- Joined
- Aug 8, 2012
- Messages
- 35
- Reaction score
- 9
DAT done today finally!! It's been a long journey...I lurked for so long on SDN before I even decided to become pre-dent, and had used the forums as my DAT resource since day 1.
A little background.. I am a non-science major but recently finished all my prereqs: cell bio, micro, genetics, immuno, biochem, gen chem 1&2, and organic 1&2. I have been studying for months on and off... not gonna lie, it was really draining to be a full-time student, work, and still find time to study hours a day. I am now student teaching (full time intern) for my music major, and put in about 60 hours a week of teaching. So I would study during classes I took, study between classes I teach, skip class to study DAT, review notes while cooking dinner, basically study in any free moment I could find in the day. I'm saying this to encourage all of you who have to balance work and class while studying for ur DAT.... it is possible and YOU CAN DO IT!!!
Breakdown of my scores:
PAT - 22
QR - 25
RC - 24
BIO - 22
GC - 23
OC - 24
TS - 23
AA - 24
Resources: DAT Destroyer, Math Destroyer, Orgo Odyssey, Chad's, BootCamp, qVault, CDP, Campbell's, Cliff's AP Bio, Kaplan Blue Book, Feralis' notes
- Kaplan - read straight through the bio section of this while taking notes like a year ago. This was before I started taking any pre-reqs so everything was completely new to me 0.0 ...never looked at it again after this lol.
-Campbell's - I only used this cuz it was the textbook for my intro bio classes. It explained things very well for a person who's never been exposed to bio material before. Although sometimes I thought it was a bit too much fluff. Good for introducing yourself to brand new material.
-Cliff's AP Bio/Feralis - I would read through a section in Campbells, then read the same section in Cliff's, then in Feralis, just so I wouldn't miss anything. Took notes in my own little bio notebook~ All the info collectively was all I needed... I did take more detailed notes on certain sections by searching in Wikipedia/online, but judging by the real DAT bio section today, that was not necessary.
-DAT Destroyer - I went through twice, and went through wrong answers a 3rd time. Yea it was a bit much, but after the 3rd time, especially with orgo, everything just started to *click*. It no longer was memorizing, but seeing trends and really *figuring out* answers. Although some questions are really more detailed than you'll have in the real DAT, constant and frequent exposure to them will make you a better thinker and test taker in the way you approach questions.
-Odyssey - Doing the entire thing is way overkill, so just focus on the sections where you are weak (this book is organized by topic). Questions are asking way more than you will be asked on the real DAT. I was confused with SN1/2 and E1/2, so I did the first 15 questions on each of those sections, and finally started to see the patterns. I thought this was really helpful.
-Chad's - duhhhh amazing like everyone says! Orgo I watched twice through (1.5x speed, otherwise it takes too long), good because they 2nd time you pick up on things you missed the first time, even though you thought you wrote notes on everything. This helped really cement the concepts. I was more comfortable with gen chem, so I watched the whole thing once. I watched only selected videos a second time.
-BootCamp - really good. questions representative of the real DAT. good practice for timed test taking. also great because it gave me extra notes and I always learned something new from every test. No regrets~
**SUPER helpful for PAT!! Just the one exam and solutions helped me tremendously. Answers tell you exactly why each keyhole is wrong, and gives 3-D models of the TFE. For some reason, after I looked through the solutions, I could just *imagine* everything better...
-qVault - I bought the 10 Bio tests. Also good for extra exposure. I went through them all once. No regrets~
- Crack the PAT - Didn't need this. Bought all 10, only did 3. Scored 23, 21, 20, then got too lazy to do the rest lol...
-Math Destroyer - really close to the real thing. On the real DAT today, I just worked as fast as I can, put a random answer on the ones that i skipped, and marked it to come back to later if I had time. That was the strategy Ari suggested (I think). There was nothing weird like the Math destroyer tests 9-12 or whatever.
-RC - My strategy was to speed read about 3-4 paragraphs, depending on how dense, then go through all the questions for that article and try to answer them from memory.. or at least remember exactly where to look. Then do the same for the next 3 paragraphs, etc. It makes it easy to keep track of where you are. Search and Destroyer didn't work well for me, cuz I get too nervous, and I'm paranoid that it's a trick question I'll get wrong by not reading the whole thing. I also don't like the strategy of writing down key words for every paragraph...takes too long.
-ADA Practice Test 2007 - thought was easy
-ADA Practice Test 2009 - thought was harder. both were mehh. this one had lots of mistakes and i think even more than they gave out corrections for. neither was really helpful, but helped get timing down
So there you have it! Two days before the test, I took off from work and straight up reviewed. Read straight through my notes. Then the notes I took on my notes (lol). Reviewed all the way up to 2 hrs before my exam. This always works well for me... I usually don't get burnt out, but feel refreshed that I read straight through everything....
Walking into Prometric... It was probably the most nervous I've ever been! Even more nervous than getting in front of a crowd and giving a 45-min piano recital from memory...haha! But good luck to everyone out there. All the money spent on materials is well worth it. Stay focused, study diligently, review unfamiliar topics, and you will do great!!
A little background.. I am a non-science major but recently finished all my prereqs: cell bio, micro, genetics, immuno, biochem, gen chem 1&2, and organic 1&2. I have been studying for months on and off... not gonna lie, it was really draining to be a full-time student, work, and still find time to study hours a day. I am now student teaching (full time intern) for my music major, and put in about 60 hours a week of teaching. So I would study during classes I took, study between classes I teach, skip class to study DAT, review notes while cooking dinner, basically study in any free moment I could find in the day. I'm saying this to encourage all of you who have to balance work and class while studying for ur DAT.... it is possible and YOU CAN DO IT!!!
Breakdown of my scores:
PAT - 22
QR - 25
RC - 24
BIO - 22
GC - 23
OC - 24
TS - 23
AA - 24
Resources: DAT Destroyer, Math Destroyer, Orgo Odyssey, Chad's, BootCamp, qVault, CDP, Campbell's, Cliff's AP Bio, Kaplan Blue Book, Feralis' notes
- Kaplan - read straight through the bio section of this while taking notes like a year ago. This was before I started taking any pre-reqs so everything was completely new to me 0.0 ...never looked at it again after this lol.
-Campbell's - I only used this cuz it was the textbook for my intro bio classes. It explained things very well for a person who's never been exposed to bio material before. Although sometimes I thought it was a bit too much fluff. Good for introducing yourself to brand new material.
-Cliff's AP Bio/Feralis - I would read through a section in Campbells, then read the same section in Cliff's, then in Feralis, just so I wouldn't miss anything. Took notes in my own little bio notebook~ All the info collectively was all I needed... I did take more detailed notes on certain sections by searching in Wikipedia/online, but judging by the real DAT bio section today, that was not necessary.
-DAT Destroyer - I went through twice, and went through wrong answers a 3rd time. Yea it was a bit much, but after the 3rd time, especially with orgo, everything just started to *click*. It no longer was memorizing, but seeing trends and really *figuring out* answers. Although some questions are really more detailed than you'll have in the real DAT, constant and frequent exposure to them will make you a better thinker and test taker in the way you approach questions.
-Odyssey - Doing the entire thing is way overkill, so just focus on the sections where you are weak (this book is organized by topic). Questions are asking way more than you will be asked on the real DAT. I was confused with SN1/2 and E1/2, so I did the first 15 questions on each of those sections, and finally started to see the patterns. I thought this was really helpful.
-Chad's - duhhhh amazing like everyone says! Orgo I watched twice through (1.5x speed, otherwise it takes too long), good because they 2nd time you pick up on things you missed the first time, even though you thought you wrote notes on everything. This helped really cement the concepts. I was more comfortable with gen chem, so I watched the whole thing once. I watched only selected videos a second time.
-BootCamp - really good. questions representative of the real DAT. good practice for timed test taking. also great because it gave me extra notes and I always learned something new from every test. No regrets~
**SUPER helpful for PAT!! Just the one exam and solutions helped me tremendously. Answers tell you exactly why each keyhole is wrong, and gives 3-D models of the TFE. For some reason, after I looked through the solutions, I could just *imagine* everything better...
-qVault - I bought the 10 Bio tests. Also good for extra exposure. I went through them all once. No regrets~
- Crack the PAT - Didn't need this. Bought all 10, only did 3. Scored 23, 21, 20, then got too lazy to do the rest lol...
-Math Destroyer - really close to the real thing. On the real DAT today, I just worked as fast as I can, put a random answer on the ones that i skipped, and marked it to come back to later if I had time. That was the strategy Ari suggested (I think). There was nothing weird like the Math destroyer tests 9-12 or whatever.
-RC - My strategy was to speed read about 3-4 paragraphs, depending on how dense, then go through all the questions for that article and try to answer them from memory.. or at least remember exactly where to look. Then do the same for the next 3 paragraphs, etc. It makes it easy to keep track of where you are. Search and Destroyer didn't work well for me, cuz I get too nervous, and I'm paranoid that it's a trick question I'll get wrong by not reading the whole thing. I also don't like the strategy of writing down key words for every paragraph...takes too long.
-ADA Practice Test 2007 - thought was easy
-ADA Practice Test 2009 - thought was harder. both were mehh. this one had lots of mistakes and i think even more than they gave out corrections for. neither was really helpful, but helped get timing down
So there you have it! Two days before the test, I took off from work and straight up reviewed. Read straight through my notes. Then the notes I took on my notes (lol). Reviewed all the way up to 2 hrs before my exam. This always works well for me... I usually don't get burnt out, but feel refreshed that I read straight through everything....
Walking into Prometric... It was probably the most nervous I've ever been! Even more nervous than getting in front of a crowd and giving a 45-min piano recital from memory...haha! But good luck to everyone out there. All the money spent on materials is well worth it. Stay focused, study diligently, review unfamiliar topics, and you will do great!!
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so i had another 2 weeks to review like 3-4 hrs a day.