taken orgo, take it before you take the DAT and PAY ATTENTION IN CLASS . You'll save yourself a lot of time and effort.
RC (25) Initial time spent per passage: 18 min/18 min/18 min:
This is funny because...two people who got similar scores as I did had the same reading topics. I remember reading their breakdowns saying their passages were really easy, and I was like "I hope I get those passages". And so I did.
That being said, the way I prepared for this was mainly through doing practice exams. Qvault didn't cut it this time....it was too much search and destroy. I did 2 Qvault passages and got a 24 (46/50) and a 30 (49/50). Same with topscore. Achiever was overkill to an extent, but getting a 20 and a 21 on two achiever passages helped with my confidence. That's all I can really say because it really IS confidence. I grew up bilingual having learned english and mandarin, so nothing special there.
The real RC was very easy, no big words and the passages that I got were interesting. The tone/inference questions that were on the passage were pretty common sense stuff, like "what is the tone? -analytic" or "what statement can be most appropriately added to the last paragraph?".
This is my strategy that I used on practice tests and on the real thing, try it and tell me if it works: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=943867 If it's not working, pm me and I'll try to work with you on how you can improve.
QR (24) Initial time spent: 30 minutes, 10 minutes left to check:
Just a little bit disappointment here as I usually score 38-40 on math destroyers. The 2 questions that I didn't know were a p-value question that had oddly stated answers and a probability question that you couldn't solve with simple combination/permutation formulas, so I basically couldn't do much about them.
Asides from doing 4 math destroyers, don't really have much to say. I was going to pull the "Asian" card but considering how I got a 25 on the PAT even though I have "small eyes", I guess that excuse isn't valid anymore. However, I definitely feel like I had a solid background in the "standardized math" area. I got a 800 on SAT math and SAT Subject test as well as a 35 on ACT math. The key is to know the fastest way to solve problems. It's hard to explain so pm me if you have a question on QR and I'll explain how I'd do it.
The Practice Tests
Topscore: Section/#1/#2/#3:
Bio: 19/19/18
GC: 19/20/21
OC: 20/20/21
PAT:28/ X / X
RC: 20/ X / X
QR: 20/ X / X
Comments: Good overall indicator, definitely worth buying. Bio does have random taxonomy questions that won't show up, GC/OC/QR were spot on, PAT was too outdated/easy, RC was too much search and destroy.
Achiever: Section/#1/#2/#3/#4/#5/#6/#7
Bio: 17/18/16/15/15/16/16
GC: 18/17/18/16/16/17/17
OC: 16/18/17/15/16/16/15
PAT:17/17/18/18/20/20/20
RC: 17/17/ X / X / X /20/21
QR: 22/23/ X / X / X / X / X
Comments: Not a good overall indicator, but PAT and RC sections are amazing for boosting your scores in my opinion. Even if it's just for PAT and RC, get it. Bio was hard but good challenge to test my grasp of the material, GC and OC were uselessly hard. QR was a bit hard, but still managed to get 22-23, so didn't bother with it.
Qvault: Section/#1/#2/#3/#4/#5/#6/#7/#8/#9/#10
Bio: 18/18/17/17/20/18/19/20/18/18
GC: 26/21/21/26/22/22/21/26/22/22
OC: 19/21/24/20/21/21/20/21/19/20
RC: 24/30/ X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
QR: Didn't bother. Just did the 10 probability/statistics questions.
Comments: Still not a good overall indicator because the questions are too repetitive. They are good for timing yourself. The one that was most worthwhile was definitely bio, probably credit 30% of my bio knowledge to it. GC and OC were not as worthwhile, but good for practice. RC was useless and didn't use QR.
Destroyer/Math Destroyer:
Math Destroyer #1/#2/#3/#4 = 36/40/39/40.
Comments: For sure get the destroyer that contains bio/gc/oc/qr. Everything in there is on par or better than all the other practice stuff. If you're good with the QR in the big destroyer book and know someone who has math destroyer, just ask if you can borrow it to memorize the formulas in there and do a couple practice tests. Otherwise, buy the math destroyer book as well.
Crack DAT PAT: #1/#2/#3/#4/#5/#6/#7/#8/#9/#10:
25/20/20/22/25/26/23/25/25/29
Comments: Definitely buy this. Start off with this until you get up to the 23-25 range, then go for some achiever. I had extra time to finish off the last few and I think it was a pretty good indicator overall.
Final Thoughts
Nothing this summer went the way I planned, not even this test. Wait what? Well, I was actually supposed to take it on 8/23. I felt good, the weather felt good, but for no apparent reason the test center was out of power. So then this test got postponed 5 days to today....you can just imagine how hard those 5 days were. Not only could I not concentrate on studying anymore, I also started doubting myself, thinking that I'm forgetting this or I'm forgetting that. Averaging an AA of 20 on topscore 5 days ago, I went into my exam hoping for a 21 or 22, and I came out with a 25.
My point is that...you really never know what's going to happen. I'm turning 20 exactly 2 months from today, and so far, I've learned that life is just cruel like this sometimes. You get frustrated by your bad grades going into summer, lose your job, find another job only to not get paid, end up getting your DAT date postponed from a power outage, all to come out in the end thinking that this summer was one of the best summers ever.
WHO KNEW? all thanks to the big man upstairs. You da best!
In case picture doesn't show up for those of you with poor technology:
PAT - 25 (99.1)
QR - 24 (99.4)
RC - 25 (99.5)
Bio - 23 (98.9)
GC - 29 (99.9)
OC - 25 (98.4)
TS - 25 (99.9)
AA - 25 (100.0)
Not sure where to start. I guess first things first...a big thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way on SDN. It doesn't matter if you just gave me a few words of encouragement before my test or if you were someone I got to really know during this past month.. you all contributed to my success today and that is something that I don't believe I will ever find on any other forums than SDN.
I'd like to go more in depth about my warm and fuzzy feelings towards all of you guys but let's just get down to business.
Background/preparation
I'm going to be a junior this year studying biomedical engineering at University of Michigan. Yup, the same one as the dental school that's probably sending you an interview invite right now.
I'm glad this turned out the way it did because this summer has been pretty much a failure until today. When school initially let out in early May, I wasn't planning on taking the DAT this summer. But all of a sudden, a lot of things went wrong. I got fired from my research lab because my sponsor said my interest in dentistry could be put to better use in a dental lab (logical excuse, but an excuse nonetheless). Throughout last year, I was doing research under him for a grade, and what do you know, I end up with a B+, which resulted in a very measly 3.45 for both semesters. This dropped my GPA from a 3.7 to a 3.6.
So I went and found a position in a dental lab that required a 2 month training period. After 2 months, I got the bad news that the department began to cut pay, meaning my chances of getting formally hired were gone. At that point, I realized that my summer so far has amounted to zilch. I still haven't volunteered in a hospital setting and I've shadowed an outstanding 0 hours.
Thus, I decided to start studying for the DAT around the middle of July. But I didn't really begin to study until beginning of August due to all the distractions that happen in Ann Arbor this time of year. So I told my parents to come pick me up, and I locked myself in my room for a month. Basically, everyday was wake up at 8 am, go on SDN, run through as much practice stuff as I could, eat 2 or 3 meals while watching TBS, go to bed. It wasn't exactly heaven, but I can't thank my parents enough for their support and for putting up with my "leave-me-alone" attitude. Especially my M.O.M., aka my own maid. If any of you still enjoy the benefits of having one, do not take her for granted
The Test
I'll try to include as much of what prepared me for each section as I can:
PAT (25):
This was probably my favorite section going into the test, probably because I like shapes (OC was my 2nd favorite section). Although I think CDP was good practice, I want to stress that CDP by itself is not enough if you want to get a 25+. Yes, there probably are those of you who got a 25+ with just CDP, but if you want to be absolutely sure you're going to destroy this section, get Achiever...the 7-test edition.
Comparisons:
Keyhole: Proportions, proportions, proportions. You won't know what I or any of us mean until you take the real DAT, and this section was more like achiever than CDP by a mile. By the end of CDP, I would get 15/15 on this section...I could easily eliminate answers just by looking for missing spaces, extra holes etc. The real DAT had about 5 problems with 2 answer choices that had the same shapes, except a size difference..maybe half a millimeter difference. There was also one "wtf" question that required mental extrapolation...but asides from that one, I think the others were all doable. However, getting accustomed to CDP is a bad idea for this section. Definitely practice achiever for this. Finished in 10 minutes exactly.
TFE: I'd say this section was more on par with CDP than achiever, but to be honest, I was never as sure about TFE as I was with other sections. There were definitely one or two achiever style TFEs where you're given a triangle or square on the corner of a face and you have to determine whether that's a square or triangular indent on another face and if the indent is slanted to the top right, top left, etc. So make sure you know how to do those achiever TFEs, but other than that, I felt better about this section than I usually do when I'm doing TFE in CDP. Finished in 12 or 13 minutes.
Angle Ranking: The 2nd half of this section was a piece of cake, way easier than CDP, but the first half reminded me of achiever. It was like achiever not in the sense that the degrees were just as small but rather the angles themselves didn't have a side that lied horizontally or vertically, and I couldn't use the beach-chair or laptop strategy and had to just go with my gut. I think what made up for those problems was the fact that the angles themselves probably differed by 5 degrees or more on average, so my gut often was right. Finished in 8 or 9 minutes.
Hole Punching: Use xJtrandx's youtube strategy. CDP....achiever. All the same with this thing. 15/15 since day 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ud0ZX0eEFA
I am not even going to mention 1/3 folds or anything because with this strategy and a little practice on CDP and achiever, this section should be everyone's best section. Finished in 6-7 minutes.
Cube Counting: Figures were more like achiever, answers were more like CDP. What I mean is achiever usually only has answer choices from 1 Cube to 5 Cubes, whereas CDP can go from 1 Cube to 12 Cubes. I had one 20+ cube picture with 10+ 2-sided cubes or something. In fact, this was my first time actually counting the total number of cubes to check for errors. I had about 22 minutes coming into this section and finished with 13 or 14 minutes.
Pattern Folding: Unshaded figures more like achiever, shaded figures more like CDP, easiness as a whole is about in between the two. I see what people mean by "wtf" unshaded figures...the ones that make obtuse shapes that you don't ever see on CDP. However, I had 3 or 4 dice problems that were exactly like CDP, so do both achiever and CDP for this. Ended up with 5 minutes to go recheck marked keyhole/TFE.
Biology (23) Initial time spent: 17 minutes:
When I saw my scores, I was kind of swept up by all the 24+ scores that I kind of just went along with my 23 in biology. Now that I think about it, I truthfully do not know how I got a 23. I wouldn't have been surprised if I got a 21 or 20 actually because I marked about 10 questions my first time through. However, I didn't really get the same feelings as other people did.
First off, a lot of people have recently been complaining about biology having too many application style questions. This either did not happen on my test, OR those that felt the application questions were hard did not have a solid foundation, because I actually felt like the application questions were the easiest. There weren't any figure interpretation questions such as (this didn't appear on the test, just an example) "what can you tell by this oxygen affinity graph?" The application questions were more like (again, just an example) "If this kind of reaction occurred in this organelle, what can be implied for the following reaction in the following organelle?" The hardest questions were the ones that straight up asked for definitions of things I've never heard about.
The other thing was that most people said biology was all over the place. Although I agree that it covered a lot of stuff, what I disagree with is the fact that people can't handle the "randomness". Considering this was a multiple choice exam, it is absolutely doable. Yes I had questions containing things I've never heard of, about 10 of them. But what helped me answer probably 6-8 of them right was my ability to determine what was wrong. I mean if you know that a,b,c, & d are all wrong, then you basically knew e had to be right. Furthermore, you might not have ever heard of what e is, but perhaps the prefix or suffix is familiar, and based on that you can guess that it might be related to the question. All in all, my take on this was memorization only goes so far, you have to be able to connect everything that you learn together.
That being said, what I did to prepare for this section, in some people's opinion, might have been overboard. But considering this is my lowest score, I wouldn't have done it any other way:
Destroyer: There is no such thing as "overkill" in biology. I agree with "breadth over depth" but the thing is, destroyer IS breadth. Between qvault and destroyer, going back and forth built a strong foundation for what I needed to expect on the real DAT, and none of it was "too random" or "too detailed". Do all of the questions, then do them again, make notecards, memorize them at first if you have to, but eventually you need to know everything in destroyer as common sense so that you can apply your knowledge towards those "application" problems on the real DAT. Also, for every single question, make sure you know why the correct answer is right and why the wrong answers are wrong. This was probably the best aspect of destroyer because for every correct answer I selected, I was at the same time answering 4 other questions by eliminating the 4 wrong answers.
Qvault: Same study strategy as destroyer. The difficulty level and randomness were about the same as destroyer but the difference here is the timing. The test simulation that qvault uses was, in my opinion, extremely user friendly and motivational. Whereas you might get bored and procrastinate with destroyer, all you have to do is click start on qvault and that's an automatic 40 questions that you're gonna have to do if you don't want to end up with a demoralizing score. The urge to do better on qvault each time I started a new test pushed me through all of the information in about a week.
Misc.: Again, there is no overkill in biology. The day before I took this test, I actually went over some random nervous system stuff that I google searched because I felt shaky with the information, and today I got 2 questions on that topic. Whatever biology information you think is related to DAT biology, get your hands on them and know them.
GC (29) Initial time spent: 17 minutes:
Sorry for that super long biology rant, this isn't as long. I think this was pretty easy compared to destroyer, and not as repetitive/random as qvault. Overall, I marked 2 questions, can't really remember the 2nd one but the first one was a question asking which element can be classified as a "this". I narrowed it down to 2 choices easy and ended up guessing it right after looking it up on google after the test. I guess I must've missed the 2nd question that I marked.
The biggest difference between my test and other people's tests was that mine had quite a few calculations, which was good. I had to make 2 pure calculations, which weren't bad, and the 8 or 9 other calculation problems had it set up for me in the answer.
Destroyer: Unlike bio, there definitely is an "overkill" for GC. I don't think I even got a Keq/solubility question. However, that does not mean you shouldn't know how to do them. I would say go through destroyer twice at most, once is enough to familiarize yourself, but the key thing is to understand concepts here. It's not like bio, where you have to memorize everything and connect them to each other to apply your knowledge. GC was all about knowing individual topics/concepts and just getting good at them.
Qvault: It was very repetitive, but it was good practice. Definitely boosted my confidence as I was getting anywhere from 21-26 on them, and having something to time myself was good too. But as far as new material, nothing showed up here that didn't show up in destroyer.
Wait what no Chad??? Does NOT mean you shouldn't use his videos. Almost every single breakdown I've read, I've heard things like "Chad's videos/quizzes are all you need" or "Chad's the man, I want him to father my children". That being said, I'm just not the type to learn by listening to other people speak for 30 hours. The most I'd do is go on youtube for some clarification, but after watching a sample biology video, I knew 30 hours of Chad just wasn't gonna do it for me. And yes, I do fall asleep/skip lectures in college.
OC (25) Initial Time Spent: 20 minutes:
As I said earlier, OC was my 2nd most favorite section coming into the test. I got an A in orgo 1 and an A- in orgo 2 and I'm going to be a study group leader this upcoming semester for orgo 1. On the test, I think I probably got 2 wrong that I marked because they were definitely not things I've seen before. That being said, everything else was straightforward. I'm surprised I scored lower here than GC. Reactions were simple 1 or 2 steps, and didn't cover any outlandish reactions. One question even asked "what is the name of the following reaction?" I would say, know oxidation/reduction of alcohols/ketones/aldehydes/carboxylic acids, Diels-Alder, Friedel-Crafts, Fischer Esterification, Wolff-kishner reduction, Aldol Condensation, and all the SN1 SN2 E1 E2 stuff. Also know your acidity trends, carbo-cation trends, Hofmann vs Zaitsev....you know what, just ask me if you need to memorize so-and-so and I'll tell you.
Destroyer: Problems? Overkill. Roadmaps? Must know. That's really all I have to say. Just do it twice at most to familiarize yourself like GC, memorize roadmaps, then look over it before the test.
Qvault: Same level of repetitiveness and difficulty as GC was. Just do them for timing purposes, or if you easily develop paranoia.
No Chad Again???:
Misc. For those of you who took your 2 semesters of orgo already, I can't speak for bio and GC because I AP'd out of them. However, having taken orgo in college, I must stress that your best preparation for OC is what you have learned in your classes. Seriously, OC is like bio in that if you connect everything together, you're good to go. My orgo prof once told me that everything in orgo 2 was "electrophilic addition followed by elimination", and those of you who know mechanisms would probably agree that to some degree, you could predict -everything- if you know how to predict those 2 steps. For those of you who haven't taken orgo, take it before you take the DAT and PAY ATTENTION IN CLASS . You'll save yourself a lot of time and effort.
RC (25) Initial time spent per passage: 18 min/18 min/18 min:
This is funny because...two people who got similar scores as I did had the same reading topics. I remember reading their breakdowns saying their passages were really easy, and I was like "I hope I get those passages". And so I did.
That being said, the way I prepared for this was mainly through doing practice exams. Qvault didn't cut it this time....it was too much search and destroy. I did 2 Qvault passages and got a 24 (46/50) and a 30 (49/50). Same with topscore. Achiever was overkill to an extent, but getting a 20 and a 21 on two achiever passages helped with my confidence. That's all I can really say because it really IS confidence. I grew up bilingual having learned english and mandarin, so nothing special there.
The real RC was very easy, no big words and the passages that I got were interesting. The tone/inference questions that were on the passage were pretty common sense stuff, like "what is the tone? -analytic" or "what statement can be most appropriately added to the last paragraph?".
This is my strategy that I used on practice tests and on the real thing, try it and tell me if it works: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=943867 If it's not working, pm me and I'll try to work with you on how you can improve.
QR (24) Initial time spent: 30 minutes, 10 minutes left to check:
Just a little bit disappointment here as I usually score 38-40 on math destroyers. The 2 questions that I didn't know were a p-value question that had oddly stated answers and a probability question that you couldn't solve with simple combination/permutation formulas, so I basically couldn't do much about them.
Asides from doing 4 math destroyers, don't really have much to say. I was going to pull the "Asian" card but considering how I got a 25 on the PAT even though I have "small eyes", I guess that excuse isn't valid anymore.
However, I definitely feel like I had a solid background in the "standardized math" area. I got a 800 on SAT math and SAT Subject test as well as a 35 on ACT math. The key is to know the fastest way to solve problems. It's hard to explain so pm me if you have a question on QR and I'll explain how I'd do it.The Practice Tests
Topscore: Section/#1/#2/#3:
Bio: 19/19/18
GC: 19/20/21
OC: 20/20/21
PAT:28/ X / X
RC: 20/ X / X
QR: 20/ X / X
Comments: Good overall indicator, definitely worth buying. Bio does have random taxonomy questions that won't show up, GC/OC/QR were spot on, PAT was too outdated/easy, RC was too much search and destroy.
Achiever: Section/#1/#2/#3/#4/#5/#6/#7
Bio: 17/18/16/15/15/16/16
GC: 18/17/18/16/16/17/17
OC: 16/18/17/15/16/16/15
PAT:17/17/18/18/20/20/20
RC: 17/17/ X / X / X /20/21
QR: 22/23/ X / X / X / X / X
Comments: Not a good overall indicator, but PAT and RC sections are amazing for boosting your scores in my opinion. Even if it's just for PAT and RC, get it. Bio was hard but good challenge to test my grasp of the material, GC and OC were uselessly hard. QR was a bit hard, but still managed to get 22-23, so didn't bother with it.
Qvault: Section/#1/#2/#3/#4/#5/#6/#7/#8/#9/#10
Bio: 18/18/17/17/20/18/19/20/18/18
GC: 26/21/21/26/22/22/21/26/22/22
OC: 19/21/24/20/21/21/20/21/19/20
RC: 24/30/ X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
QR: Didn't bother. Just did the 10 probability/statistics questions.
Comments: Still not a good overall indicator because the questions are too repetitive. They are good for timing yourself. The one that was most worthwhile was definitely bio, probably credit 30% of my bio knowledge to it. GC and OC were not as worthwhile, but good for practice. RC was useless and didn't use QR.
Destroyer/Math Destroyer:
Math Destroyer #1/#2/#3/#4 = 36/40/39/40.
Comments: For sure get the destroyer that contains bio/gc/oc/qr. Everything in there is on par or better than all the other practice stuff. If you're good with the QR in the big destroyer book and know someone who has math destroyer, just ask if you can borrow it to memorize the formulas in there and do a couple practice tests. Otherwise, buy the math destroyer book as well.
Crack DAT PAT: #1/#2/#3/#4/#5/#6/#7/#8/#9/#10:
25/20/20/22/25/26/23/25/25/29
Comments: Definitely buy this. Start off with this until you get up to the 23-25 range, then go for some achiever. I had extra time to finish off the last few and I think it was a pretty good indicator overall.
Final Thoughts
Nothing this summer went the way I planned, not even this test. Wait what? Well, I was actually supposed to take it on 8/23. I felt good, the weather felt good, but for no apparent reason the test center was out of power. So then this test got postponed 5 days to today....you can just imagine how hard those 5 days were. Not only could I not concentrate on studying anymore, I also started doubting myself, thinking that I'm forgetting this or I'm forgetting that. Averaging an AA of 20 on topscore 5 days ago, I went into my exam hoping for a 21 or 22, and I came out with a 25.
My point is that...you really never know what's going to happen. I'm turning 20 exactly 2 months from today, and so far, I've learned that life is just cruel like this sometimes. You get frustrated by your bad grades going into summer, lose your job, find another job only to not get paid, end up getting your DAT date postponed from a power outage, all to come out in the end thinking that this summer was one of the best summers ever.
WHO KNEW?
all thanks to the big man upstairs. You da best!
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you annihilated that!!!! D: 
good jobbbb 
