- Joined
- Sep 3, 2015
- Messages
- 21
- Reaction score
- 15
I took the DAT last Tuesday and got:
QR 20
PAT 22
RC 24
OC 29
GC 24
BIO 23
TS 25
AA 24
I have lurked SDN so hard regarding which study materials to spend my money on and found many helpful reviews so I figured I'd do one, too!
I used DAT Destroyer, Math Destroyer, Chad's videos, Bootcamp, Achiever (the 3 test one), and Cliff's AP Bio. I downloaded Ferali's and skimmed it although this was after I had read Cliff's and I honestly didn't feel like reading through a huge packet of more bio. I studied for about 2 months for 5-8 hours a day. For the first month I just re-learned the sciences (it was probably more like learning them because I did very badly in my intro sciences) and for the second month I mostly did practice probs. Per the advice of someone else on here, I would do 1 day of orgo, 1 day of gen chem, 1 day of bio, and then repeat. I didn't study QR/RC/PAT the first month but I wish I did because I was freaking out at the end when I remembered I had to learn the shape-folding!!! Towards the end, I didn't stick to my schedule and just studied whatever I felt like I needed to and did a lot of practice tests. I got super burnt-out the week before my test and would pretty much just go to the library and jack around so I kinda wish I had taken it a week earlier.
Cliff's- I spend the first month reading through this and taking notes as I went. I thought it gave a good overview of bio, especially if you took it a while ago and need to be reminded of the really basic aspects. Some parts aren't super specific but I supplemented it with the other study sources. Ferali's seemed a lot more detailed so I guess if you are looking for that level of detail, check it out.
Chad's- I also spent the first month watching the gen chem and orgo videos and taking notes as I watched. I only watched each video once. After each section, I'd take the quizzes until I got them all right. Also, I made a flash card for every single orgo reaction I came across from Chad's quizzes/videos and all the other study sources and at the end I had a million flashcards but it proved helpful. I never used the bio on Chad's. I did the angle ranking but found it so frustrating that I never did it again lol.
DAT Destroyer- This was my main study source! I started going through it after I finished my month of Chad's and Cliff's. At first I was a bit put off by the price of it and the fact that they charged me $15 more to ship it to Alaska. After reading reviews on here, I decided to suck it up and get it and it was so worth it! If you're debating whether to get it or not, get it! I went through pretty slowly and if I got a problem wrong or if I didn't know a term that was one of the answer choices, I would write it down. I went through the orgo and gen chem sections twice and the bio section about 1 and a half times. The first time I went through, I was getting around 14 correct out of a block of 30.
Math Destroyer- This was pretty much all I used for math. I have a very hard time with math and wish I had started using it more than 3 weeks before my test date. I think it has like 12 tests but I only got through the first 8. I feel like the math on the actual DAT matched this source closest.
DAT Bootcamp- This was wonderful. I was debating between getting this or Crack the DAT but the random PAT problem generator sold it for me. Seriously that thing is so helpful. I would take the tests then go through the answers and look up any unfamiliar terms. I never finished the PAT or QR tests in the allotted time. I felt like the keyholes were easier on the real DAT and the angles were about the same. I had a hard time with the angles and even in the days before my test was getting around 7/15 correct. Also, these RC tests were the only thing I used to prep. Here are my scores for the bootcamp test:
test1/test2/test3/test4/test5
GC 17/18/20/23/19
OC 19/19/22/21/18
BIO 23/22/18/21/22
PAT 17/18/17/17/18/21/19
RC 20/21/25
QR 20/18/20/18
DAT Achiever- THIS WAS SO HARD OMG. I was sad after each and every one of those tests, so I guess it was good study motivation if nothing else. It was also good practice for sitting for a 5 hour test. Here are my scores for achiever:
Test 1: 17PAT/16QR/18RC/17BIO/17OC/17GC
Test 2: 18PAT/16QR/18RC/18BIO/19OC/16GC
Test 3: 18PAT/17QR/16RC/16BIO/18OC/17GC (this one was two days before my DAT and made me freak out)
The actual DAT- I spent the day before driving to the test center (which literally took 6 hours because I live in the middle of nowhere) so I took the day off from studying. Like everyone on here says, the actual bio is so random! I don't think I got any questions about the stuff I was really really trying hard to remember. I thought the gen chem and orgo sections were generally easier than any of the study sources and I got very few questions that required calculations. For the PAT, I actually ran out of time and had to guess on the last 5 or so. I think I was expecting the real PAT to be crazy easy compared to Bootcamp but I found it pretty comparable. For QR I just skipped all the long ones, did the easy ones, then came back to the longer ones. I actually didn't run out of time which was surprising! The RC articles they gave me were really interesting and easy to read.
Anyways, hope this was helpful to someone! Also, I keep seeing people post what percentile their scores are. How do you find this info? It wasn't on my printout and can't seem to find it on the ADA website.
QR 20
PAT 22
RC 24
OC 29
GC 24
BIO 23
TS 25
AA 24
I have lurked SDN so hard regarding which study materials to spend my money on and found many helpful reviews so I figured I'd do one, too!
I used DAT Destroyer, Math Destroyer, Chad's videos, Bootcamp, Achiever (the 3 test one), and Cliff's AP Bio. I downloaded Ferali's and skimmed it although this was after I had read Cliff's and I honestly didn't feel like reading through a huge packet of more bio. I studied for about 2 months for 5-8 hours a day. For the first month I just re-learned the sciences (it was probably more like learning them because I did very badly in my intro sciences) and for the second month I mostly did practice probs. Per the advice of someone else on here, I would do 1 day of orgo, 1 day of gen chem, 1 day of bio, and then repeat. I didn't study QR/RC/PAT the first month but I wish I did because I was freaking out at the end when I remembered I had to learn the shape-folding!!! Towards the end, I didn't stick to my schedule and just studied whatever I felt like I needed to and did a lot of practice tests. I got super burnt-out the week before my test and would pretty much just go to the library and jack around so I kinda wish I had taken it a week earlier.
Cliff's- I spend the first month reading through this and taking notes as I went. I thought it gave a good overview of bio, especially if you took it a while ago and need to be reminded of the really basic aspects. Some parts aren't super specific but I supplemented it with the other study sources. Ferali's seemed a lot more detailed so I guess if you are looking for that level of detail, check it out.
Chad's- I also spent the first month watching the gen chem and orgo videos and taking notes as I watched. I only watched each video once. After each section, I'd take the quizzes until I got them all right. Also, I made a flash card for every single orgo reaction I came across from Chad's quizzes/videos and all the other study sources and at the end I had a million flashcards but it proved helpful. I never used the bio on Chad's. I did the angle ranking but found it so frustrating that I never did it again lol.
DAT Destroyer- This was my main study source! I started going through it after I finished my month of Chad's and Cliff's. At first I was a bit put off by the price of it and the fact that they charged me $15 more to ship it to Alaska. After reading reviews on here, I decided to suck it up and get it and it was so worth it! If you're debating whether to get it or not, get it! I went through pretty slowly and if I got a problem wrong or if I didn't know a term that was one of the answer choices, I would write it down. I went through the orgo and gen chem sections twice and the bio section about 1 and a half times. The first time I went through, I was getting around 14 correct out of a block of 30.
Math Destroyer- This was pretty much all I used for math. I have a very hard time with math and wish I had started using it more than 3 weeks before my test date. I think it has like 12 tests but I only got through the first 8. I feel like the math on the actual DAT matched this source closest.
DAT Bootcamp- This was wonderful. I was debating between getting this or Crack the DAT but the random PAT problem generator sold it for me. Seriously that thing is so helpful. I would take the tests then go through the answers and look up any unfamiliar terms. I never finished the PAT or QR tests in the allotted time. I felt like the keyholes were easier on the real DAT and the angles were about the same. I had a hard time with the angles and even in the days before my test was getting around 7/15 correct. Also, these RC tests were the only thing I used to prep. Here are my scores for the bootcamp test:
test1/test2/test3/test4/test5
GC 17/18/20/23/19
OC 19/19/22/21/18
BIO 23/22/18/21/22
PAT 17/18/17/17/18/21/19
RC 20/21/25
QR 20/18/20/18
DAT Achiever- THIS WAS SO HARD OMG. I was sad after each and every one of those tests, so I guess it was good study motivation if nothing else. It was also good practice for sitting for a 5 hour test. Here are my scores for achiever:
Test 1: 17PAT/16QR/18RC/17BIO/17OC/17GC
Test 2: 18PAT/16QR/18RC/18BIO/19OC/16GC
Test 3: 18PAT/17QR/16RC/16BIO/18OC/17GC (this one was two days before my DAT and made me freak out)
The actual DAT- I spent the day before driving to the test center (which literally took 6 hours because I live in the middle of nowhere) so I took the day off from studying. Like everyone on here says, the actual bio is so random! I don't think I got any questions about the stuff I was really really trying hard to remember. I thought the gen chem and orgo sections were generally easier than any of the study sources and I got very few questions that required calculations. For the PAT, I actually ran out of time and had to guess on the last 5 or so. I think I was expecting the real PAT to be crazy easy compared to Bootcamp but I found it pretty comparable. For QR I just skipped all the long ones, did the easy ones, then came back to the longer ones. I actually didn't run out of time which was surprising! The RC articles they gave me were really interesting and easy to read.
Anyways, hope this was helpful to someone! Also, I keep seeing people post what percentile their scores are. How do you find this info? It wasn't on my printout and can't seem to find it on the ADA website.
