*fwew* Done 7/13

Shinpe said:

Congrats!

How was your RC? which ones did you get and what method did you use?

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Thanks everyone

As for your question, I got the crocodile set. search and destroy worked okay for a lot of questions, but there were some inference questions mixed into each passage as well. I actually felt the first of the set was hardest and thought I was getting Frapped/Piano'd as I did the first few questions of the section.
I don't really have a method, per se. Going in, I felt I read fast/well enough that I didnt really prepare for the section at all I used to read prolifically, and am fairly good at skimming through sections and remembering key words in passages. Good practice imo would just be to set aside some time to read something leisurely, so you get used to something between skimming and focused reading.

Just practice QR! Whatever questions you can find. I have a stong math background, but it helps to be familiar with TYPES of questions as well, like ones in the practice tests I mentioned. Practice = familiar = faster & more accurate.

For PAT, practice with CDP. Hands down, best resource.

And to celebrate, I'm going to a buffet tonight

192LT192 said:

what do you mean by this?

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The holes are a little smaller than what CDP uses, and there's a bit of a border margin. That threw me off when I first looked at them.

Chrono said:

Please tell us how u studied...and specific strategies u used for each section of the exam. It would be really helpful.

thanks.

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Lets see... the reading material I used were:
Some General Chemistry textbook (I no longer have it - lent to sister's boyfriend for summer session)
Organic Chemistry by McMurry, 6th ed
Life - The Science of Biology by Sadava et al. 8th ed
Barron's AP Bio
Cliff's Bio
Schaums Organic Chemistry 3rd ed
Schaums College Chemistry 9th ed
Schaums Biology 2nd ed

I don't have an exact schedule of what I studied when, so I'm just going off be memory. I began studying around the middle of May, which means 2 solid months of study. My regimen involved waking up at about 7am, taking a morning jog and cooling down/relaxing until 10, and then studying for a majority of the next 8 hours, and resting in the evening, with some variation by day. I was probably less focused and more antsy in the days/week coming up to this exam though. My first two weeks were dedicated solely to textbook reading. Very droll and dull, but necessary to brush up on important topics and re-learn forgotten ones. After that, I delved into Schaums. People have said that their review books are very dense, boring, and sleep-inducing. They're right.

However, imo Schaums is a great resource to find distilled info if you do not want/have the time to read through the entire textbook. Schaums Chem was my only resource for the subject after my sister's boyfriend pilfered my textbook, and I still did fine anyway. The taxonomy section of Schaums bio was much more in-depth than what's needed for the actual exam, but everything else was right on. Lots more info on plants than is probably needed for the actual test though. Their OChem review book has tons of reaction mechanisms and diagrams similar to Dr. Romano's ochem destroyer road maps.

Barron's and Cliffs I lump together. Theyre decent review and a good supplemental, but after going through both textbooks and Schaums reviews, they felt very broad and shallow in information. That's not to say they aren't good, just relatively less dense. I basically went through them as "light" reading when I felt stale, and could get through most of each in about a day of solid reading.

About a month ago I got my hands on a 2008 version of Destroyer. That was certainly an eye-opener. All the reading in the world is pointless without the application to reinforce the knowledge, and Destroyer is just that. Going through the ochem section for the first time is what made me delay my exam date another week to really figure out major important reaction mechanisms. I owe a few extra points to Destroyer. The random selection of bio questions are great also, to sample breadth of knowledge. After going through all the questions once in a few hours, I went over the questions again, checking the right answers, but also making sure I knew why the wrong answers were wrong. There are a lot of "e) All of the above are true/false" which in themselves offer more tidbits to learn. Like I said before, the Gchem section was a little over the top and I may have overstudied for the section. As a corollary, if you're set on Destroyer chem, you'll be set for the DAT.

CDP is great practice for the PA section. It's really the only accurate representation of the actual exam available. Angles were by far my weakest section so what I did was do a set of 45 angles in the morning and most evenings. CDP angle disparities are much more subtle than most of the actual exam. My strategy for that section is to find the smallest and largest pairs of angles and eliminate choices, which usually leaves two remaining options. If I had to decide between two very close angles, I would compare them to a third angle rather than each other. In most cases, it's more obvious that one angle is more acute or more obtuse. I also noticed I have a tendency to screw up when I look to closely for too long, so I hit "Next" then "Back" after a second and re-evaluate. I'm sure this got me thorugh, as I went back to marked questions and actually changed two of my answers on the actual exam lol.
As for cube counting, after so many CDP exams, I learned to recognize patterns. My actual method for counting sides is just to go through each row and stack, then going again in reverse order through the diagram. I tried the marking-before-doing-questions method and I actually got a few questions wrong during practice, so I stopped doing it. By going through and counting blocks each time, I could double-check and check past questions in case I find a block I didnt count the previous question.
As I said before, the hole-punch format was just a tad bit different than CDP, but I adjusted after a question or two. There's not much to this section except to be able to visualize folds well.
For paper folding, I think the most important thing to know is that there's only one way to fold the cut-out. Pretend the backside of the layout is solid black or something. Like the concept of enantiomers, a lot of wrong answers can be eliminated because the proper shape is the mirror image of what's actually given to you. Before I had this epiphany in CDP, I would wonder why there would be two possible answers, which I could get if I folded inside rather than out. There is no backside.
Keyhole is really just about having good depth perception for 3-d objects, and good visualization for the flatter ones. Learn to point out differences in angles, sides, and bumps. This I think goes hand-in-hand with TFE, because much of the trickery involves figuring out what the objects look like from one side.

Reading Comp I definitely had no practice with beyond the practice exam questions. I suppose DAT Achiever is alright in terms of Search and Destroy and tone/inference question array. The way I approach each section is to read the first question and quickly read/skim through the passage until I find the answer. If the first question is tone, I just skim, answer, and mark. For the next question, I pick up reading where I stopped. This way, I'm not wasting time first by reading the entire passage once, and I'm absorbing little bits as I read through to find an answer. By about 5 questions I have a general idea as to the layout and tone of teh passage and can go back and answer the tone/inference question(s) quickly. Rather than simply search and destroy, I try to at least understand the parts I skim through, in case later questions address something I covered earlier. Obviously this can have limitations, as the section was my lowest score. Find something you enjoy reading and spend a little time during the day scanning. This helps with speed and comprehension. For me, it was the newspaper, magazines, and SDN forums.

As far as I could tell, QR was basic algebra and trig. Speed is important. To simulate the testing conditions, I got expo medium-tip markers and did all my work on the back of a laminated sheet of paper. The eraser you get from Prometic is really good and I would be wiping off the page as I read the next question. I didnt focus on studying for this section beyond memorizing some trig functions and values I had long forgotten. The questions from Topscore and Achiever are great for practice. After awhile it seems like questions just get recycled, and really once you think about it, there's really only a few ways to present algebra in word problems.

So that's how I approached the exam. Time is also a big factor. Cramming only goes so far. It takes time to learn and understand the concepts behind the science questions. I would say it took me a month to absorb what I could, and the second month I spent refining and applying through questions in Destroyer, practice exams, and end-of-chapter quizzes.

I hope some of the above helps some of you as you prepare for your exams. If you're cracking down as hard as I did, make sure to find something to do to keep your sanity! A stale mind just leads to wasted time. Good luck to everyone preparing for your exam!

As for the "boo-boo" in my record, it mainly involves some personal issues and a career change of heart Hoss, as I haven't much touched Chem/Ochem/Bio for at least 3 years, I'd have to say it was mostly my studying. However, I at least have to give credit to my undergrad courses for giving me a strong science background as a Mo/Cell Bio major. Non-human biology (taxonomy, plant form & function, animal physiology) were so far gone as to be completely relearned though. I was certainly not top 1% of my class, so that can't be a prereq to a good score

peerless218 said:

Who are you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Simple. Mild-mannered graduate student by day.... mild-mannered graduate student by night =/

Thanks everyone It's been a lot of work and tylonol-mitigated headachey nights lol

ZH1988 said:

can i barrow some points..lol

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Once I'm done with them

Emmie said:

Where do you go for undergrad and grad schools? Just curious!

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I went to UCBerkeley for my undergrad and BUSM for the Graduate Medical Sciences Masters program.