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Hi Everyone,
Just got back from my DAT. THe "post DAT" write ups helped me get my bearing on where I was so I thought I'd write one as well. I had the "piano" DAT (I guess people know this one?) Here are my scores:
PAT: 23
QR: 21
RC: 23
Bio: 24
GC: 24
OC: 22
TS: 23
AA: 23
Here are my impressions of each:
Overall: The questions were easy to understand and were not meant to trick you. Mixture of difficulty ranging from basic to obscure.
PAT: Keyholes, not too difficult. Most are very obvious which way they are trying to put the object through. Angles: Definitely a bit tricky. Harder than Kaplan for sure. Hole Punching: Way harder than Kaplan. Check out achiever for some practice. TFE: Not too bad, easier than achiever, harder than kaplan. Folding: About equal in difficulty to Kaplan. One more thing: you can't put your finger on the screen BUT I asked if I could hold up my dry erase sheet and the guy said "sure." Not positive if that's standard procedure but it might help with keyholes.
QR: Time consuming. Not a lot of tricky computations per se but some relatively tricky word problems. Kaplan focuses too much on computation but is relatively good practice for making sure you speed through it.
RC: Main thing I noticed here is the dry erase pen is horrible, you can't really take notes on the passage. So I ditched the idea of a passage map and just went straight to the questions, reading through the passage as I went. There are more inferrence / overall tone / why did the the author include this type questions than on practice tests.
Bio: Some very straightforward stuff, some pretty out there stuff. I'd suggest knowing the Kaplan book + reading over your intro bio book a few times on the hopes of remembering obscure questions. I didn't use Cliffs but maybe that's a good help as well? I did better than expected on this section.
GC: WAY less computations than Kaplan. Most answer choices aren't actually computed out. Pretty standard array of questions.
OC: Some basic, some kinda obscure stuff. IR question I didn't know. Know your reactions of course. There wasn't any really weird naming.
Practice Tests:
Achiever 1:
PAT: 20
QR: 23
RC: 22
Bio: 19
GC: 21
OC: 19
Achiever 2:
PAT: 21
QR: 21
RC: 23
Bio: 16
GC: 18
OC: 18
Achiever 3:
Bio: 16
GC: 20
OC: 19
Notes on Achiever: The sciences are obviously way harder, especially bio. On the real test you don't have almost every question be those ridiculous I,II,III,IV type questions that are multiple questions in one. The PAT is challenging on achiever but is drawn well.
Topscore 1:
Bio: 21
GC: 19
OC: 17
PAT: 23
Topscore 2:
Bio: 21
GC: 20
OC: 18
Topscore 3:
Bio: 21
GC: 21
OC: 25
PAT: 23
QR: 20
RC: 29
About topscore: decent difficulty of questions on sciences. PAT is very badly drawn with multiple wrong answers etc. Some PAT sections are too easy on topscore, others are just plain badly drawn so you don't know what to pick as an answer.
Kaplan:
Full Length Practice Test 1:
Bio: 20
GC: 23
OC: 25
PAT: 28
RC: 25
QR: 25
FL PT 2:
Bio: 21
GC: 19
OC: 21
FL PT 3:
Bio: 24
GC: 19
OC: 19
Study Habits:
I'm a DAT/MCAT tutor at Kaplan for the last year and a half so I know a lot of the core material really well. That being said, I graduated in 2004, so it's been a while since I took the classes. I feel like that hurt me on the obscure questions.
I studied the Kaplan big book mostly, then just took a lot of practice tests. I also had access to the Kaplan online materials etc too.
Glad to be done...let me know if you have any questions. Good luck to everyone!
Just got back from my DAT. THe "post DAT" write ups helped me get my bearing on where I was so I thought I'd write one as well. I had the "piano" DAT (I guess people know this one?) Here are my scores:
PAT: 23
QR: 21
RC: 23
Bio: 24
GC: 24
OC: 22
TS: 23
AA: 23
Here are my impressions of each:
Overall: The questions were easy to understand and were not meant to trick you. Mixture of difficulty ranging from basic to obscure.
PAT: Keyholes, not too difficult. Most are very obvious which way they are trying to put the object through. Angles: Definitely a bit tricky. Harder than Kaplan for sure. Hole Punching: Way harder than Kaplan. Check out achiever for some practice. TFE: Not too bad, easier than achiever, harder than kaplan. Folding: About equal in difficulty to Kaplan. One more thing: you can't put your finger on the screen BUT I asked if I could hold up my dry erase sheet and the guy said "sure." Not positive if that's standard procedure but it might help with keyholes.
QR: Time consuming. Not a lot of tricky computations per se but some relatively tricky word problems. Kaplan focuses too much on computation but is relatively good practice for making sure you speed through it.
RC: Main thing I noticed here is the dry erase pen is horrible, you can't really take notes on the passage. So I ditched the idea of a passage map and just went straight to the questions, reading through the passage as I went. There are more inferrence / overall tone / why did the the author include this type questions than on practice tests.
Bio: Some very straightforward stuff, some pretty out there stuff. I'd suggest knowing the Kaplan book + reading over your intro bio book a few times on the hopes of remembering obscure questions. I didn't use Cliffs but maybe that's a good help as well? I did better than expected on this section.
GC: WAY less computations than Kaplan. Most answer choices aren't actually computed out. Pretty standard array of questions.
OC: Some basic, some kinda obscure stuff. IR question I didn't know. Know your reactions of course. There wasn't any really weird naming.
Practice Tests:
Achiever 1:
PAT: 20
QR: 23
RC: 22
Bio: 19
GC: 21
OC: 19
Achiever 2:
PAT: 21
QR: 21
RC: 23
Bio: 16
GC: 18
OC: 18
Achiever 3:
Bio: 16
GC: 20
OC: 19
Notes on Achiever: The sciences are obviously way harder, especially bio. On the real test you don't have almost every question be those ridiculous I,II,III,IV type questions that are multiple questions in one. The PAT is challenging on achiever but is drawn well.
Topscore 1:
Bio: 21
GC: 19
OC: 17
PAT: 23
Topscore 2:
Bio: 21
GC: 20
OC: 18
Topscore 3:
Bio: 21
GC: 21
OC: 25
PAT: 23
QR: 20
RC: 29
About topscore: decent difficulty of questions on sciences. PAT is very badly drawn with multiple wrong answers etc. Some PAT sections are too easy on topscore, others are just plain badly drawn so you don't know what to pick as an answer.
Kaplan:
Full Length Practice Test 1:
Bio: 20
GC: 23
OC: 25
PAT: 28
RC: 25
QR: 25
FL PT 2:
Bio: 21
GC: 19
OC: 21
FL PT 3:
Bio: 24
GC: 19
OC: 19
Study Habits:
I'm a DAT/MCAT tutor at Kaplan for the last year and a half so I know a lot of the core material really well. That being said, I graduated in 2004, so it's been a while since I took the classes. I feel like that hurt me on the obscure questions.
I studied the Kaplan big book mostly, then just took a lot of practice tests. I also had access to the Kaplan online materials etc too.
Glad to be done...let me know if you have any questions. Good luck to everyone!
