DAT Score and breakdown

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MaHahRaji

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PAT-22
QR-18
RC- 19
BIO- 18
GC- 17
OC- 16
TS- 17
AA- 18

Well I just got home from the DAT, and I am a little disappointed. The biggest issue I ran into was time... My OCHEM score suffered because I spent too much time deliberating on BIO and GEN CHEM. I ran out of time when it came to OCHEM, and had to guess on the final 5 or so questions. Also ran out of time on QR, but on most of my practice tests that seemed to happen so I wasn't too surprised. PAT never seemed to give me that much trouble. I have always struggled with reading and was happy with a 19. I felt like I did better than an 18 BIO and I wish I would have done better of offset my low chem scores in my TS score.

I used DAT BOOTCAMP, DAT DESTOYER and MATH DESTROYER, Coursesaver, Cliffs AP Bio, 2007 and 2009 Practice Tests. Ari's guide to DAT dominance.

Overall good materials, I didn't particularly like Destroyer and seemed much more difficult than the real DAT so over practicing problems that aren't very similar to the actual DAT seemed like a waste of time to me. I still worked through all of the problems twice and it just didn't seem very helpful. Bootcamp is great and so is course saver, I would highly recommend those. I would have liked to have more realistic complete practice test to really get my timing down and a larger breadth of question formats. I think my biggest weakness was not enough practice questions and overall practice tests. Maybe a little test anxiety too...

My GPA is fairly low (3.31) as well so I am planning on retaking the DAT. I plan on applying with these scores and GPA anyway to see if I can get some interviews. Does anyone have any advice or encouragement for a bummed out aspiring dentist? Thanks.

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Apply, but let the schools know you plan to retake. Taking the test again in late July is still fine and you should really try for a 20+ since your GPA is a bit low.

You may not like Destroyer, but it's probably right near the top of best resources to use, along with Chad's videos. While it may seem like overkill, knowing the details in Destroyer and other resources is what makes the difference between a 17 and 20+.

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Thanks for the info, I really appreciate it. Do you know of any good full length practice test resources?
 
PAT-22
Overall good materials, I didn't particularly like Destroyer and seemed much more difficult than the real DAT so over practicing problems that aren't very similar to the actual DAT seemed like a waste of time to me. I still worked through all of the problems twice and it just didn't seem very helpful. Bootcamp is great and so is course saver, I would highly recommend those. I would have liked to have more realistic complete practice test to really get my timing down and a larger breadth of question formats. I think my biggest weakness was not enough practice questions and overall practice tests. Maybe a little test anxiety too...

Maybe the reason for your low TS score was because you thought the destroyer was a waste of time. There is a reason everyone uses it and the difficulty is what helps you understand the concepts.
 
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When you say you used these materials, how much did you actually go through each one? All the tests or just a few? All of chad's quizzes? etc?
 
Practicing problems that are difficult os what makes you better. I know some Kaplan, Destroyer and CrackDAT problems are tough. However, you never know what you will get on the actual DAT exam. People who stayed with the tough problems got great scores. You just needed a bit more effort and patience to step through the difficult ptoblems.
 
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I doubt more practise tests will fix the problem. Since you said you are doubting yourself, you need to go through some concepts again and make sure you knkw them well.
 
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Also, any advice for QR? Anything you wish you would of went over?
The biggest piece of advice I can give is that if you don't know it immediately, mark it and skip it. If it takes time to think how to solve it, then it could cost you valuable time on questions that are much easier at the end. Focus on speed, then once you get to the end go back to the ones that you marked and try to work those as fast as you can. Lots of conversions which can be done quick, know temperature conversion, rate problems, and trig functions can save you tons of time if memorized and well as unit circle and being quick with sin, cos, tan conversions.
 
The biggest piece of advice I can give is that if you don't know it immediately, mark it and skip it. If it takes time to think how to solve it, then it could cost you valuable time on questions that are much easier at the end. Focus on speed, then once you get to the end go back to the ones that you marked and try to work those as fast as you can. Lots of conversions which can be done quick, know temperature conversion, rate problems, and trig functions can save you tons of time if memorized as well as unit circle and being quick with sin, cos, tan conversions.
*also be sure to work on your speed with algebra and simplification because these can easily eat up a ton of your time without you noticing. They can seem so simple to solve that it would be ridiculous for you to skip but remember time is very important in this section. Inequalities and absolute value, area, volume, and SA for all common 3D shapes. pretty much everything you think will be on there will. This section doesn't have many surprises.
 
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