Hey everyone,
I found this site VERY helpful when I was studying. I figured, even though I didn't slam dunk the test, that I would provide my prospective. For my background, I'm a year out of undergrad so it has been a long time since I've taken the Bio, Chem, and Ochem classes. I work full-time and I studied for about 3 months for a few hours after work. My test was at 11:30am, and I gotta say I disliked this. I would have preferred the early 8am time slot. The waiting around after a restless night of sleep was not helping me!
The materials I used:
Chads Videos (A must for OC/GC)
Cliff AP Bio (Read this first before going through Feralis)
Feralis Notes (A must)
Dat Destroyer (excellent for OC/GC)
Math Destroyer (Should have used this more...)
DATBootcamp (10/10, a must in my opinion)
Topscore (6/10 good for more exposure, but generally it is harder than the real deal)
CrackDATPAT (5/10, too easy generally)
DatQvault Bio (9/10)
Real DAT Scores: Bio:19, GC: 20, OC: 22, PAT: 22, Reading:18, Math:17
AA:19, TS:20
Bio: My advice would be to REALLY look at Feralis notes. I didn't get a hold of them until 3 weeks out of my test and I was frantically trying to learn the more advance concepts that weren't covered in Cliffs. The questions on the exam are RANDOM. I even had a couple I know that fell outside what Feralis Notes covered. Overall, if you know those notes you should do very well. Sadly I was weak on some areas and it showed! I also invested a lot of time into knowing the names of everything in endocrinology and I only had a couple questions on this. I felt DatQVault bio was good. My scores were generally 19-22 so I was a little disappointed, but what can ya do. It goes to show how random this section can be.
Chem: Chad's videos were really excellent. They had me very well prepared for this section. I was so anxious taking the test that I even set up the equation and solved it by hand before I realized the answer was not solved, but rather written out. DATBootcamp is excellent in having questions like this. Anything you have to "solve" in chem will be simple. Many times in Topscore, questions had you solve things that required a lot of written work. They were good practice, but were overkill at times.
OC: I did well in OC in my undergrad class. This subject makes sense to me and I'm lucky for that. Chads videos are awesome. I neglected knowing the lab techniques (extraction,distillation,etc). This came back to bite me when I had a couple question on this material. Topscore and DatBootcamp were very representative of this.
PAT: After reading reviews about how easy CrackDat was compared to the real thing I was nervous. Turns out the actual section wasn't too bad. Datbootcamp was very similar to this section. Time is a big factor in this section, but I surprisingly finished with 6 minutes left to "redo" angle ranking to find any errors.
-Keyhole: I would use DATBootcamp for this. It is very similar. Crackdat was easier for this section. I approached this section by looking straight at the answers. I would try and find the obvious incorrect choices, then I would compare any answers choices that looked similar but had small differences in sizing.
-Angle: Always my hardest section. The test was very similar to Datbootcamp's angle ranking. I generally went through this section quickly, knowing I wouldn't score as well.
-TFE: I loved this section. I found it to be easy for me. I would just really figure out what makes every answer choice wrong. The test wasn't too bad on this section.
-Cube Counting: Easy section. I drew out a table and counted each block then answered the question. Nothing tricky here.
-Folding: I found that these questions can get tricky at times, but generally it was easy to find what makes a certain answer wrong. I definitely guessed on a few. It contained a lot of colored cubes that were folded.
-Hole punch: This section was EASY. I was surprised. They had some complicated folding pattern, then they would hole punch in a certain spot that was easy to determine the answer. I think Crackdat/bootcamp both have great practice with this.
Reading: UGH. I've always hated English/tests with reading. I dreaded this section. I think Topscore was easier than the real thing because the question on there were always easy to find in the text. Basically word for word. My test generally asked about the authors feeling towards something, with the answer choices reworded from the text. So you had to find the paragraph discussing the question, then read it to understand the answer. I can honestly say I only read 1 of the 3 passages in its entirety. I was lucky, and I guessed on many questions.
Math: My lowest score. I had Math Destroyer, but I was so consumed by my sciences that I neglected it. I skimmed through Chads videos and thought "it won't be too bad". I even did a Topscore test and only missed 7. Datbootcamp was way harder than anything you'll see, but I would emphasize taking those test and UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOU GOT WRONG. I would take a test, get a 19/20 score and think, "I'm good. No need to look back over the wrong answers." This was a dumb strategy. The last math class I took was over 5 years ago, so I really didn't have the exposure to answer many questions. I didn't even feel like the test was that bad, but I must have missed quite a few answers that I thought I got right. I advise all people taking the test in the future to not neglect Math. It can really put a wrinkle on an otherwise decent test score (like mine). As a side note, I could use my calculator with the keyboard. This made for quicker calculations (which apparently didn't help me).
Something I would emphasize to future test takers is to NOT read into the scores you get on practice tests. I would get a very wide range of scores and it was frustrating for me while I studied. I think it's more important to learn from your practice tests, rather than size up your score.
Overall this test wasn't terrible. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but what can you do. I welcome all questions or advice anyone has. I've debated a retake, but I'd rather not do that if I don't have to. Let me know what you all think. My gpa is a 3.7, with my sgpa around a 3.65. I work in a research lab and have a few papers published as a coauthor. 100 hours assisting in a dental office. Thanks!
I found this site VERY helpful when I was studying. I figured, even though I didn't slam dunk the test, that I would provide my prospective. For my background, I'm a year out of undergrad so it has been a long time since I've taken the Bio, Chem, and Ochem classes. I work full-time and I studied for about 3 months for a few hours after work. My test was at 11:30am, and I gotta say I disliked this. I would have preferred the early 8am time slot. The waiting around after a restless night of sleep was not helping me!
The materials I used:
Chads Videos (A must for OC/GC)
Cliff AP Bio (Read this first before going through Feralis)
Feralis Notes (A must)
Dat Destroyer (excellent for OC/GC)
Math Destroyer (Should have used this more...)
DATBootcamp (10/10, a must in my opinion)
Topscore (6/10 good for more exposure, but generally it is harder than the real deal)
CrackDATPAT (5/10, too easy generally)
DatQvault Bio (9/10)
Real DAT Scores: Bio:19, GC: 20, OC: 22, PAT: 22, Reading:18, Math:17
AA:19, TS:20Bio: My advice would be to REALLY look at Feralis notes. I didn't get a hold of them until 3 weeks out of my test and I was frantically trying to learn the more advance concepts that weren't covered in Cliffs. The questions on the exam are RANDOM. I even had a couple I know that fell outside what Feralis Notes covered. Overall, if you know those notes you should do very well. Sadly I was weak on some areas and it showed! I also invested a lot of time into knowing the names of everything in endocrinology and I only had a couple questions on this. I felt DatQVault bio was good. My scores were generally 19-22 so I was a little disappointed, but what can ya do. It goes to show how random this section can be.
Chem: Chad's videos were really excellent. They had me very well prepared for this section. I was so anxious taking the test that I even set up the equation and solved it by hand before I realized the answer was not solved, but rather written out. DATBootcamp is excellent in having questions like this. Anything you have to "solve" in chem will be simple. Many times in Topscore, questions had you solve things that required a lot of written work. They were good practice, but were overkill at times.
OC: I did well in OC in my undergrad class. This subject makes sense to me and I'm lucky for that. Chads videos are awesome. I neglected knowing the lab techniques (extraction,distillation,etc). This came back to bite me when I had a couple question on this material. Topscore and DatBootcamp were very representative of this.
PAT: After reading reviews about how easy CrackDat was compared to the real thing I was nervous. Turns out the actual section wasn't too bad. Datbootcamp was very similar to this section. Time is a big factor in this section, but I surprisingly finished with 6 minutes left to "redo" angle ranking to find any errors.
-Keyhole: I would use DATBootcamp for this. It is very similar. Crackdat was easier for this section. I approached this section by looking straight at the answers. I would try and find the obvious incorrect choices, then I would compare any answers choices that looked similar but had small differences in sizing.
-Angle: Always my hardest section. The test was very similar to Datbootcamp's angle ranking. I generally went through this section quickly, knowing I wouldn't score as well.
-TFE: I loved this section. I found it to be easy for me. I would just really figure out what makes every answer choice wrong. The test wasn't too bad on this section.
-Cube Counting: Easy section. I drew out a table and counted each block then answered the question. Nothing tricky here.
-Folding: I found that these questions can get tricky at times, but generally it was easy to find what makes a certain answer wrong. I definitely guessed on a few. It contained a lot of colored cubes that were folded.
-Hole punch: This section was EASY. I was surprised. They had some complicated folding pattern, then they would hole punch in a certain spot that was easy to determine the answer. I think Crackdat/bootcamp both have great practice with this.
Reading: UGH. I've always hated English/tests with reading. I dreaded this section. I think Topscore was easier than the real thing because the question on there were always easy to find in the text. Basically word for word. My test generally asked about the authors feeling towards something, with the answer choices reworded from the text. So you had to find the paragraph discussing the question, then read it to understand the answer. I can honestly say I only read 1 of the 3 passages in its entirety. I was lucky, and I guessed on many questions.
Math: My lowest score. I had Math Destroyer, but I was so consumed by my sciences that I neglected it. I skimmed through Chads videos and thought "it won't be too bad". I even did a Topscore test and only missed 7. Datbootcamp was way harder than anything you'll see, but I would emphasize taking those test and UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOU GOT WRONG. I would take a test, get a 19/20 score and think, "I'm good. No need to look back over the wrong answers." This was a dumb strategy. The last math class I took was over 5 years ago, so I really didn't have the exposure to answer many questions. I didn't even feel like the test was that bad, but I must have missed quite a few answers that I thought I got right. I advise all people taking the test in the future to not neglect Math. It can really put a wrinkle on an otherwise decent test score (like mine). As a side note, I could use my calculator with the keyboard. This made for quicker calculations (which apparently didn't help me).
Something I would emphasize to future test takers is to NOT read into the scores you get on practice tests. I would get a very wide range of scores and it was frustrating for me while I studied. I think it's more important to learn from your practice tests, rather than size up your score.
Overall this test wasn't terrible. I didn't do as well as I would have liked, but what can you do. I welcome all questions or advice anyone has. I've debated a retake, but I'd rather not do that if I don't have to. Let me know what you all think. My gpa is a 3.7, with my sgpa around a 3.65. I work in a research lab and have a few papers published as a coauthor. 100 hours assisting in a dental office. Thanks!
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