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Just got home from testing center.... will give a brief breakdown and I will add to it in the coming days. This breakdown is going to be epic because I used a little bit of everything , Destroyer, Math Dest, Odyssey, kap. white book (notecards), CDP, CDM, CDR, essentially the CDP Royal Flush, Barrons AP BIO, Alan's Notes, DATqVault, CHAD!!!!, Achiever, and Topscore including some MCAT books, AP Notecards, and Sama's PAT tutorial. I plan on commenting on all, rating their helpfulness (for me at least), and comparing to the real thing
I'm building it piece by piece.
PAT - 22 (93.4)
QR - 19 (91.2)
RC - 23 (89.8)
BIO - 22 (95.9)
GC - 23 (95.4)
OC - 24 (95.7)
TS - 23 (97.8)
AA - 22 (97.0)
Achiever 5 test version ( Having trouble retrieving my scores, don't ask)
Did not crack anything above an 18 EVER, and I did not try RC until test five. I remember getting to RC of Achiever 1 and my eyes almost bleeding lol...... I then looked up an Achiever RC vs Real RC thread and most said what I thought, that it is obnoxious compared to the real test so I decided to not go completely out of my way to frustrate myself. By test 4 I decided to try it out and can see it being OK practice......... I talk more about achiever a couple posts down.
Topscore:
AA/Bio/GC/OC/PAT/QR/RC/TS
#1 (Week and a Half from test date)
19/21/18/18/20/17/21/20
#2 (Week before Test date)
X/19/18/21/X/X/X/19
#3 (2 days before Test)
20/17/19/23/22/19/22/19
Just like LetsGoToDSchool I started the summer shooting for a +20, then after reading all the scores I was shooting for a 23/24.... So I am VERY HAPPY about my 22, especially my spread 22/23/22.
PAT - (CDP, Achiever, Topscore, Barrons, Dr. Kim's Dental School Book) This is someone who started with a 16 on CDP 1 and could barely break 19 by CDP 6. By CDP 10 I was getting 22's. CDP is amazing for hole punch and cube counting and a very good primer for TFE, Keyhole, and Folding... (I will discuss angles later). The Kim book was great for establishing timing, 10ish for Keyhole, 15ish for TFE, 5-6ish for Angles, 5-6ish for Hole Punch, 5-6ish for Cube, and the rest for Folding. I said CDP was a good primer but it is great to polish it off with Achiever's PAT for a different and harder take on TFE, Keyholes, and Folding. Studying the objects and understanding the right answers to WITHOUT line counting put me over a 19 to a 22. Also skipping angles and leaving them for last was a big move. I found the quick glance worked best and that no matter how much or little time I spent on angles I would still get anywhere from 7-12/15 with no consistency correlating to time or approach. Best advice I got from Sama's breakdown is that All the other sections are SOLVABLE, given enough time. Angles however, no matter how much time you give me, I might not ever get the right answer. Therefore I spent more time on the other sections and saved the leftover for angles which I was never really any good at anyway. On the Real DAT it worked out to being 7ish minutes.
Real DAT: Keyholes were easier than I expected, inbetween CDP and Achiever. Like everyone says, it has more "proportions" involved than the prep material. I thought TFE was way easier than Achiever and on Par with CDP unless you are relying on Line Counting, then your in for some hurting. Angles were on par with CDP if not a "smidge harder". Hole punch for the most part was easier than CDP and on PAR with Topscore.... except for 2-3 that were folds I hadn't seen before, but because I had the 2500 Hole Punch edition of CDP and had been boss'n hole punch on CDP, I managed. Cube counting was even easier IMO than Topscore. I started practicing counting all the types of cubes and making a tally but by the time I was on CDP Test 6 I could just figure it out real quick without a tally. Pattern folding I thought was Harder than CDP and Topscore and on par if not a little bit tougher than Achiever. I have to thank SDN and I will figure out his name later, for saying that he does fold the object, but just picks a shape and rotates the 2d image in his head to see if it matches up. I did that plus wrote A, B, C, and D on my page and worked by eliminating impossible solutions.
RC: (CDM, Achiever, Topscore) First RC I did I read the passage in 6-8 mins while mapping, and then spent the next 12-14 mins answering questions. I got a 19 on CDM and was very tempted to do S&D. I then spent the next RCs trying to make S&D work while getting 19-22s. I never felt confident, frantic at best, and also that some non-SDable passages could derail the whole thing. On test day I took albinobear's advice and went back to my original plan of actually "reading the passage" in 6-8 mins while mapping and referring back as needed. I got some interesting easy tomread BIO passages so everything worked out.
BIO: (Barrons AP BIO, DATqVault, Destroyer) I found Barrons to be an excellent source for BIO and I would say the "depth" of knowledge required, specifically for the non-human biology was spot on. In fact I found the Topscore and Achiever representation of non-human BIO to be way too specific in comparison, such as deciphering between different species of cnidarians, fungi, or protists. It tends to freak you and put you in to overdrive, trying to shove in every scrappy detail you can find into your head just in case. In hindsight I would spend more time just knowing Barrons AP BIO cold for the non-human. For human biology, I have no advice as I have a really strong background and did not spend that much time on it. DATqVault did the best job of simulating what DAT BIO questions look like vs Destroyer, Topscore, or Achiever.
Still DATqVault requires a little bit more depth of knowledge than the DAT but the DAT questions are a little bit trickier and the answers not so clear. In fact, the more closely mirror the "non-passage" based MCAT questions you can find in Kaplan or tpr prep books. Unfortunately they are limited in scope as they only pertain to Human Bio. I did all 10 DATqVault Benchmark tests, 1/3 Destroyer, used Alan's notes to make about 200ish notecards on my weaknesses, and read intently the non-human bio portion of Barron's AP BIO.
Materials Review
Foundational Material
CHAD:
Absolutely the BEST resource for learning GChm and Ochm, Chad + Destroyer is an absolute knock out!!!!!!
Subtle I know, I have been teaching for a few years so I have even more respect for him teacher to teacher. Not only does he give you only what you need to know and nothing more, but he does so very effectively. What was good about him 5 years ago is even better about him today, and that is being able to relate complex heavy material in a very simple and relate-able manner that everybody can understand. Follow everyone's advice, start any 8, 6, 4 week study plan drilling through his GC and OC videos. Then move onto whatever practice material you have procured for yourself. What is very nice about them is that you can watch them at fast speed the 2nd time through when you need to go over any weaknesses to conserve on time. Take good notes, not just the handouts, and know his material COLD. Let me sum this all up by saying that out of all the science prep material Chad's Videos were the MOST IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO MY ATTAINING A 23 GC AND 24 OC. I may not have got a 25 or higher but to put it in perspective I finished my TS section with 15 minutes to spare, got up, signed out, went to the bathroom, and signed back in before starting PAT.
Barron's AP BIO: This should be ALL you need for biology. No way, yes way, get out of here, no you get of here........ All jokes aside trying to cover EVERY SINGLE THING that can possibly show up on the BIO section is like NAILING JELLO TO A WALL. On your best day you may get everything to sick for 1-2ms (coincidentally the same amount of time required to fire an action potential.... oh no I'm so overloaded with facts they're seeping out everywhere!!!). After the 1-2ms is over you will start to forget stuff and get rusty on the least recent material you have reviewed. There is just too much information to know. To put it in perspective, you could make a note card of all of Alan's notes and they could still find more stuff to try to get you on. The point I am making is that getting above a 22 in BIO has a large luck component to it.
***DISCLAIMER*** I am not trying to offend any +22 BIO people here but the difference between a 22 and 30 is 3 questions, which means that of the at least 1 or 2 that you were iffy on and just made your best guess on were right on top of nothing else that you were starting to forget came up that you couldn't figure out, so there is a little bit more luck involved in this section then anywhere else********
All that said they will never ask you anything deeper than Barrons AP BIO. So if you just spend your time learning Barron's cold then you have all the tools in the shed necessary to start practicing with whatever practice material you have acquired. They have good questions at the end of each chapter and I found it surprisingly easy to read as well.
Practice Material
DAT Destroyer:
BIO: I only got about 100ish questions in on Destroyer BIO. I spent more of my BIO practice time on DATqVault, which I am a huge fan of, just plain studying my weak areas (non-human bio) with reading Barron's first and then using Alan's notes and Note cards. I spent alot more of my "science time" on GC and OC which I found Destroyer to be immensely more useful for. Nothing wrong with destroyer BIO, its not too specific, I just prefer DATqVault for BIO practice, but if you have time DEFINITELY do both as it will really benefit you.
GC: Chad's videos coupled with Destroyer is a knock out punch for the DAT. Destroyer is hands down the best PRACTICE material you can buy for the DAT. Accept no substitutes. Yes the rumors are true. Destroyer GC is a lot harder IMO than the Real DAT. It is specifically designed to CHALLENGE you and by doing so TEACH you all the ins and outs. It also has particular hard questions that seem eccletic but probably represent some real questions that show up every now and then. The point of destroyer is to expose you to and to teach you how to answer every kind of question you could ever encounter on the GC section in 270 questions. Honestly there is probably close to a 1,000 questions they could possibly ask you, hence the complexity of some of these destroyer questions (essentially 2-4 problems rolled into one). This way by practicing these 270 tough questions, you've learn how to do 800 or regular to easy questions. For the most part none of the calculations on the real GC were even close to as hard as destroyer, except for maybe 1-2 which were more about how to isolate the variable, all the pH calcs. were CAKE on my test. Destroyer is a must for anyone serious about trying to pull of +20 GC scores. The rule fo thumb around these forums is to go through Destroyer 2-3 times. If you have the time go for it, but as i have said before I only got 2/3rds of the way through Destroyer GC and got 23 of the real DAT GC with 15 minutes to spare at the end of the test. I did very methodically go over what I got wrong and always attempted to redo the problem after knowing how it was supposed to be set up, so the may have been equivalent to going over the first 200 problems 2-3 times.
Foundational Material that Gets an Honorable Mention
Kaplan White Book: Basically I bought the kaplan book set that comes with the DAT class from Ebay for like $110. In retrospect this was a complete waste of $$$. BECAUSE if you already have Barron's AP Bio then you don't need the Kaplan Bio, if you have Chad's videos you don't the Kaplan GC or OC sections, if you have Chads QR videos then you don't need Kaplan QR, and if you have Destroyer then you don't need Kaplans workbooks/practice problems, essentially I thought I would love their notecards but I wound up using my own which I made from Chad's Videos and Alan's Notes. I'm not knocking the material, Kaplan does a fine job presenting what you need to learn but consider that I paid $110 for this stuff and the KBB is $50, for $50 you could get Chad's videos for a month and buy Barrons AP BIO which I just feel have more value.
Barrons DAT: Just a waste, get KBB instead if you want to get something like this. I got it for PAT, but Sama's PAT tutorial just puts it to shame, and its free.
Princeton Review DAT Classroom Book Set(rare): These are rare, but uh I know a guy and I got the whole set for free. By the time my friend gave it to me I had like 2.5 weeks left to go and I was in a real rhythm between all my other stuff I never really got to it. It looked nice, but I will lump it in to the waste category because it didn't seem that much different than kaplan and you are much better off with a Chad/BarronsAPBio/Destroyer Combo any day of the week.
Princeton Review MCAT Prep Books: As an overall recommendation DO NOT USE MCAT PREP MATERIALS FOR THE DAT unless you are one year out and just want to do everything that was created ever to be done. Stick with DAT specific stuff, trust me. So I would just lump this in with the Kaplan and Princeton DAT stuff, but less effective.
Barrons AP Biology Note Cards: They are very nice and very well done, I tried them one day, and they then sat in the box the rest of the summer. You are better off making your own from DATqVault/Destroyer/Alan's notes
I will breakdown the other sections later, I made my biggest jump in the PAT so I would love to help anyone struggling with it. I do not have any plus 24 scores so I didn't think it would be necessary to post a picture of my scores but if enough controversy arises I have no problem posting them up later this weekend.
THANK YOU SDN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Before anyone asks, I got neither the Physics nor the Piano passage, just nice fun biological sciences passages as indicated by a 23 only being 89.8 Percentile, I am aware I got a fluffy section and I really feel for those of you who got Piano'd in the past and Physics'd recently
I'm building it piece by piece.
PAT - 22 (93.4)
QR - 19 (91.2)
RC - 23 (89.8)
BIO - 22 (95.9)
GC - 23 (95.4)
OC - 24 (95.7)
TS - 23 (97.8)
AA - 22 (97.0)
Achiever 5 test version ( Having trouble retrieving my scores, don't ask)
Did not crack anything above an 18 EVER, and I did not try RC until test five. I remember getting to RC of Achiever 1 and my eyes almost bleeding lol...... I then looked up an Achiever RC vs Real RC thread and most said what I thought, that it is obnoxious compared to the real test so I decided to not go completely out of my way to frustrate myself. By test 4 I decided to try it out and can see it being OK practice......... I talk more about achiever a couple posts down.
Topscore:
AA/Bio/GC/OC/PAT/QR/RC/TS
#1 (Week and a Half from test date)
19/21/18/18/20/17/21/20
#2 (Week before Test date)
X/19/18/21/X/X/X/19
#3 (2 days before Test)
20/17/19/23/22/19/22/19
Just like LetsGoToDSchool I started the summer shooting for a +20, then after reading all the scores I was shooting for a 23/24.... So I am VERY HAPPY about my 22, especially my spread 22/23/22.
PAT - (CDP, Achiever, Topscore, Barrons, Dr. Kim's Dental School Book) This is someone who started with a 16 on CDP 1 and could barely break 19 by CDP 6. By CDP 10 I was getting 22's. CDP is amazing for hole punch and cube counting and a very good primer for TFE, Keyhole, and Folding... (I will discuss angles later). The Kim book was great for establishing timing, 10ish for Keyhole, 15ish for TFE, 5-6ish for Angles, 5-6ish for Hole Punch, 5-6ish for Cube, and the rest for Folding. I said CDP was a good primer but it is great to polish it off with Achiever's PAT for a different and harder take on TFE, Keyholes, and Folding. Studying the objects and understanding the right answers to WITHOUT line counting put me over a 19 to a 22. Also skipping angles and leaving them for last was a big move. I found the quick glance worked best and that no matter how much or little time I spent on angles I would still get anywhere from 7-12/15 with no consistency correlating to time or approach. Best advice I got from Sama's breakdown is that All the other sections are SOLVABLE, given enough time. Angles however, no matter how much time you give me, I might not ever get the right answer. Therefore I spent more time on the other sections and saved the leftover for angles which I was never really any good at anyway. On the Real DAT it worked out to being 7ish minutes.
Real DAT: Keyholes were easier than I expected, inbetween CDP and Achiever. Like everyone says, it has more "proportions" involved than the prep material. I thought TFE was way easier than Achiever and on Par with CDP unless you are relying on Line Counting, then your in for some hurting. Angles were on par with CDP if not a "smidge harder". Hole punch for the most part was easier than CDP and on PAR with Topscore.... except for 2-3 that were folds I hadn't seen before, but because I had the 2500 Hole Punch edition of CDP and had been boss'n hole punch on CDP, I managed. Cube counting was even easier IMO than Topscore. I started practicing counting all the types of cubes and making a tally but by the time I was on CDP Test 6 I could just figure it out real quick without a tally. Pattern folding I thought was Harder than CDP and Topscore and on par if not a little bit tougher than Achiever. I have to thank SDN and I will figure out his name later, for saying that he does fold the object, but just picks a shape and rotates the 2d image in his head to see if it matches up. I did that plus wrote A, B, C, and D on my page and worked by eliminating impossible solutions.
RC: (CDM, Achiever, Topscore) First RC I did I read the passage in 6-8 mins while mapping, and then spent the next 12-14 mins answering questions. I got a 19 on CDM and was very tempted to do S&D. I then spent the next RCs trying to make S&D work while getting 19-22s. I never felt confident, frantic at best, and also that some non-SDable passages could derail the whole thing. On test day I took albinobear's advice and went back to my original plan of actually "reading the passage" in 6-8 mins while mapping and referring back as needed. I got some interesting easy tomread BIO passages so everything worked out.
BIO: (Barrons AP BIO, DATqVault, Destroyer) I found Barrons to be an excellent source for BIO and I would say the "depth" of knowledge required, specifically for the non-human biology was spot on. In fact I found the Topscore and Achiever representation of non-human BIO to be way too specific in comparison, such as deciphering between different species of cnidarians, fungi, or protists. It tends to freak you and put you in to overdrive, trying to shove in every scrappy detail you can find into your head just in case. In hindsight I would spend more time just knowing Barrons AP BIO cold for the non-human. For human biology, I have no advice as I have a really strong background and did not spend that much time on it. DATqVault did the best job of simulating what DAT BIO questions look like vs Destroyer, Topscore, or Achiever.
Still DATqVault requires a little bit more depth of knowledge than the DAT but the DAT questions are a little bit trickier and the answers not so clear. In fact, the more closely mirror the "non-passage" based MCAT questions you can find in Kaplan or tpr prep books. Unfortunately they are limited in scope as they only pertain to Human Bio. I did all 10 DATqVault Benchmark tests, 1/3 Destroyer, used Alan's notes to make about 200ish notecards on my weaknesses, and read intently the non-human bio portion of Barron's AP BIO.
Materials Review
Foundational Material
CHAD:
Absolutely the BEST resource for learning GChm and Ochm, Chad + Destroyer is an absolute knock out!!!!!!
Subtle I know, I have been teaching for a few years so I have even more respect for him teacher to teacher. Not only does he give you only what you need to know and nothing more, but he does so very effectively. What was good about him 5 years ago is even better about him today, and that is being able to relate complex heavy material in a very simple and relate-able manner that everybody can understand. Follow everyone's advice, start any 8, 6, 4 week study plan drilling through his GC and OC videos. Then move onto whatever practice material you have procured for yourself. What is very nice about them is that you can watch them at fast speed the 2nd time through when you need to go over any weaknesses to conserve on time. Take good notes, not just the handouts, and know his material COLD. Let me sum this all up by saying that out of all the science prep material Chad's Videos were the MOST IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO MY ATTAINING A 23 GC AND 24 OC. I may not have got a 25 or higher but to put it in perspective I finished my TS section with 15 minutes to spare, got up, signed out, went to the bathroom, and signed back in before starting PAT.
Barron's AP BIO: This should be ALL you need for biology. No way, yes way, get out of here, no you get of here........ All jokes aside trying to cover EVERY SINGLE THING that can possibly show up on the BIO section is like NAILING JELLO TO A WALL. On your best day you may get everything to sick for 1-2ms (coincidentally the same amount of time required to fire an action potential.... oh no I'm so overloaded with facts they're seeping out everywhere!!!). After the 1-2ms is over you will start to forget stuff and get rusty on the least recent material you have reviewed. There is just too much information to know. To put it in perspective, you could make a note card of all of Alan's notes and they could still find more stuff to try to get you on. The point I am making is that getting above a 22 in BIO has a large luck component to it.
***DISCLAIMER*** I am not trying to offend any +22 BIO people here but the difference between a 22 and 30 is 3 questions, which means that of the at least 1 or 2 that you were iffy on and just made your best guess on were right on top of nothing else that you were starting to forget came up that you couldn't figure out, so there is a little bit more luck involved in this section then anywhere else********
All that said they will never ask you anything deeper than Barrons AP BIO. So if you just spend your time learning Barron's cold then you have all the tools in the shed necessary to start practicing with whatever practice material you have acquired. They have good questions at the end of each chapter and I found it surprisingly easy to read as well.
Practice Material
DAT Destroyer:
BIO: I only got about 100ish questions in on Destroyer BIO. I spent more of my BIO practice time on DATqVault, which I am a huge fan of, just plain studying my weak areas (non-human bio) with reading Barron's first and then using Alan's notes and Note cards. I spent alot more of my "science time" on GC and OC which I found Destroyer to be immensely more useful for. Nothing wrong with destroyer BIO, its not too specific, I just prefer DATqVault for BIO practice, but if you have time DEFINITELY do both as it will really benefit you.
GC: Chad's videos coupled with Destroyer is a knock out punch for the DAT. Destroyer is hands down the best PRACTICE material you can buy for the DAT. Accept no substitutes. Yes the rumors are true. Destroyer GC is a lot harder IMO than the Real DAT. It is specifically designed to CHALLENGE you and by doing so TEACH you all the ins and outs. It also has particular hard questions that seem eccletic but probably represent some real questions that show up every now and then. The point of destroyer is to expose you to and to teach you how to answer every kind of question you could ever encounter on the GC section in 270 questions. Honestly there is probably close to a 1,000 questions they could possibly ask you, hence the complexity of some of these destroyer questions (essentially 2-4 problems rolled into one). This way by practicing these 270 tough questions, you've learn how to do 800 or regular to easy questions. For the most part none of the calculations on the real GC were even close to as hard as destroyer, except for maybe 1-2 which were more about how to isolate the variable, all the pH calcs. were CAKE on my test. Destroyer is a must for anyone serious about trying to pull of +20 GC scores. The rule fo thumb around these forums is to go through Destroyer 2-3 times. If you have the time go for it, but as i have said before I only got 2/3rds of the way through Destroyer GC and got 23 of the real DAT GC with 15 minutes to spare at the end of the test. I did very methodically go over what I got wrong and always attempted to redo the problem after knowing how it was supposed to be set up, so the may have been equivalent to going over the first 200 problems 2-3 times.
Foundational Material that Gets an Honorable Mention
Kaplan White Book: Basically I bought the kaplan book set that comes with the DAT class from Ebay for like $110. In retrospect this was a complete waste of $$$. BECAUSE if you already have Barron's AP Bio then you don't need the Kaplan Bio, if you have Chad's videos you don't the Kaplan GC or OC sections, if you have Chads QR videos then you don't need Kaplan QR, and if you have Destroyer then you don't need Kaplans workbooks/practice problems, essentially I thought I would love their notecards but I wound up using my own which I made from Chad's Videos and Alan's Notes. I'm not knocking the material, Kaplan does a fine job presenting what you need to learn but consider that I paid $110 for this stuff and the KBB is $50, for $50 you could get Chad's videos for a month and buy Barrons AP BIO which I just feel have more value.
Barrons DAT: Just a waste, get KBB instead if you want to get something like this. I got it for PAT, but Sama's PAT tutorial just puts it to shame, and its free.
Princeton Review DAT Classroom Book Set(rare): These are rare, but uh I know a guy and I got the whole set for free. By the time my friend gave it to me I had like 2.5 weeks left to go and I was in a real rhythm between all my other stuff I never really got to it. It looked nice, but I will lump it in to the waste category because it didn't seem that much different than kaplan and you are much better off with a Chad/BarronsAPBio/Destroyer Combo any day of the week.
Princeton Review MCAT Prep Books: As an overall recommendation DO NOT USE MCAT PREP MATERIALS FOR THE DAT unless you are one year out and just want to do everything that was created ever to be done. Stick with DAT specific stuff, trust me. So I would just lump this in with the Kaplan and Princeton DAT stuff, but less effective.
Barrons AP Biology Note Cards: They are very nice and very well done, I tried them one day, and they then sat in the box the rest of the summer. You are better off making your own from DATqVault/Destroyer/Alan's notes
I will breakdown the other sections later, I made my biggest jump in the PAT so I would love to help anyone struggling with it. I do not have any plus 24 scores so I didn't think it would be necessary to post a picture of my scores but if enough controversy arises I have no problem posting them up later this weekend.
THANK YOU SDN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Before anyone asks, I got neither the Physics nor the Piano passage, just nice fun biological sciences passages as indicated by a 23 only being 89.8 Percentile, I am aware I got a fluffy section and I really feel for those of you who got Piano'd in the past and Physics'd recently
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