Add me to the list of those who can't wait to lose that pile of review books on their desk! So what did I do to celebrate today..dropped the gas tank out of a friend's rusty Lumina. :-/
I added my percentiles just to help clarify where various scores land you. I should probably also add that in true SDN fashion I wouldn't have shared my scores if they weren't good. I know it bothered me that everyone here seemed to get all 20's. Hopefully I add something here that is helpful and I'm not just another d-bag showing off a strong score. Cheers!
Preparation: I read an old KBB and Barrons first before coming here. They were nice for reviewing items I saw 10+ years ago (I'm a returning student), but not all that IMO. KBB is far too in depth for every section outside Biology IMO. I then purchased Chads, CDP, and Destroyer at the advice of SDN. I can't say enough about how great Chad was as a lecturer. He keeps it clear, uses good examples, and is focused on tested material. Best $30 I spent, period. CDP was also excellent, and only slightly tougher than the exam, so it represents it well. Destroyer was also a good representation of the exam, though "orgoman" was a lot tougher with chemistry questions than the real DAT was.
ALL prep materials were tougher than the real DAT. I finished science with 40minutes to spare. Again, I assure you the real DAT is easier than any commonly used test prep book (outside the KBB PAT).
Mistakes I Made: I believed my CDP science breakdown scores. I got a 14, 16, 17 on gen chem/orgo/bio on the first one (no joke)...then came here seeing 20's everywhere. I was in a funk. Don't worry about it!
I double-clicked a couple of times during the exam and skipped questions by moving two forward. If you hit "review marked" at the end it doesn't show you incomplete questions (hit "review incomplete" for that). I looked back with 20 seconds left on the PAT and saw 2!!! unanswered questions. Yikes. I quickly clicked them and gave the 10 second guess on each.
Section Breakdown:
Bio: Random as always, just pray they toss info at you that is familiar. I will say there were very few "all of these are true except" and "which is true" questions with 3 answers then D: A and B, E: A, B, and C. I recall 2-3 questions I had minimal knowledge on, but the answer choices were easy and not close together.
Gen Chem: What you'd expect, but I only recall 5 or so questions that actually required writing out formulas, filling in variables, and getting a solution. I only hit the periodic table 3 times or so. Most math was mental math. No oddball formulas needed.
Organic: If you do Destroyer, the real DAT will feel like a joke. I am not a chem major and I was almost giggling at the gimmie questions. This section felt very easy.
PAT:
- Keyholes: Not as bad as others have said, but several were like angles in that two answers would be very similar and only differ by the size of some little projection. You just had to eyeball those.
- TFE: Different than CDP, and tougher in many ways. The figures had less detail, and thus didn't have many identifying points to easily toss out wrong answers. It was tough, and I lost a lot of time here. Imagine a cube with diagonal dotted lines everywhere.
- Angles: Easier than CDP overall, but still had 4-5 that were pretty tough. The other 10 were much more obvious. On CDP anything over 5deg was obvious to me. 4 was tough if rotated, and 3 was tough period, just for reference.
- Paper Folding: Easier than CDP overall, but they did pull some oddball folds. Few "overfolds" as I call them, which is what I felt made these questions most difficult. I only counted 3 with overfolds.
- Cube Counting: Big structures, so I wasted time here. 3 of 5 were over 20 blocks, smallest was 16. No odd questionably hidden cubes. It was all there for me, but again the piles were big and I had a miscount and lost time here.
- Paper Folding: About equal to CDP. Not super hard or super easy IMO.
Reading: Long bio passages on mine (14-18paragraphs). I did the first one in 15min and it REALLY helped knowing I had a 5min buffer the whole time. Fewer "tone" questions than CDP. Questions were very balanced IMO.
Quant Reasoning: I saw a few odd problems that I had never seen an equal to elsewhere.
I hope that helps! Again, the real DAT is easier than the review materials. I don't mean that in terms of scores (i had 22-25 scores before I took the exam), I just mean that the questions were pretty straightforward overall.
I added my percentiles just to help clarify where various scores land you. I should probably also add that in true SDN fashion I wouldn't have shared my scores if they weren't good. I know it bothered me that everyone here seemed to get all 20's. Hopefully I add something here that is helpful and I'm not just another d-bag showing off a strong score. Cheers!
Preparation: I read an old KBB and Barrons first before coming here. They were nice for reviewing items I saw 10+ years ago (I'm a returning student), but not all that IMO. KBB is far too in depth for every section outside Biology IMO. I then purchased Chads, CDP, and Destroyer at the advice of SDN. I can't say enough about how great Chad was as a lecturer. He keeps it clear, uses good examples, and is focused on tested material. Best $30 I spent, period. CDP was also excellent, and only slightly tougher than the exam, so it represents it well. Destroyer was also a good representation of the exam, though "orgoman" was a lot tougher with chemistry questions than the real DAT was.
ALL prep materials were tougher than the real DAT. I finished science with 40minutes to spare. Again, I assure you the real DAT is easier than any commonly used test prep book (outside the KBB PAT).
Mistakes I Made: I believed my CDP science breakdown scores. I got a 14, 16, 17 on gen chem/orgo/bio on the first one (no joke)...then came here seeing 20's everywhere. I was in a funk. Don't worry about it!
I double-clicked a couple of times during the exam and skipped questions by moving two forward. If you hit "review marked" at the end it doesn't show you incomplete questions (hit "review incomplete" for that). I looked back with 20 seconds left on the PAT and saw 2!!! unanswered questions. Yikes. I quickly clicked them and gave the 10 second guess on each.
Section Breakdown:
Bio: Random as always, just pray they toss info at you that is familiar. I will say there were very few "all of these are true except" and "which is true" questions with 3 answers then D: A and B, E: A, B, and C. I recall 2-3 questions I had minimal knowledge on, but the answer choices were easy and not close together.
Gen Chem: What you'd expect, but I only recall 5 or so questions that actually required writing out formulas, filling in variables, and getting a solution. I only hit the periodic table 3 times or so. Most math was mental math. No oddball formulas needed.
Organic: If you do Destroyer, the real DAT will feel like a joke. I am not a chem major and I was almost giggling at the gimmie questions. This section felt very easy.
PAT:
- Keyholes: Not as bad as others have said, but several were like angles in that two answers would be very similar and only differ by the size of some little projection. You just had to eyeball those.
- TFE: Different than CDP, and tougher in many ways. The figures had less detail, and thus didn't have many identifying points to easily toss out wrong answers. It was tough, and I lost a lot of time here. Imagine a cube with diagonal dotted lines everywhere.
- Angles: Easier than CDP overall, but still had 4-5 that were pretty tough. The other 10 were much more obvious. On CDP anything over 5deg was obvious to me. 4 was tough if rotated, and 3 was tough period, just for reference.
- Paper Folding: Easier than CDP overall, but they did pull some oddball folds. Few "overfolds" as I call them, which is what I felt made these questions most difficult. I only counted 3 with overfolds.
- Cube Counting: Big structures, so I wasted time here. 3 of 5 were over 20 blocks, smallest was 16. No odd questionably hidden cubes. It was all there for me, but again the piles were big and I had a miscount and lost time here.
- Paper Folding: About equal to CDP. Not super hard or super easy IMO.
Reading: Long bio passages on mine (14-18paragraphs). I did the first one in 15min and it REALLY helped knowing I had a 5min buffer the whole time. Fewer "tone" questions than CDP. Questions were very balanced IMO.
Quant Reasoning: I saw a few odd problems that I had never seen an equal to elsewhere.
I hope that helps! Again, the real DAT is easier than the review materials. I don't mean that in terms of scores (i had 22-25 scores before I took the exam), I just mean that the questions were pretty straightforward overall.
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