DAT breakdown 6/27

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pdm84

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scores:

PAT: 20
QR: 18 :(
RC: 25
Bio: 20
GC: 22
OC: 21
TS: 21
AA: 21



Materials Used:
Bio: Kaplan Blue Book, Cliffs AP Biology
GC: Kaplan blue book, Chad's videos/notes, DAT Destroyer
OC: Kaplan blue book, Chad's videos/notes, DAT Destroyer
QR: Math Destroyer, Kaplan Blue Book.. (very little, obviously)
PAT: Crack DAT PAT

Did 3 TopScore tests. Felt like they were a pretty good indicator of the overall toughness of the real thing.

Overall studied over a span of 8 weeks up until the test, with two weeks off in the middle, for a total of 6 weeks put in the books. I did an abbreviated plan of dentalWorks 8 week program, and really liked its structure, but kind of strayed away from it after about 4 weeks and just worked on the areas I was struggling in, which were mainly the Chems.

BIO: Went through Kaplan blue book and Cliffs Bio reading each chapter twice. Took my own notes on cliffs and tried my best to memorize those; printed off alan's notes on *********** and used those as I went through the blue book, while I took my own notes on top of those. Biology is so random the better idea you have of the big picture the better. I felt like I did 10 times worse on the real bio than I had on topscore, but my score somehow turned out better.

GC and OC: I realized about 3 weeks from the test that I simply didn't know these subjects, had forgotten all the little stuff from taking the classes 2-3 years ago. At this point I had only watched Chad's videos and taken notes on them, but didn't really work problems. I just kinda blitzed through the videos, which was a rookie mistake. So i took a step back, when through kaplan's chem chapters, and then started going section by section memorizing chad's notes and working tons of Destroyer problems.

QR: Overall pretty disappointed with this, but it is what it is I guess. It's my fault because I probably spent 6-7 hours studying for this total; just kinda ran out of time focusing on the sciences. Here timing is the main thing. Got caught up on a couple problems and it costed me.

RC: Didn't do anything for this other than the TopScore practice tests. My strategy was just to read the first 4-5 questions and start searching for key words and find those answers. Also just read the first sentences of the paragraphs as they generally give a good idea of what you'll find in them.

**Now I must ask for all of you experts out there.. what do you think my chances are at getting into schools? Any other thoughts or questions? I'll try and help if I can, but I doubt I'm the best person to ask...

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Great job! I'm no expert, but with a 20 PAT, 21 AA, and 21 TS I think you're pretty set for getting a good number of interviews! That 18 isn't bad at all, especially because I've heard QR is the least important of all.
 
Definitely solid scores! Congrats!! You'll get interviews for sure! Great breakdown! What were your Topscore scores like?
 
Nice solid scores. Congratulations.

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TailorMade: Thanks for the kind words! We shall see what happens. Yeah I've heard the same about QR but still a little bummed ha
 
Miley13: Thanks thanks! Umm my TopScore scores were:
Test 1-- AA-17; BIO-17; GC-15, OC-14, PAT-18, QR-18, RC-22, TS-16
Test 2-- AA-19, BIO-18, GC-17, OC-17, PAT-20, QR-19, RC-25, TS-18
Test 3--(science only)-- BIO- 18, GC-18, OC-21, TS-19.

*If anything these scores just go to show you you can do it! Ha a little memorization goes a long way... I believe I took that first topscore test about 3 weeks before my test and made 15 and 14 in chems, then went to work.
 
RC: Didn't do anything for this other than the TopScore practice tests. My strategy was just to read the first 4-5 questions and start searching for key words and find those answers. Also just read the first sentences of the paragraphs as they generally give a good idea of what you'll find in them.

Did this method work for you for all the passages? Would you recommend reading all questions for key words and then start reading and answering questions as you go? When searching for key words, did you only read the entire paragraph if you felt like it had and answer to one of the questions? ie.. skipped the paragraph if it probably didnt have the answer to the first 5 questions..

PS. great scores. congrats on being done! :)
 
Did this method work for you for all the passages? Would you recommend reading all questions for key words and then start reading and answering questions as you go? When searching for key words, did you only read the entire paragraph if you felt like it had and answer to one of the questions? ie.. skipped the paragraph if it probably didnt have the answer to the first 5 questions..

PS. great scores. congrats on being done! :)


Hamptongirl: I'd say the main thing with the RC is just practice and find something that works best for you. It differs for a lot of the people I've talked to. With that being said, yes I pretty much did this for all my passages; no I probably wouldnt read all the questions before searching for answers, mainly because that's just a lot to try and think about, but that's just me; and yes I pretty much would just scan for words that had something to do with the question I was searching for, by reading the topic sentence of the paragaph, scanning for key words, etc. You can do it!! Just takes a little practice.
 
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