June 27, 2012 Breakdown (Datqvault, CPD, Destroyer, Topscore, 2007 ADA)

Djdents said:

Just wrote my DAT today and wanted to make a detailed breakdown in return for all the help I got from SDN during my studies.

Here are my scores:
PAT- 24 (98.1)
QR- 22 (97.9)
RC- 21 (76.7)
BIO- 23 (97.4)
GC- 22 (91.8)
OC- 22 (90.4)
TS- 22 (95.6)
AA- 22 (97.0)

My cGPA: 3.74, sGPA: 3.71.


Materials used:
-Chad's Videos
-KBB
-Cliffs (just a little)- Found pdf online for free
-Destroyer 2009
-Datqvault
-Topscore
-CDP (10 tests)

Practice Test Scores:

Destroyer Averages:

BIO 66.6%
GC 72.5%
OC 56.7%
QR 80.3%

Datqvault:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ave
BIO 18 21 20 22 22 18 22 20 19 18 20
GC 20 20 21 24 26 21 22 22 22 22 22
OC 18 18 20 21 19 20 21 21 20 X 20
RC 21 21 19 19 X X X X X X 20
QR 22 18 20 18 20 18 22 22 20 X 20

CPD:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ave
19 21 20 19 21 23 22 21 22 24 21

TopScore:

Test # PAT QR RC BIO GC OC TS AA
1 23 17 19 22 19 23 22 20
2 26 20 20 21 20 20 21 20
3 22 21 19 19 21 20 20 20

2007 ADA:

PAT QR RC BIO GC OC TS AA
23 24 20 19 24 30 23 23


I studied for 8 weeks and used a modified version of the study schedule posted by dentalWorks.
-In the first two weeks I went through Chad's videos for QR, GC and OC and through KBB BIO , PAT and RC with a little Cliffs AP Bio
-In the next two weeks I went through BIO, GC and OC in destroyer and did the KBB PAT and reading practice test.
-In the last 4 weeks I focused on practice tests and did one full length test (topscore) per week in the last 3 of those 4 weeks
I can post a more detailed study guide if anyone is interested

BIO (23)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Study:
I mostly used KBB to study for this section. It is definitely enough to get most of the questions right. I also used destroyer to find my weaknesses and work on them I made a lot of notes and q cards from destroyer and KBB. I used Cliffs for some supplemental information. One of the most beneficial study aids for bio for me was Anki. This is an amazing computerized q card program and its completely free (just Google Anki). It has so many options I cannot even begin to explain the all but they are super handy.

DAT:
This section was pretty hard. I was quite upset before I saw my score which was somewhat surprising. Non of the questions were about topics I never heard but a lot of them were about very specific parts of certain topics. A few of the questions were kind of vague and it was difficult to narrow down choices. Overall the questions were similar to Topscore and Datqvault is a good way to find your weaknesses but the wording of the Datqvault questions is less similar to the DAT than Topscore. The trickiness of the wording is similar to 2007 ADA test (and in difficulty actually).

GC (22):------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Study:
I studied for this using Chad's videos (watching them making notes and doing quizes). I then used destroyer to make more notes and finally practice tests.

DAT:
In general it was pretty straight forward, similar to Topscore, harder than 2007 ADA. There were two questions that I think I could have done but required too much thinking so I had to make an educated guess. There were not extremely random questions like in Datqvault.

OC (22):------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Study:
Same thing as GC

DAT:
In this section I thought that I did better. I felt that the questions were straight forward. There was no obscure reagents but some of conceptual questions were a little tricky that’s probably were I made my mistakes. Overall it was very similar to Topscore.

PAT (24):------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Study:
Worked on the basics via KBB then practiced with CDP.

Methods:
-keyhole - visualize 3 sides of shape and find match
-TFE - visualize shape
-Angle- compare to 90, if not see which fits in the other, if not then rapid eye technique
-Hole punch- visualize the holes. Sometimes I have to use the 4x4 method on 1-2 of the questions but not usually. I had to use it for 2 questions on the DAT
-Cube counting - tally method
-Folding - pick a face, find it in the unfolded shape and mentally fold around it

DAT:
-Keyhole : Was similar to CDP, no crazy shapes and choices were quite different from each other so it was not too hard to narrow it down to 2 options and then the correct option. Overall CDP is a good preparation for keyhole . Topscore was also similar but not as similar as CDP.
-TFE: CDP and the real DAT were slightly different in this section. CDP had really odd shapes that I had trouble visualizing but I was always able to find a line or two that should or should not be there and find the answer fast. But on the DAT it was the reverse of that. Shapes were fairly easy to visualize but the choices were a little harder to pick between. Topscore was also similar but not as similar as CDP.
Angles: on CPD I averaged 9/15 on angles and once got 6. The angles on the DAT were not even close to as hard as on CDP, VERY similar to Topscore.
-Hole Punching: I am pretty good at this section and got 15 on most of the CDP tests and I found that on the DAT this section was the same or easier, fairly basic, nothing special. I did have one 1/3 fold but it was easy as long as you realize that it is a 1/3 fold.
-Cube Counting: Simple shapes, no illusions 15-20 cubes. Easier than CDP.
-Pattern Folding- This section was quite a bit harder than CDP. Some of the shapes were fairly complex and it was hard to figure out how they would fold. I think I spent around 16 minutes on this section and made most of my mistakes in it. I had to guess on a few.

RC (21):------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Study:
Just practiced to hone down on a method.

Method:
Tried all of the following (ranked in order of best to worst for me)
-Reading every question and writing down a key word for each question then reading the entire passages and finding answers
-Reading the entire passage then answering questions
-Reading the first question then pure S&D, rinse and repeat
-Reading the first question, reading the first sentence of each paragraph + a few words in the middle and making keyword notes about each paragraph. Then when you find the answer move on to the next question and keep reading.

DAT:
I am extremely happy with my RC score. I was most scared about this section but it was fairly straight forward. My passages were all 14 paragraphs. 4-5 tone questions which were not hard to do and the rest S&D.

QR (22):------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Study:
Same as GC and OC
I actually started doing my practice tests (Datqvault and Topscore #1) without a calculator and that showed seeing as I got a 17 which went to a 20 on the second test when I did use a calculator. So I was pretty reliant on the calculator to save time and was scared that it would be glitchy from what I read on SDN. But it was fine as long as you regularly clicked CE and a couple of times.

DAT:
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the score I got for this section. I was happy when I saw all 21+ so I didn’t really notice what I got on QR until I got in the car and I was thinking about the QR section and I was happy (thinking I got a 21) and then I looked at my sheet and realized I got 22 and was REALLY happy. Overall it was harder than any practice test I have done. There were no medium difficulty questions. It was about 25 easy questions and 15 hard questions and by hard I mean time consuming. Especially the word problems. They were really long and somewhat difficult to understand. Overall I guess it was most similar to Topscore.



Sorry if there are a bunch of grammar/spelling mistakes in this. I am way too tired to edit.


If anyone has any questions or wants something clarified from the mess I wrote above, leave a comment and I will respond

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Djdents said:

Thank you. I did not see the new version of destroyer so it is hard for me to make comparisons but I think that the new one just has more questions. I feel like 2009 covered everything you need to know (obscure terms for bio, hard questions for chem, obscure reagents/reactions for orgo). If you work through destroyer and make sure you make notes and revisit and study those notes you should be okay.

I think making and studying your notes periodically is the most important thing. I had 40+ pages of computerized notes for Bio, GC, OC and QR... there was actually a few bio terms I left to the morning of my DAT to memorize because they were so obscure and one of them was on my DAT.

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Djdents said:

I actually meant non-reaction questions. I had 2ish acid base ranking. 2 product deprecation one of which was tricky. Naming was very easy. No IR and medium difficulty C and H NMR

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Djdents said:

Woah sorry. Stupid auto correct on my phone. I don't even remember what that word was supposed to be but I meant that there was two lab technique questions... one was extraction and one was chromatography

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