DAT Done! Breakdown AA22/TS22

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mello88

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PAT 21
QR 22
RC 22
BIO 25
GC 21 :(
OC 22 :l

TS 22
AA 22

I took the exam today and so happy that I won't be taking this thing never again in my life.
Well, I wouldn't say that my scores are THAT great, but I'm happy with what I got.
While I was taking the test I was so sure that I would have to retake, so I think I'll just apply
with what I have. At least the scores are evenly distributed......

Non-trad / oGPA 3.6 sGPA 3.5 / Research for 2 years / good amount of medical and dental experiecne

Study period: ~10 weeks (I kind of procrastinated for the first 2 weeks tho...lol)
Materials: DAT destroyer, MATH destroyer, DAT qvault, DAT Bootcamp, CDP, Cliff's AP BIO and Ferali's notes, Chad's video (GChem only)


BIO: I majored in biology and sociology and have been doing research in medicine,
so I had fairly good background in bio/physiology. But the problem was the plants, ecology, and taxonomy which I haven't been exposed to for a long time, probably since my senior year in high school when I took AP biology.
To organize what I know and fill in the gap, I mainly used Cliff's AP biology. Towards the end of my prep, I read Ferali's note I found on DAT Bootcamp website. I assume it was written based on Cliff's, but it was a great when I tried to review and memorize stuffs because the notes are pretty concise and to the point.
I would recommend to definitely spend a good amount of time on memorizing some ecology/taxonomy/plants stuff, because there were around 6-8 questions (can't remember exactly) on the real DAT on those sections.
For physiology and other bio sections, it may be possible to get the right answer via process of elimination, but for those three parts, I think it's either you know it or you get it wrong. And getting ~5 questions right is going to definitely help you score higher.
I personally think it makes a big difference!

GCHEM: As my score reflects, Gchem is my weakest area. I don't know why, but it has been for basically my entire life. It has been almost 5 years since I took the general chemistry course in college. In the beginning of my prep, I thought I could review and
study Gchem on my own, so I bought Examkrackers Gchem (for MCAT but still applicable). But I was wrong! Although I understood the concepts in text, there was definitely a limit because no one was there to explain it explicitly.
When I did the practice questions, I got like 17 and 18. AND I FREAKED OUT.
After searching through some SDN threads, I finally decided to get Chad's video.
It's only 45 dollars, and it's definitely worth the investment. I highly recommend you get this if Gchem is your weaker section. Do all the quizzes there. It has lots of questions categorized by topics. The questions look very similar to DAT in my opinion.
Once I was done watching Chad's video (actually done in 2 days) and finished all the quizzes, my practice score SKYROCKETED.
I started to getting 23 average, once I got like 26 on qvault.
I guess my real score is little lower than that, but still happy about it.

OCHEM: I like organic chemistry, it was one of my favorite among the prereq courses.
I didnt' really do any content review on ochem because I took the course last year (post-bacc) and my memory was relatively fresh.
If I needed to review, I just read through the class notes and mechanism charts I made for the class.

PAT: I was really worried about this section because I had hard time imagining cubes, pattern folding in my head. I HATED angle ranking because there was nothing I could do to improve the score. I mainly used CDP for practice.
In fact, I've never done a full length test on this. I chose one topic (like key hole for example) and practiced that part only for one day. And the next day, I did all the problems on hole punching and so on, until I got used to the thought process for solving PAT problems. First I struggled a lot with every section on PAT.
I got almost half of the problems wrong.

Then I found "My wicked sick PAT tutorial" on SDN, it helped me A LOT with hole punching and TFE. After learning from the thread, my scores on the two sections improved. Personally, I think there's not much you can do for PAT. JUST PRACTICE.
For hole punching, perhaps it's easier at first to draw it step by step, but it takes up a lot of time!!So you are drawing for hole punching, probably it's better you stop it now and start doing it in your head. I liked CDP and I think it was fairly representative of the real test.
A week before the test, I've done some PAT questions on Bootcamp, but I think I did like one set of the test.

RC: I did three sets of practice test and that's about it. I wasn't sure what to do for prep.
English is my second language, so I'm satisfied with my RC score.

QR: I finished 4 sets of MATH destroyer tests. Used nothing for content review.
For QR, make sure you know some conversion factors (inches, ft, yd, meters, kg, celcius to fahrenheit, etc). It's a easy point if you know it.
I didn't know how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit until the day before the exam.
On the last day, it just occurred to me and I looked it up online and made a list of some conversion factors. There were 3 questions of simple conversion on my real test.
One of them was to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit!! Thank God I looked it up yesterday....

QR is the least important section on DAT, so try not to get a perfect score.
Skip the question if it takes more than few seconds to figure out what to do.
I know some people get like 27 on QR, but I don't think a score lower than that would hurt.

Practice Tests: I loved loved love Qvault and Bootcamp. They are both good materials for practice and review, so you should get at least one of them! I finished all tests a week before the exam. Then for the last week, I re-did the problems sorted out by the topics, and reviewed contents according to what I got wrong.
For example, I felt like I needed more practice on Acid and Bases. Both tests have sub-sections under the benchmark tests, so you should definitely utilize it and strengthen your weaker areas. There were a number of problems I repeatedly got wrong. I did another thorough review on those topics.


Qvault
BIO 20/20/20/22/23/22/22/20/20/21
GC 17/ 18/18/21/26/20/22/24/21/22
OC 19/20/20/20/20/19/20/18/19/20
RC 20

Bootcamp
BIO 22/22/ 24/25/ 22
GC 20/18/26/19/ 20
OC 18/19/20/22/23
RC 19/20


ADA 2009
BIO 22 GC 20 OC 20 PAT 19 RC 20 QR 21
(I had to count the number of questions I got wrong, calculated the raw scores
and converted them based on the chart for ADA 2007. So it's probably not so accurate).



I guess my scores are closer to the Bootcamp scores. As you can see, they are not really consistent.

I think both Qvault and Bootcamp have a great number of questions, give you plenty of practice!
If you get wrong on practice test, don't freak out. It's just part of learning process. You just need to take what you got wrong committed to your memory. And this is why I highly recommend you doing practice on sub-sections once you are done with the first round of full tests.
On Qvault, you can save questions as you review the results. Save what you got wrong or questions you kind of guessed. Later, you can do all the saved questions and this is when you can be sure whether you learned from your mistake.

I almost pushed back my DAT the day before. I didn't feel I was ready, and I thought spending another week for studying would make a big difference. But I just wanted to get this thing done and have my life back! I think it was the right choice to not reschedule the test.

I hope this helped a bit, and good luck to you all!
You can kill it! Just keep calm and practice.....

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very curious as to how the TS is figured. I know a guy who got a 23, 21,21 on Bio/Gchem/orgo and still got a 22TS and yours are better but still a 22.
 
very curious as to how the TS is figured. I know a guy who got a 23, 21,21 on Bio/Gchem/orgo and still got a 22TS and yours are better but still a 22.


last i remember, TS is calcualted by how many you got right out of 100 questions, not by averaging 3 sub scores.
 
very curious as to how the TS is figured. I know a guy who got a 23, 21,21 on Bio/Gchem/orgo and still got a 22TS and yours are better but still a 22.

Those are the same scores as me and I got a 22 TS. I was surprised, but I'll take it =)
 
Thanks all!
And in regards to TS score, that's interesting. I know it's not an average of the three scores.
I'm sure that they have their own way to calculate the score!
I'll take whatever they give as long as I don't need to retake :nono:
 
How was the orgo section? Was it more simple reactions?

I would say I was lucky to get lots of simple reaction questions. When I was doing practice tests, I found myself really confused sometimes with the acids/bases questions, or questions that give you atypical reactants. For the real one, I could immediately figure out what reaction it was referring to. So yes, for me, but I'm not sure it would apply to others versions.
 
I guess cliffs, crack dat pat, and destroyer helped!!!

Thanks! Indeed there are so many better scores on SDN, and I can't help comparing my scores to theirs.
But I'm still happy with what I got!
And yes, I used those three materials when I first started studying, and I think it helped laying out the background.
 
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