Took the test yesterday and afterwards I was so elated from being finished with it that I spent the rest of the day partying and celebrating so I haven't found the time to post about it until today. 😛
Here're my scores:
PAT 22
QR 20 😕
RC 26 😳
Bio 24 😀
GC 21
OC 23 🙄
TS 23
AA 23
I started studying for this around late June, but at first it was really hard to motivate myself to sit at the desk for more than 4 hours a day staring at the books. Only in the last month, when the panic of failing spectacularly started settling in, did I really start making progress with my studying. As a result, my practice scores rose dramatically from 15-18's to low to mid 20's.
I only ordered two books to prepare for this test, one was kaplan's DAT book and the other was exam kracker's Organic Chemistry review for the MCAT. The rest, I borrowed old barron's and kaplan's dat review books and mcat review books from the local library.
PAT: I used barron's and kaplan's books from the library. The barron's book is actually pretty great for PAT I think. Unlike kaplan's, they actually have a section providing strategy tips instead of just showing you the directions and then throwing a bunch of practice problems at you. The questions also have a good amount of difficulty to them. But, the answers and explanations are horrible, and frequently wrong, so make sure you actually check it for yourself because your score might be higher than what they're actually making it look like. The kaplan's PAT is too easy compared to the real thing, I was easily scoring in the high 20's range (one time I got 89/90 raw score) once I had familiarized myself with the test questions. Although I do have to say that the keyholes on the PAT felt easier than the kaplan's keyholes. Take your time on the keyholes, TFE, and the folding. Work quickly through the angles, cube counting and that whatchamacall it... hole punching.
QR: This is normally my strongest subject and I was very disappointed in my performance here. To review for QR, I just did a few of the sets on the practice exams and generally would score 38 out of 40 raw score or higher and my wrong answers usually were just due to carelessness. I messed up on the exam because of a stupid newbie mistake that I committed. I got stuck on one word problem that I just didn't get what they were asking until much later in the test. As a result, I kept setting up the question wrong and getting an answer that wasn't one of the answer choices, and spent wayyy too long on this one question. I know I should have just skipped it and moved on, but I was so focused on trying to get a max score, and I kept thinking, "it's okay that I'm a couple minutes behind schedule, I can work quickly through the rest because I'm a freaking math WIZ." God damn! if they had just put the WRONG answer that I got as one of the answer choices, I would've scored a few points higher on the test because I would've just selected it and moved on. Okay that's enough ranting about it. Towards the end of the test, I was crammed for time and had to basically do problems in 15-20 seconds each. On one problem that looked like it would require some more complicated calculations, I just guessed on it. Then finally I got to the last problem, did some quick mental math, got the answer and was JUST about to click on the choice when the time expired. 😡
RC: Ironically, my experience with RC sections on other standardized tests (SAT's, GRE's, etc) have told me that RC is my weakest section. And I was pretty surprised on doing as well as I did here. The good thing about DAT's RC, as I'm sure most of you who've studied for this test already know, is that most of the questions are just fact retrieval rather than your typical comprehension things like "what is the main idea?" or "what do you think the author meant with line 34?". So my advice on doing well in this section is to read through it carefully but quickly, and just try to remember where bits of facts were mentioned. Form a road map of the passage in your head. Then once you start answering the questions, always flip back into the passage and try to find the exact spot where the question is asking and PROVE it to yourself that the answer you're putting is correct. Even when you think, "Oh yeah, I just read this, I know the answer is C." Just take the extra 10-15 seconds to find that spot in the passage that tells you without a doubt the answer is C because I've had times when I looked back into the passage and found out the answer is actually different from what I thought/remembered. (Also, side question: I keep hearing this thing about the piano passage. What the heck is that? Is it actually a passage about pianos? I don't think I got it because all three of my passages were science-related.)
tl;dr: SEARCH AND DESTROY.
Biology: I think I have a solid biology background from high school. I didn't major in bio in college (b.a. in economics) but I took some of the intro bio courses. To review for this test, I just read through the bio sections of the barron's book and kaplan's book one time each, skimming quickly through topics that I knew pretty well and slowing down to carefully digest topics I didn't know well. In my practice exams, I started off scoring around 17-18's for bio, but after brushing up on my weak points (animal behavior, immunology, and ecology) I was managing to score in the +20's. Still, I'm pleasantly pleased with my score here and I attribute some of it to luck of not getting thrown too many questions that I had to completely guess on.
Gen Chem: I normally score well on this section in my practice exams, and I felt pretty confident about my answers on the DAT. So I guess I must have overlooked some things and make a few careless errors (or I don't actually know my chem as well as I thought). For review, I did a kaplan's MCAT general chemistry review book--just going through the chapters and taking my time on topics that I didn't pay too much attention to during class lectures. When I started out, my practice exam scores were still in the 17-18's and I was pretty worried initially, but eventually it rose with more studying. I'm sure there are better review materials out there for gen chem that other forum members have posted about, so don't do what I did.
Organic Chem: To be honest, this was the section that I was MOST worried about. I've never taken organic chemistry courses in college (I'm currently doing a post-bacc now where I will be getting my 1-year of o chem credits, but I've only had 1 week of orgo lecture so far since classes just started). Basically, all the review I got was from the test prep review books. I've heard people saying good things about destroyer or chad's, but I didn't get access to any of those. The one thing I want to recommend is Examkracker's MCAT Organic Chemistry review book. It is very concise, efficient and really good at helping me grasp a sense of the overall themes that govern ochem reactions. So rather than memorizing 30-50 different reactions with all the possible reagents, I basically realized that all the reactions were basically the same: electrons moving around and you just need to figure out what the electrophile and nucleophile is, also it helps to pretend you are Good Will Hunting (I watched that movie for the first time last week.)
I am proud to finally join the ranks of those who have lost their DAT virginity.
I'll be happy to answer questions you might have. Good luck to all who have yet to take it. Use this board, like I did, as motivation to study hard and get the score you want.
Here're my scores:
PAT 22
QR 20 😕
RC 26 😳
Bio 24 😀
GC 21
OC 23 🙄
TS 23
AA 23
I started studying for this around late June, but at first it was really hard to motivate myself to sit at the desk for more than 4 hours a day staring at the books. Only in the last month, when the panic of failing spectacularly started settling in, did I really start making progress with my studying. As a result, my practice scores rose dramatically from 15-18's to low to mid 20's.
I only ordered two books to prepare for this test, one was kaplan's DAT book and the other was exam kracker's Organic Chemistry review for the MCAT. The rest, I borrowed old barron's and kaplan's dat review books and mcat review books from the local library.
PAT: I used barron's and kaplan's books from the library. The barron's book is actually pretty great for PAT I think. Unlike kaplan's, they actually have a section providing strategy tips instead of just showing you the directions and then throwing a bunch of practice problems at you. The questions also have a good amount of difficulty to them. But, the answers and explanations are horrible, and frequently wrong, so make sure you actually check it for yourself because your score might be higher than what they're actually making it look like. The kaplan's PAT is too easy compared to the real thing, I was easily scoring in the high 20's range (one time I got 89/90 raw score) once I had familiarized myself with the test questions. Although I do have to say that the keyholes on the PAT felt easier than the kaplan's keyholes. Take your time on the keyholes, TFE, and the folding. Work quickly through the angles, cube counting and that whatchamacall it... hole punching.
QR: This is normally my strongest subject and I was very disappointed in my performance here. To review for QR, I just did a few of the sets on the practice exams and generally would score 38 out of 40 raw score or higher and my wrong answers usually were just due to carelessness. I messed up on the exam because of a stupid newbie mistake that I committed. I got stuck on one word problem that I just didn't get what they were asking until much later in the test. As a result, I kept setting up the question wrong and getting an answer that wasn't one of the answer choices, and spent wayyy too long on this one question. I know I should have just skipped it and moved on, but I was so focused on trying to get a max score, and I kept thinking, "it's okay that I'm a couple minutes behind schedule, I can work quickly through the rest because I'm a freaking math WIZ." God damn! if they had just put the WRONG answer that I got as one of the answer choices, I would've scored a few points higher on the test because I would've just selected it and moved on. Okay that's enough ranting about it. Towards the end of the test, I was crammed for time and had to basically do problems in 15-20 seconds each. On one problem that looked like it would require some more complicated calculations, I just guessed on it. Then finally I got to the last problem, did some quick mental math, got the answer and was JUST about to click on the choice when the time expired. 😡
RC: Ironically, my experience with RC sections on other standardized tests (SAT's, GRE's, etc) have told me that RC is my weakest section. And I was pretty surprised on doing as well as I did here. The good thing about DAT's RC, as I'm sure most of you who've studied for this test already know, is that most of the questions are just fact retrieval rather than your typical comprehension things like "what is the main idea?" or "what do you think the author meant with line 34?". So my advice on doing well in this section is to read through it carefully but quickly, and just try to remember where bits of facts were mentioned. Form a road map of the passage in your head. Then once you start answering the questions, always flip back into the passage and try to find the exact spot where the question is asking and PROVE it to yourself that the answer you're putting is correct. Even when you think, "Oh yeah, I just read this, I know the answer is C." Just take the extra 10-15 seconds to find that spot in the passage that tells you without a doubt the answer is C because I've had times when I looked back into the passage and found out the answer is actually different from what I thought/remembered. (Also, side question: I keep hearing this thing about the piano passage. What the heck is that? Is it actually a passage about pianos? I don't think I got it because all three of my passages were science-related.)
tl;dr: SEARCH AND DESTROY.
Biology: I think I have a solid biology background from high school. I didn't major in bio in college (b.a. in economics) but I took some of the intro bio courses. To review for this test, I just read through the bio sections of the barron's book and kaplan's book one time each, skimming quickly through topics that I knew pretty well and slowing down to carefully digest topics I didn't know well. In my practice exams, I started off scoring around 17-18's for bio, but after brushing up on my weak points (animal behavior, immunology, and ecology) I was managing to score in the +20's. Still, I'm pleasantly pleased with my score here and I attribute some of it to luck of not getting thrown too many questions that I had to completely guess on.
Gen Chem: I normally score well on this section in my practice exams, and I felt pretty confident about my answers on the DAT. So I guess I must have overlooked some things and make a few careless errors (or I don't actually know my chem as well as I thought). For review, I did a kaplan's MCAT general chemistry review book--just going through the chapters and taking my time on topics that I didn't pay too much attention to during class lectures. When I started out, my practice exam scores were still in the 17-18's and I was pretty worried initially, but eventually it rose with more studying. I'm sure there are better review materials out there for gen chem that other forum members have posted about, so don't do what I did.
Organic Chem: To be honest, this was the section that I was MOST worried about. I've never taken organic chemistry courses in college (I'm currently doing a post-bacc now where I will be getting my 1-year of o chem credits, but I've only had 1 week of orgo lecture so far since classes just started). Basically, all the review I got was from the test prep review books. I've heard people saying good things about destroyer or chad's, but I didn't get access to any of those. The one thing I want to recommend is Examkracker's MCAT Organic Chemistry review book. It is very concise, efficient and really good at helping me grasp a sense of the overall themes that govern ochem reactions. So rather than memorizing 30-50 different reactions with all the possible reagents, I basically realized that all the reactions were basically the same: electrons moving around and you just need to figure out what the electrophile and nucleophile is, also it helps to pretend you are Good Will Hunting (I watched that movie for the first time last week.)
I am proud to finally join the ranks of those who have lost their DAT virginity.
I'll be happy to answer questions you might have. Good luck to all who have yet to take it. Use this board, like I did, as motivation to study hard and get the score you want.
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