teethandthings123
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DAT Breakdown
Hey everyone! I took my DAT recently, and I was very excited about writing a breakdown because the others that I have read on here helped me so much.
Scores:
PAT - 17
QR - 26
RC - 22
Bio - 23
GC - 22
OC - 20
TS - 22
AA - 23
Background:
Currently a junior Biology major with a 3.77 GPA.
Materials Used:
listed in order of preference
DAT Booster: This program is the most representative of the actual DAT exam, and it is also the most cost-friendly. I got this program very last minute, so I initially used other resources to study the material, but I do believe that I would not have done as well had I not used them. I did all of their practice exams for the QR, GC, OC, and Bio section, and I went over them a few times as well. I did some of the extra practice exams for RC, which were also helpful. I believe going over them and reviewing what you got wrong is key, as it is important to understand what topics you struggle the most with in order to improve on those skills. I have also heard that their PAT section is one of the best resources to study, but admittedly I barely studied for this section.
I technically started studying on May 22 of this year and took the exam on September 12. That would equate to three – almost four – months of studying, but I was slacking for practically all of June and half of July. I didn’t start to study seriously until August 15. Prior to that time, my idea of “studying” was catching up on videos made by Orgoman and doing the practice problems in them for one or two hours a day. In July, I started to catch up with work and did problems in the Destroyer books based on the topics that I was learning, but I was still studying an average of 1 to 3 hours a day. At some point in July, I purchased PAT Booster, but I barely used it. On some random days when I got a burst of motivation, I would study a little bit more, and these days definitely helped keep me more up to speed, but I still wasn’t putting in the work that I needed to.
On August 15, I started to get stressed that I had not been putting in sufficient work, so I began averaging 5 hours a day or more from this point on. I had always seen online that this exam requires 5 hours of studying a day for 3 months, so I was feeling worried that I had put in such minimal work about three/four weeks before my exam. I made a goal of getting to 150 more hours of studying before the exam date, and between this date and my exam, I ended up studying a total of 156 hours. At first, I was just doing a bunch of problems from the Destroyer with the topics that I struggled with, but I realized it wouldn’t be enough, and I needed to review something that was more representative of the actual exam, which is when I got Booster (for reference, I purchased Booster on August 20, and then I used this resource almost exclusively, with the exception of the Biology Dynamite book). I went through all of the practice exams, reviewed, and repeated this practically everyday. I’ll talk more about what I did for each subject in the breakdown below. Overall, I would say the work put in a month/3 weeks before my exam made all of the difference, and had I slacked during this period I most definitely would not have gotten to the score I needed.
On Exam Day:
PAT (17): I wish I could give better advice on this section, but I barely tried when studying. After finishing this section, I was pretty happy to get a 17 and not a 15 like I thought I would get. I still think the PAT section in the DAT Booster is one of the most representative around, but I didn’t take advantage of this resource. I took three practice exams in total, and I scored a 17, 20, and 18 respectively. When I scored the 20, I guessed entirely on TFE and keyholes because these were my weakest sections, which is when I decided that I would stop studying these sections and improve my other skills instead. I was usually good at hole-punching and angle ranking, but on the day of the exam, I didn’t feel good about any of the sections, and the hold punching threw me in for a loop. Overall, I would suggest studying early on for this section.
Bio (23): Though I had started studying Biology heavily only a few weeks before my exam, I felt that the combination of Anki and Booster (and maybe a little bit of DAT Destroyer) had prepared me for this portion of the exam. When I went through the questions the first time around, I think I must have been stressed because I had to mark so many, but when I went back, all of the questions were very straightforward, and I was familiar with the concept behind practically all of them. Anki was the most useful for this section, especially with the deck I made from the questions I answered incorrectly on Booster. I would read about the topics I got wrong in the Dynamite Biology book (for example, if I got a question wrong about the muscle cells, I read the entire chapter in the Biology Dynamite about that topic and added that information to an Anki deck that was specifically for topics I struggled in). I reviewed these everyday, and I kept going back to the same practice tests on Booster to make sure I understood each of them, and I would even re-do them. I will admit that I didn’t do the practice tests the way that I should have because I finished all of them so early on in my studying before I knew the topics, so I was initially getting scores between 15–18. Still, I kept studying the answers that I got wrong, reading more about the topics that were unfamiliar to me, and continually studying and making Anki cards. Three weeks before my exam, this was the topic that I was most worried about, and it ended up being my highest score in all of the Sciences section, so this method certainly worked for me.
GC (22): Compared to the practice questions, General Chemistry was easier than I imagined. The calculations were straightforward, and the conceptual questions weren’t that difficult. The ones that I got incorrect were because I had forgotten the information, but it was familiar to me, meaning I could have gotten it right if I had just reviewed a little bit more. Once again, I crunched so much of the information in so little time that it was expected for me to forget some information. Early in the summer, I did practice problems in DAT Destroyer for GC, but I did not feel like I really knew the material, especially when it came to taking the practice exams on Booster. Like Biology, I did not properly do these practice exams because I did most of them so early in my studying (like 3/4 weeks before), so my scores were between 18–19, with a 20 here and there. Still, I kept at it, and I practiced all of the problems that I got wrong multiple times in order to fully understand the concepts. While the Booster questions were definitely harder than the exam, you will be in good shape if you are able to complete their practice exam questions. If I had started taking my studying more seriously earlier, I probably could have gotten a higher score.
OC (20): This was not my best section. I felt like some of the questions were genuinely difficult. I felt most confident about this science section going in because I had just completed two semesters of Organic Chemistry, and it was always my highest score in the practice tests compared to the other sciences. Stability and acidity are important to know based from my memory. 1 H NMR also came up twice for me. Knowing the reactions is also important, and I know there are Anki decks available online that are really useful. Two of the questions regarding reactions that appeared on my exam were on the more difficult side, so I wish I did more in-depth studying regarding the reactions.
RC (22): I always scored high on my practice tests with reading, so this score was actually lower than I expected. I would read articles from the “Extra Practice Tests Section” on Booster, which is a 20 minute practice test with 16 questions based on one passage onlh. My scores were typically between 24–30, but if there was a passage that was more difficult for me to understand, I would score around the 22 mark, which is exactly what I got (I would say that means the Booster exams are representative of the types of passages you may have to read). When practicing, I always just read the whole passage and answered the questions, marking the ones that were more difficult and going back toward the end. On the actual exam day, I tried this method for the first passage, which was difficult for me to understand, and it ended up taking so much time and not making sense to me anyway. For the next two passages, I used the search and destroy method because of how straight-forward the questions were. I think my score is most definitely lower from the first passage because the other two were fairly simple. I still don’t think there is a better way to study other than just reading passages every day, especially if reading is your weaker subject) because you never know what passage you are going to get.
QC (26): The actual exam questions were a breeze compared to Booster. Originally, I used Math Destroyer, but Booster was a far better resource in my opinion. I would go through the practice tests, look at the questions I got wrong and did them myself to make sure I understood, and then moved onto another practice exam. On my practice exams, my score never went above a 23, so I was pleasantly surprised with what I got. I do have a good background in Math, but just ten days before my exam, I was scoring an 18 on the practice tests, and I was feeling nervous that I wouldn’t be able to learn the information in time. With each practice test, though, I was learning more and more about the style of problems, and I was seeing more improvement in such little time. QR is essentially the same type of questions repeated over and over again, so as long as you learn the style of questions, you will be fine on the exam.
Reflection:
The entire summer, I felt like I was doing inadequate studying because I was studying on average 2 hours a day. It was only in mid-August that I began to take this exam as seriously as I did, and I would not have been able to achieve this score otherwise. However, I also learned the importance of studying efficiently. If you set certain goals for what you would like to complete in a given day, and you are able to do them in four hours, that is still a productive day! Studying eight or nine hours is also not efficient if you were unable to get through reviewing most or all of the sections you wanted. Do not feel bad if your study schedule does not match that of other students on here working upwards of 7 hours a day – just make sure to find a study method that actually works for you. Some of the materials that I swear by may be exactly what another student hated (Anki, for example, which I love but I heard other people describe it as not useful).
Another tip: I would record the number of hours worked. I would get distracted during my studying, and I kept wishing there was a way that I could actually “clock” in my hours to hold me accountable. That’s when I started to use the stopwatch on the Clock app, and whenever I was not studying and was distracted, I would press stop. This method really held me accountable because there were days that I felt like I had been studying for so long, and only an hour had passed.
Also, don’t be discouraged by low scores! Instead, you should work to understand the concept fully behind wrong answers, and this will lead to improvement in the next tests you take. While I would not say I organized myself regarding practice exams well (I took them all too close together), I still made sure to look at the material I got wrong and re-did it until I fully understand.
Finally, this may be obvious to many, but I will share anyway in case it is helpful to even one person: be careful with your name. I have two last names technically, and while I never use both on any documents, it is required when making a DENTPIN, just as it would be when booking an airplane ticket. I stupidly showed up for my exam, and I could not take it, so I had to reschedule it for five days later. Learn from my mistakes.
Hey everyone! I took my DAT recently, and I was very excited about writing a breakdown because the others that I have read on here helped me so much.
Scores:
PAT - 17
QR - 26
RC - 22
Bio - 23
GC - 22
OC - 20
TS - 22
AA - 23
Background:
Currently a junior Biology major with a 3.77 GPA.
Materials Used:
listed in order of preference
DAT Booster: This program is the most representative of the actual DAT exam, and it is also the most cost-friendly. I got this program very last minute, so I initially used other resources to study the material, but I do believe that I would not have done as well had I not used them. I did all of their practice exams for the QR, GC, OC, and Bio section, and I went over them a few times as well. I did some of the extra practice exams for RC, which were also helpful. I believe going over them and reviewing what you got wrong is key, as it is important to understand what topics you struggle the most with in order to improve on those skills. I have also heard that their PAT section is one of the best resources to study, but admittedly I barely studied for this section.
- Anki: I started to study Biology later than I should have. However, I was able to learn most of the topics in three weeks because of Anki. I made decks out of the Booster problems that I got wrong, and I would also read more information about the topics that I got wrong and made an individual deck just for them. These two decks in combination definitely helped me perform well on this exam in the Biology section specifically. I used it for GC and OC, but they were not as useful as these subjects require practice more than memorization, unless it is for memorizing the reactions in OC.
- Dynamite Biology Review: This proved to be a great resource in solidifying my studying for Biology. Because I got Booster late, I didn’t really know about the Feralis Booster notes, so I used this resource instead, and it was very useful, way more than the other Orgoman books. It breaks down the Biology information in a very easy-to-understand way. I have also heard good things about the Feralis Booster notes, so I would say that either resource should work well, but you have to put in the effort regardless.
- Math Destroyer/DAT Destroyer: I would say these books are not really worth it for the average person. I have seen many successes with them, and I was under the impression that I needed to use them in order to do well, but that was not the case as I found success elsewhere. The Orgoman products are known to be “overkill,” and while studying properly with these resources can definitely guarantee a higher score, I think there are now more representative (and cheaper) resources on the market that can take you a long way.
I technically started studying on May 22 of this year and took the exam on September 12. That would equate to three – almost four – months of studying, but I was slacking for practically all of June and half of July. I didn’t start to study seriously until August 15. Prior to that time, my idea of “studying” was catching up on videos made by Orgoman and doing the practice problems in them for one or two hours a day. In July, I started to catch up with work and did problems in the Destroyer books based on the topics that I was learning, but I was still studying an average of 1 to 3 hours a day. At some point in July, I purchased PAT Booster, but I barely used it. On some random days when I got a burst of motivation, I would study a little bit more, and these days definitely helped keep me more up to speed, but I still wasn’t putting in the work that I needed to.
On August 15, I started to get stressed that I had not been putting in sufficient work, so I began averaging 5 hours a day or more from this point on. I had always seen online that this exam requires 5 hours of studying a day for 3 months, so I was feeling worried that I had put in such minimal work about three/four weeks before my exam. I made a goal of getting to 150 more hours of studying before the exam date, and between this date and my exam, I ended up studying a total of 156 hours. At first, I was just doing a bunch of problems from the Destroyer with the topics that I struggled with, but I realized it wouldn’t be enough, and I needed to review something that was more representative of the actual exam, which is when I got Booster (for reference, I purchased Booster on August 20, and then I used this resource almost exclusively, with the exception of the Biology Dynamite book). I went through all of the practice exams, reviewed, and repeated this practically everyday. I’ll talk more about what I did for each subject in the breakdown below. Overall, I would say the work put in a month/3 weeks before my exam made all of the difference, and had I slacked during this period I most definitely would not have gotten to the score I needed.
On Exam Day:
PAT (17): I wish I could give better advice on this section, but I barely tried when studying. After finishing this section, I was pretty happy to get a 17 and not a 15 like I thought I would get. I still think the PAT section in the DAT Booster is one of the most representative around, but I didn’t take advantage of this resource. I took three practice exams in total, and I scored a 17, 20, and 18 respectively. When I scored the 20, I guessed entirely on TFE and keyholes because these were my weakest sections, which is when I decided that I would stop studying these sections and improve my other skills instead. I was usually good at hole-punching and angle ranking, but on the day of the exam, I didn’t feel good about any of the sections, and the hold punching threw me in for a loop. Overall, I would suggest studying early on for this section.
Bio (23): Though I had started studying Biology heavily only a few weeks before my exam, I felt that the combination of Anki and Booster (and maybe a little bit of DAT Destroyer) had prepared me for this portion of the exam. When I went through the questions the first time around, I think I must have been stressed because I had to mark so many, but when I went back, all of the questions were very straightforward, and I was familiar with the concept behind practically all of them. Anki was the most useful for this section, especially with the deck I made from the questions I answered incorrectly on Booster. I would read about the topics I got wrong in the Dynamite Biology book (for example, if I got a question wrong about the muscle cells, I read the entire chapter in the Biology Dynamite about that topic and added that information to an Anki deck that was specifically for topics I struggled in). I reviewed these everyday, and I kept going back to the same practice tests on Booster to make sure I understood each of them, and I would even re-do them. I will admit that I didn’t do the practice tests the way that I should have because I finished all of them so early on in my studying before I knew the topics, so I was initially getting scores between 15–18. Still, I kept studying the answers that I got wrong, reading more about the topics that were unfamiliar to me, and continually studying and making Anki cards. Three weeks before my exam, this was the topic that I was most worried about, and it ended up being my highest score in all of the Sciences section, so this method certainly worked for me.
GC (22): Compared to the practice questions, General Chemistry was easier than I imagined. The calculations were straightforward, and the conceptual questions weren’t that difficult. The ones that I got incorrect were because I had forgotten the information, but it was familiar to me, meaning I could have gotten it right if I had just reviewed a little bit more. Once again, I crunched so much of the information in so little time that it was expected for me to forget some information. Early in the summer, I did practice problems in DAT Destroyer for GC, but I did not feel like I really knew the material, especially when it came to taking the practice exams on Booster. Like Biology, I did not properly do these practice exams because I did most of them so early in my studying (like 3/4 weeks before), so my scores were between 18–19, with a 20 here and there. Still, I kept at it, and I practiced all of the problems that I got wrong multiple times in order to fully understand the concepts. While the Booster questions were definitely harder than the exam, you will be in good shape if you are able to complete their practice exam questions. If I had started taking my studying more seriously earlier, I probably could have gotten a higher score.
OC (20): This was not my best section. I felt like some of the questions were genuinely difficult. I felt most confident about this science section going in because I had just completed two semesters of Organic Chemistry, and it was always my highest score in the practice tests compared to the other sciences. Stability and acidity are important to know based from my memory. 1 H NMR also came up twice for me. Knowing the reactions is also important, and I know there are Anki decks available online that are really useful. Two of the questions regarding reactions that appeared on my exam were on the more difficult side, so I wish I did more in-depth studying regarding the reactions.
RC (22): I always scored high on my practice tests with reading, so this score was actually lower than I expected. I would read articles from the “Extra Practice Tests Section” on Booster, which is a 20 minute practice test with 16 questions based on one passage onlh. My scores were typically between 24–30, but if there was a passage that was more difficult for me to understand, I would score around the 22 mark, which is exactly what I got (I would say that means the Booster exams are representative of the types of passages you may have to read). When practicing, I always just read the whole passage and answered the questions, marking the ones that were more difficult and going back toward the end. On the actual exam day, I tried this method for the first passage, which was difficult for me to understand, and it ended up taking so much time and not making sense to me anyway. For the next two passages, I used the search and destroy method because of how straight-forward the questions were. I think my score is most definitely lower from the first passage because the other two were fairly simple. I still don’t think there is a better way to study other than just reading passages every day, especially if reading is your weaker subject) because you never know what passage you are going to get.
QC (26): The actual exam questions were a breeze compared to Booster. Originally, I used Math Destroyer, but Booster was a far better resource in my opinion. I would go through the practice tests, look at the questions I got wrong and did them myself to make sure I understood, and then moved onto another practice exam. On my practice exams, my score never went above a 23, so I was pleasantly surprised with what I got. I do have a good background in Math, but just ten days before my exam, I was scoring an 18 on the practice tests, and I was feeling nervous that I wouldn’t be able to learn the information in time. With each practice test, though, I was learning more and more about the style of problems, and I was seeing more improvement in such little time. QR is essentially the same type of questions repeated over and over again, so as long as you learn the style of questions, you will be fine on the exam.
Reflection:
The entire summer, I felt like I was doing inadequate studying because I was studying on average 2 hours a day. It was only in mid-August that I began to take this exam as seriously as I did, and I would not have been able to achieve this score otherwise. However, I also learned the importance of studying efficiently. If you set certain goals for what you would like to complete in a given day, and you are able to do them in four hours, that is still a productive day! Studying eight or nine hours is also not efficient if you were unable to get through reviewing most or all of the sections you wanted. Do not feel bad if your study schedule does not match that of other students on here working upwards of 7 hours a day – just make sure to find a study method that actually works for you. Some of the materials that I swear by may be exactly what another student hated (Anki, for example, which I love but I heard other people describe it as not useful).
Another tip: I would record the number of hours worked. I would get distracted during my studying, and I kept wishing there was a way that I could actually “clock” in my hours to hold me accountable. That’s when I started to use the stopwatch on the Clock app, and whenever I was not studying and was distracted, I would press stop. This method really held me accountable because there were days that I felt like I had been studying for so long, and only an hour had passed.
Also, don’t be discouraged by low scores! Instead, you should work to understand the concept fully behind wrong answers, and this will lead to improvement in the next tests you take. While I would not say I organized myself regarding practice exams well (I took them all too close together), I still made sure to look at the material I got wrong and re-did it until I fully understand.
Finally, this may be obvious to many, but I will share anyway in case it is helpful to even one person: be careful with your name. I have two last names technically, and while I never use both on any documents, it is required when making a DENTPIN, just as it would be when booking an airplane ticket. I stupidly showed up for my exam, and I could not take it, so I had to reschedule it for five days later. Learn from my mistakes.
