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deleted452047
All the breakdowns on SDN were super helpful, so I figured I’d return the favor with my breakdown.
I took my DAT on 6/12 after studying for approximately 5 weeks. I kind of skimmed through CliffsAP Biology during the spring semester, but I didn’t really retain any of it. I'm a biology major, so most of it was review. The first 2 weeks were really chill, and I was just watching Chad’s videos and doing his quizzes, and the last 3 weeks were spent doing a mixture of DAT Bootcamp and DAT Destroyer. I did all of the science and math quizzes on DAT Bootcamp twice (about a week between take 1 and take 2), and I went through all of the chemistry in DAT Destroyer once. Every now and then, I’d do a PAT or RC test before bed. About 5 days before my exam, I was really worried about my scores and bought the three-test version of DAT Achiever. I just used the science and math sections, so I did one test per day for 3 days straight. I’ll attach a picture of all my practice test scores for all of my study materials at the end. The second takes for some of the exams weren’t really representative of how well I would do, because I had seen the problems before, but I just did them to see if I had made any progress on learning the stuff I missed before.
I wasn’t expecting ANY of these scores. I went through the whole science portion telling myself I should have studied more, because the biology section (the very first section of the exam) caught me off guard with a few really specific questions. I was in total shock when I saw my scores on the screen after the exam ended. I still don't believe I got those GC and OC scores.
PAT – 23
QR – 23
RC – 22
BIO – 20
GC – 28
OC – 29
TS – 23
AA – 24
PAT: Crack DAT PAT, DAT Bootcamp
I didn’t find PAT in general too difficult, so I didn’t do many practice tests, but both of these are great resources! CDP was very representative of the actual DAT. The video tutorials on CDP were somewhat helpful when I first started out, but of all the tips and tricks they taught in those tutorials, I only used the tallying thing for cube counting. I thought DAT Bootcamp was harder than the actual DAT, but the explanations were very thorough, and it definitely helped me improve my overall speed and showed me little details to look for. Angles were the hardest for me. I just quickly glanced at all the angles and ranked them before I even looked at the answers; otherwise, I’d start second guessing myself. This method worked for some questions but didn’t for others.
QR: Chad’s videos, DAT Bootcamp, DAT Achiever, Math Destroyer
Chad’s videos weren’t all that great for math, except maybe the permutations/combinations video, because I had never encountered that previously. Math Destroyer sucks! WAY too hard. I did like 60 problems, and then gave up on that book. I didn’t even look at the QR section in the regular DAT Destroyer book. DAT Bootcamp and DAT Achiever were great for QR. DAT Bootcamp was a lot harder than the actual DAT (but not to the extent of Math Destroyer), and DAT Achiever was closer to the actual DAT in terms of difficulty. I don't think I EVER completely finished a whole QR section within the time limit. In fact, I think I left a couple blank on the actual DAT, because I took too long on other questions.
RC: DAT Bootcamp
I did the first two exams on DAT Bootcamp and got HORRIBLE scores, so I was pretty worried about RC, but I did these without any real strategy. After developing a strategy that worked well for me, I did much better on the last three exams. My method was kind of a modified search and destroy, I guess. I read the first question before reading the passage, so I would know what to look for. I would then read the passage until I found that answer and then continued onto the next question picking up where I left off (unless it could be answered from what I had already read). If it was a question that required reading the whole passage (like a tone question or an author's purpose question), I would skip it. Eventually, I would finish the passage before finishing all the questions associated with that passage, so then it turned into the traditional search and destroy, which was great because I already had a gist of all the paragraphs and the order they came in. It worked for me, and I am really happy with my RC score, because I am a slow reader.
BIO: CliffsAP Biology (3rd ed.), DAT Bootcamp, DAT Achiever, DAT Destroyer
I started reading through Cliffs in January and “finished” somewhere in April, because I skipped like five chapters that I completely dreaded. I made flashcards along the way, but I never looked at those again. With the semester’s load, I wouldn’t say I retained most of what I read either. It’s still a great resource, and I did refer back to it later in my studies (mostly the stuff I skipped). DAT Bootcamp was decent for biology. The explanations for each question were very thorough, but I felt like it wasn’t even close to having enough practice problems to cover everything you may need to know. DAT Achiever was HARD. Some of the questions asked about really obscure things, but overall, it was definitely good review. I started DAT Destroyer pretty early in my studies, so I just thought the biology section was excessively difficult, so I stopped like 60 questions in, but looking back, I regret not at least reading the answers. In my opinion, biology is a crap shoot, and there's so many things that the DAT could ask. I learn best from practice problems instead of reading, so I would just recommend finding as many practice problems as possible. CliffsNotes by itself isn’t going to cut it in my opinion (plus, it was bland, and I would get bored reading it more than once). Something else I would do differently is maybe try DATQVault for bio just because they have so many problems.
GC/OC: Chad’s videos, DAT Bootcamp, DAT Achiever, DAT Destroyer
Chad’s videos and quizzes were great review for the chemistry sections, because I had gen chem over 2 years ago and orgo over a year ago. I highly recommend watching Chad’s videos and doing his quizzes, but his quizzes are nothing like the DAT. I felt like the quizzes were more review of the videos than actually focusing on the DAT, but that was to be expected. DAT Bootcamp was very similar to the actual DAT in terms of difficulty. DAT Achiever was significantly harder. DAT Destroyer was overkill, but I finished DAT Destroyer, and I don’t regret getting DAT Destroyer at all, because it was a good source of practice problems that really covered every aspect of chemistry that you would need to know for the DAT (and a lot of stuff you don't need to know). All of these are amazing resources. I highly recommend all of them.
Another piece of advice: Don't spend all your time studying! Do something to relieve some stress everyday, and do something fun every week. I went to the gym, watched YouTube videos, surfed the web, and tried to do something fun once a week, like a concert or hiking.
I took my DAT on 6/12 after studying for approximately 5 weeks. I kind of skimmed through CliffsAP Biology during the spring semester, but I didn’t really retain any of it. I'm a biology major, so most of it was review. The first 2 weeks were really chill, and I was just watching Chad’s videos and doing his quizzes, and the last 3 weeks were spent doing a mixture of DAT Bootcamp and DAT Destroyer. I did all of the science and math quizzes on DAT Bootcamp twice (about a week between take 1 and take 2), and I went through all of the chemistry in DAT Destroyer once. Every now and then, I’d do a PAT or RC test before bed. About 5 days before my exam, I was really worried about my scores and bought the three-test version of DAT Achiever. I just used the science and math sections, so I did one test per day for 3 days straight. I’ll attach a picture of all my practice test scores for all of my study materials at the end. The second takes for some of the exams weren’t really representative of how well I would do, because I had seen the problems before, but I just did them to see if I had made any progress on learning the stuff I missed before.
I wasn’t expecting ANY of these scores. I went through the whole science portion telling myself I should have studied more, because the biology section (the very first section of the exam) caught me off guard with a few really specific questions. I was in total shock when I saw my scores on the screen after the exam ended. I still don't believe I got those GC and OC scores.
PAT – 23
QR – 23
RC – 22
BIO – 20
GC – 28
OC – 29
TS – 23
AA – 24
PAT: Crack DAT PAT, DAT Bootcamp
I didn’t find PAT in general too difficult, so I didn’t do many practice tests, but both of these are great resources! CDP was very representative of the actual DAT. The video tutorials on CDP were somewhat helpful when I first started out, but of all the tips and tricks they taught in those tutorials, I only used the tallying thing for cube counting. I thought DAT Bootcamp was harder than the actual DAT, but the explanations were very thorough, and it definitely helped me improve my overall speed and showed me little details to look for. Angles were the hardest for me. I just quickly glanced at all the angles and ranked them before I even looked at the answers; otherwise, I’d start second guessing myself. This method worked for some questions but didn’t for others.
QR: Chad’s videos, DAT Bootcamp, DAT Achiever, Math Destroyer
Chad’s videos weren’t all that great for math, except maybe the permutations/combinations video, because I had never encountered that previously. Math Destroyer sucks! WAY too hard. I did like 60 problems, and then gave up on that book. I didn’t even look at the QR section in the regular DAT Destroyer book. DAT Bootcamp and DAT Achiever were great for QR. DAT Bootcamp was a lot harder than the actual DAT (but not to the extent of Math Destroyer), and DAT Achiever was closer to the actual DAT in terms of difficulty. I don't think I EVER completely finished a whole QR section within the time limit. In fact, I think I left a couple blank on the actual DAT, because I took too long on other questions.
RC: DAT Bootcamp
I did the first two exams on DAT Bootcamp and got HORRIBLE scores, so I was pretty worried about RC, but I did these without any real strategy. After developing a strategy that worked well for me, I did much better on the last three exams. My method was kind of a modified search and destroy, I guess. I read the first question before reading the passage, so I would know what to look for. I would then read the passage until I found that answer and then continued onto the next question picking up where I left off (unless it could be answered from what I had already read). If it was a question that required reading the whole passage (like a tone question or an author's purpose question), I would skip it. Eventually, I would finish the passage before finishing all the questions associated with that passage, so then it turned into the traditional search and destroy, which was great because I already had a gist of all the paragraphs and the order they came in. It worked for me, and I am really happy with my RC score, because I am a slow reader.
BIO: CliffsAP Biology (3rd ed.), DAT Bootcamp, DAT Achiever, DAT Destroyer
I started reading through Cliffs in January and “finished” somewhere in April, because I skipped like five chapters that I completely dreaded. I made flashcards along the way, but I never looked at those again. With the semester’s load, I wouldn’t say I retained most of what I read either. It’s still a great resource, and I did refer back to it later in my studies (mostly the stuff I skipped). DAT Bootcamp was decent for biology. The explanations for each question were very thorough, but I felt like it wasn’t even close to having enough practice problems to cover everything you may need to know. DAT Achiever was HARD. Some of the questions asked about really obscure things, but overall, it was definitely good review. I started DAT Destroyer pretty early in my studies, so I just thought the biology section was excessively difficult, so I stopped like 60 questions in, but looking back, I regret not at least reading the answers. In my opinion, biology is a crap shoot, and there's so many things that the DAT could ask. I learn best from practice problems instead of reading, so I would just recommend finding as many practice problems as possible. CliffsNotes by itself isn’t going to cut it in my opinion (plus, it was bland, and I would get bored reading it more than once). Something else I would do differently is maybe try DATQVault for bio just because they have so many problems.
GC/OC: Chad’s videos, DAT Bootcamp, DAT Achiever, DAT Destroyer
Chad’s videos and quizzes were great review for the chemistry sections, because I had gen chem over 2 years ago and orgo over a year ago. I highly recommend watching Chad’s videos and doing his quizzes, but his quizzes are nothing like the DAT. I felt like the quizzes were more review of the videos than actually focusing on the DAT, but that was to be expected. DAT Bootcamp was very similar to the actual DAT in terms of difficulty. DAT Achiever was significantly harder. DAT Destroyer was overkill, but I finished DAT Destroyer, and I don’t regret getting DAT Destroyer at all, because it was a good source of practice problems that really covered every aspect of chemistry that you would need to know for the DAT (and a lot of stuff you don't need to know). All of these are amazing resources. I highly recommend all of them.
Another piece of advice: Don't spend all your time studying! Do something to relieve some stress everyday, and do something fun every week. I went to the gym, watched YouTube videos, surfed the web, and tried to do something fun once a week, like a concert or hiking.
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