Hey thanks for the post! I am taking mine THIS Friday and needless to say COMPLETELY freaking out. But that's just me. EVERY test I have ever taken has freaked me out 😉 -Q for you though, how did you feel about the DAT overall? Did you feel that it was MORE than you were expecting as far as the level of difficulty? Or by chance was is a little easier than you had anticipated?😀 Gosh wouldn't that be nice!!! Can you break it down section by section as far as your expectations and what you actually experienced when you sat for your exam? Thank you so so so much.
Sure! I'd say overall it wasn't as dreadful as I was expecting...I was SO nervous as well, I have pretty bad test anxiety and I literally couldn't sleep the night before. Like my test was at 8 AM, and I went to bed and laid awake for about 7 hours...luckily I run well on no sleep haha.
I'll preface my breakdown by saying the only materials I used were Kaplan BB and Chad's for general chem (wish I used his videos for ochem!!)....so just FYI!
Biology: I thought that this section was fairly random. At school I've taken the general biology series, anatomy & physiology series, genetics, cell & molecular biology, and biochemistry...and I still only got an 18! My test seemed weirdly focused on animals, plants, and things about invertebrates...of course subjects I haven't covered in great detail. It wasn't awful but it was more detailed/less relevant than I was hoping.
General Chem: This section I did awesome, I scored a 13 on a practice test the week before my test date, and on the DAT I got a 23 so I was really happy! Chad's videos were amazing, the section seemed pretty straightforward overall, but you definitely need a solid understanding of the basics (acids/bases, ideal gases, etc). In my freshman undergrad chem class I did well but never REALLY understood the material, so I was pleasantly surprised by how well I was prepared for the test after doing Chad's videos and quizzes. Overall not bad!
O-chem: I wish I prepared more for this section because I did really well in my o-chem classes, so I know I could've done better (I got an 18)
🙁 It wasn't that it was super super hard, I just thought I had a better understanding of the material than I actually did.
PAT: This section was harder on the actual test than on my practice tests. The angles were literally IDENTICAL on some questions, and the hole punching had some bizarre triangular folds and such. I got a 19 here, which I was happy with, but try and find some harder practice questions beforehand so you kind of know what to expect!
Reading comp: I'm a fast reader and I literally didn't study for this section (unless you count the practice tests). I got a 23 here, didn't think it was too hard, I finished the section with 10 minutes to spare. My method is to read through the passage once, THEN answer the questions...at least for my passages, I found it was pretty easy to find the answers once I had read everything. Though there were a few weird questions about tone of voice/the author's opinion/etc. that I had never seen on a practice test, but it wasn't anything to worry about.
QR: This section is just kind of annoying to me, I feel like it isn't SUPER important to the adcoms and it's at the end of the test when all you want to do is leave the testing center haha...it wasn't too hard overall, just a bunch of algebra and lengthy word problems. I'm more of a calculus student myself, so it was a little difficult to revert back to freshman year of high school-level math, but for this section I would just say do a lot of practice problems to get used to doing them quickly. This was the only section where I felt pressed for time.
Sorry for the long-winded answer, hope this helps! It feels AMAZING to have the test over with...you're almost there!!!
