- Joined
- Jul 27, 2007
- Messages
- 49
- Reaction score
- 0
So I will first start this post off with a warning - please do not take what I say about the DAT to heart. From what I noticed, I read many of the posts of other SDN users about their experience and sort of assumed what would show up on my exam and it was not what I had anticipated. There are so many versions of the exam and there are just too many questions to determine what would show up for your particular test. I will however post how I felt for the hell of it. 
And extend a THANK YOU to all those who helped me during the studying period.
PAT 19
QR 19
RC 18
BIO 18
GC 23
OC 22
TS 21
AA 20
Preparation - I studied for about 3 weeks and got sick some time in between. I went through the Kaplan book once, Destroyer and did Topscore tests timed. I did the Achiever questions not timed. When there were concepts I didn't understand I went to my textbooks - which was mainly my first year biology text since that was what I didn't know much about. I am a Biochemistry major so the Chemistrys were my strengths hence I spent more time on Biology considering I haven't taken a lot of the courses such as Human Physiology, Ecology, Evolution, etc. I will have to add - if you are planning to take the DAT's take classes during the year that will help you cause a lot of the questions I got I had to turn to my knowledge from my past courses such as, Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, General Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Metabolism, etc.
PAT - Well I have to say, the angle discrimination was realllllyy hard. As in they all looked the same. I basically skipped through this section and gambled on getting close to perfect on the other sections. All the other sections were quite fair - except I had one question in the Top/Front/End that I swear none of the answers worked. They must have messed up the lines or something cause according to all the answer - they had to be dotted not solid. I got a very good percentile but only got 19 so I'm sort of upset about that. A lot of ppl must have done amazing in this section.
QR - The questions are quite easy it's a matter of finishing the exam. Time is my enemy for this section.
RC - Mostly factual, maybe 5 tone questions. I was never good at reading composition and don't really know how to improve so 18 is not bad for me.
BIO - Oh god, this section was brutally hard. All that studying I did this past 3 weeks did nothing for me in this section. Destroyer didn't help me. I actually do not know what I could have done to do better in this section. Maybe read my first year Biology textbook front to back? Which I refuse to do cause I am sort of lazy haha. There were many questions I marked and didn't even know what some of the terms were. I took what I knew and did process of elimination and narrowed it down to maybe 2-3 choices. From there if C was an option I picked it and if not I did a little inny-meeny-miney-mo
.
GC/OC - Both sections were very easy in my opinion. According to my percentile I got 1 wrong in GC and 2 wrong in OC and my standardized score doesn't seem to portray that in my opinion haha. That's what you get with a stupid bell curve. I guess everyone else who took that test thought it was easy too? Destoyer or Kaplan is more than enough for preparing for this section. Actually the GC section had a weird beta decay question that didn't make sense cause of how it was typed into the test. And the OC had a question that I swear none of the answered worked. It was an NMR with 5 peaks and all the answers should have had more than 5 peaks and yes I checked for symmetry. I think they added an extra line by accident or something.
And extend a THANK YOU to all those who helped me during the studying period. PAT 19
QR 19
RC 18
BIO 18
GC 23
OC 22
TS 21
AA 20
Preparation - I studied for about 3 weeks and got sick some time in between. I went through the Kaplan book once, Destroyer and did Topscore tests timed. I did the Achiever questions not timed. When there were concepts I didn't understand I went to my textbooks - which was mainly my first year biology text since that was what I didn't know much about. I am a Biochemistry major so the Chemistrys were my strengths hence I spent more time on Biology considering I haven't taken a lot of the courses such as Human Physiology, Ecology, Evolution, etc. I will have to add - if you are planning to take the DAT's take classes during the year that will help you cause a lot of the questions I got I had to turn to my knowledge from my past courses such as, Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, General Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Metabolism, etc.
PAT - Well I have to say, the angle discrimination was realllllyy hard. As in they all looked the same. I basically skipped through this section and gambled on getting close to perfect on the other sections. All the other sections were quite fair - except I had one question in the Top/Front/End that I swear none of the answers worked. They must have messed up the lines or something cause according to all the answer - they had to be dotted not solid. I got a very good percentile but only got 19 so I'm sort of upset about that. A lot of ppl must have done amazing in this section.
QR - The questions are quite easy it's a matter of finishing the exam. Time is my enemy for this section.
RC - Mostly factual, maybe 5 tone questions. I was never good at reading composition and don't really know how to improve so 18 is not bad for me.
BIO - Oh god, this section was brutally hard. All that studying I did this past 3 weeks did nothing for me in this section. Destroyer didn't help me. I actually do not know what I could have done to do better in this section. Maybe read my first year Biology textbook front to back? Which I refuse to do cause I am sort of lazy haha. There were many questions I marked and didn't even know what some of the terms were. I took what I knew and did process of elimination and narrowed it down to maybe 2-3 choices. From there if C was an option I picked it and if not I did a little inny-meeny-miney-mo
. GC/OC - Both sections were very easy in my opinion. According to my percentile I got 1 wrong in GC and 2 wrong in OC and my standardized score doesn't seem to portray that in my opinion haha. That's what you get with a stupid bell curve. I guess everyone else who took that test thought it was easy too? Destoyer or Kaplan is more than enough for preparing for this section. Actually the GC section had a weird beta decay question that didn't make sense cause of how it was typed into the test. And the OC had a question that I swear none of the answered worked. It was an NMR with 5 peaks and all the answers should have had more than 5 peaks and yes I checked for symmetry. I think they added an extra line by accident or something.
