07/08 Breakdown

[jlt0530]

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First of all, thanks to all of you who helped me when i needed help! This is indeed a wonderful source for all predents! I see bunch of breakdowns in just a few days..I guess this was one of those favorite weeks to take the DAT...

I took mine on 8th, but i just flew home yesterday from testing place, and i had to have a long uninterrupted sleep😴, so here is my breakdown..

PAT: 23 (98.7%)
QR: 25 (97.4%)
RC: 19 (53.3%)
BIO: 21 (90.4%)
GC: 22 (88.7%)
OC: 29 (100.0%)
TS: 22 (95.3%)
AA: 23 (97.9%)

This is my second time taking it. The first time, I was dumb enough to take it without solid effort putting into it. My first time, which was August 2008 got PA 22/AA 19/TS 19 and it wasn't enough to put me into any school. This time, I primarily put most of my time into studying DAT unlike the previous time. I used Kaplan, Destroyer, CDP, Topscore, Cliffs and my notes. Overall, I'm happy with my score.

PAT: definitely CDP.
Keyhole – easier than CDP
TFE – easier, few weird ones
Angles – same. I always had trouble with this section! Always!!!
Holes – harder. Didn't expect this to be hard, but they were folded in weird proportions like 1/3 of the way 🙁
Cubes – def easier. No illusion
Folding – somewhat harder

QR: kaplan was a good practice. i was able to get my hands on those kaplan QR practice exam packets which helped me with word problems. I was worried about the timing, but I actually had 10 minutes left at the end so I was able to check my answer. I hated probability, trigs and money calculation problems, but their probability and trigs weren't that bad at all while few money calculation problems were somewhat complicated. I had one question that i've never seen before in prep material. It was about statistic. Although I took stats for my psych minor, I couldn't possiblely remember the value, so I had to guess that one. I think destroyer is somewhat deviant from what showed up on real dat. Topscore was also very representative.

RC: i was terrified about this part all the time. I am an international student and always didn't enjoy reading. I used kaplan's mapping strategy on my first try, but that got me 17 (pianoed). I used search and destroy method on this one. It seemed like RC questions were more advanced than before (they are evolving to be more difficult 🙁). There were lots of inference questions and tone questions, which threw me off! For one of the tone questions, I didn't even know what some of those vacabs meant! What a shame! I was trying to do each paragraph in 18 minutes. Timing worked out pretty okay, but the accuracy was the problem, i think.

BIO: random as everyone has mentioned, but only some. I would say 50:50. 50% is exactly what we've all studied for. Another 50% is quite random and went into detail than expected. There were one problem that I had no idea what they were talking about. I think Cliff is must here. I went through it twice and i feel some of the problems were mentioned in the book. No weird plant and very general taxonomy.

GC: I was never good at GC since high school so I had to put lots of effort in it. I used cliff chem review book, which provided lots of practice questions. Destroyer was also very helpful. Most of my questions were concept based rather than calculation. I had lots of ideal gas law questions.

OC: I was thrilled with the result. While I hated chemistry, i think this was my favorite chem class. Most helpful study material was the note that I made throughout the time which came about to be 50 pages. Nothing unexpected on the real test. I have several NMR problems which were about the same level of difficulty as those on destroyer. Kaplan is somewhat lacking, so I strongly recommend to have your orgo textbook as your main source.

I have 3.6 GPA. My top choices are UPenn and columbia and I think i now have a better opportunity to give a shot at those schools. But some of my friends have told me that it got even more competitive for an international student to get into any of the dental schools since economy is so bad nowdays. (is it true?) I would be appreciated if you can share what your thoughts are.

If there are any question, please feel free to ask me or pm me.
I will try my best to help you in any way that I can just like i got helped from many of you guys.

thanks for reading this long breakdown. I hope it helped!
and Good luck to all of you!!

 

[dfymarine]

first of all,

CONGRATS! what a GREAT SCORE!!!

don't listen to your friend, just follow your heart. If it is UPenn or Columbia you wish to go, then apply there!


as for the breakdown:

1) I have been using the destroyer for a while, and almost getting comfortable with it. especially the GCHEM and OCHEM, so do you u think I will do well on chems of the real thingy?

2) How did you practice for the QR? just with the Kaplan practice QR?

thanks!

 

[jlt0530]

Thanks for your comment! I'll definitely follow my heart. I just wanted to know some stats regarding my possibility. I've done my part with application and DAT, so we'll see how it goes...

1) If you are comfortable with destroyer, it's definitely a good sign. But, don't rely on them solely! I went through destroyer like 5 times. Of course, first time was indeed destroyed my confidence, but if you went through the problems that you missed and actually learn from your mistake, you should get most of them right at later trial. 2 days before my exam, I timed myself with destroyer and got like 1 or 2 wrong out of each section. But that doesn't mean you know them all. I'll recommend you to do other problem sets that you haven't seen before, which will apply the knowledge that you've obtained from the destroyer. If you get something wrong on that new test, it means that your understanding of that concept is not well rounded. You may be used to the question type asked by destroyer, but you will need to look at that concept from the different point of view. So, definitely try something else like topscore!

2)I think QR relies on your background on math or your natural skill on math and luck! I'm asian, so i used to learn crazy math since i was a kid, so I was kinda good at math. But, still, if my QR section was like mostly word problems, i would have sucked the section. So, try different types of questions, and make sure to time you and try not to take more than 50 sec. Easy arithmatic or simple calculation shouldn't take more than 30 seconds, which can save you some time with complicated problems. And definitely, know your weak part. I was really weak at probability and trig. So, i focused on those chapters, and that really helped with my confidence and actual performance on real dat. Timing is a big factor in QR. But QR is the least important section on DAT, so don't freak out too much! good luck! 🙂

 

[ZzZzSleepyhead]

Thanks for posting the long breakdown 🙂. AND, congrats on the great scores. Best of luck to ya

 

[Sugafoot79]

Wow congratz on you DAT scores!

I wanted to ask you, how long did you study for and how many hours a day did you put in? Also, do you think the cliff chemistry is worth getting?

 

[brightsmiles9]

Great job! what were you getting on CDP? Thanks for the breakdown, best of luck! 🙂

 

[jlt0530]

ZzZzSleepyhead - Thanks for your congrats! gluck to you too!

Sugafoot79 - i started to study from January, but i didn't put all my effort in it..probably 2~3 hrs per day..but later for last 2 months..i quit my job and studied 6~8 hrs per day and i think i was a agreat idea to just focus on my dat..i was able to get my hands on the cliff genchem pdf file for couple of bucks and as a person who was very weak on genchem all along the way, i think it was helpful to get in touch with many problems to practice on... many people here have recommended ACS..i didn't use that b/c some people said its difficulty level is way beyond the dat..but i heard that it's a good source of practice. if you are good to gen chem, i don't think it would be a bad idea to challenge yourself with ACS. If you hate genchem like me, cliff would be a great start.

brightsmiles9 - i think pat comes naturally to me..So my CDP scores are pretty nice..21/22/21/24/22/25/26/25/24/25..CDP is quite representative of the real thing..So if you practice and practice, you will get hold of it!!

Best of luck to all of you guys!!