20 days till my DAT exam. Having major concerns and need help?

[Merisa15]

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Hi everyone!

I have 20 days left until I take the DAT and I am stressing big time. I feel like I will not be prepared once that day comes.

Can someone please give me advice on how to best utilize my last 20 days?

I have gone through the Destroyer once already, currently going through it once more. I have created a Word document containing all the topics that were discussed in the biology section and have been trying to memorize the details. I have also been reading Feralis' notes on top of the notes that I took while going through Cliff's.

As for chemistry and organic chemistry, I have been reading/memorizing the notes that I took while watching Chad's. Also been going through 20 problems from the Destroyer in a day.

As for math, I have watched Chad's videos and have taken plenty of notes. I found that to be useless since it did not help me when going through the Math Destroyer. I have also been doing 20 problems of these a day.

Just a few days ago, I took my first Bootcamp exam and did not perform as well as I was hoping to. I scored 17's on the sciences, 18 on RC, below a 14 on QR, and 19 on PAT. I will be taking my 2nd Bootcamp exam tomorrow. I have no idea if I will do well when the time comes that I take my exam.

Please help?

 

[knewstance]

You have the tools (knowledge), you just need to learn how to do them. As you take more practice exams, your scores will increase. If they do not, you need to go back to the knowledge part.

Go over the things you got wrong on your first BC exam, review the notes you make along with your other notes, then try again. Repeat until you've gone through all of the material.

 

[Merisa15]

You have the tools (knowledge), you just need to learn how to do them. As you take more practice exams, your scores will increase. If they do not, you need to go back to the knowledge part.

Go over the things you got wrong on your first BC exam, review the notes you make along with your other notes, then try again. Repeat until you've gone through all of the material.

Thank you so much for your response! I definitely have. I made notes of what I got wrong and correct and have been studying from those notes ever since. I am just lost on where I should focus more of my time.

 

[crumps]

You're gunna need a lot more practice. You should be doing a lot more than 20 questions a day imo. Especially on QR I would do one math practice test a day from the math destroyer. Timed and untimed. You need to go back to the first bootcamp test and read WHY did you get these questions wrong. Ask yourself, why is the answer the right answer. Why was your answer wrong? What could you do differently on a similar type of question such that you'll get it right the first time? Did you get it wrong because you straight up didn't know or because you didn't read carefully or you were rushing and you ran out of time. First: identify the reason why you are getting the scores and then develop a game plan on how to resolve it. However I do recommend pushing the test date back. You'll need more than just 3 weeks to prepare imo. How long have you been stu dying for it?

 

[spdental]

Merisa15,

I was having difficulty with my science section, and was having tremendous anxiety when going through the Destroyer my first time. I stopped and took a day off, and then proceeded the next week to go through all of Mikes quizzes and Chad's quizzes. Stopping and rewatching the sections I was unsure of. Each day I would take a Bootcamp test for each (6-10) and a math test.

My schedule was as follows:

7:00 AM-8:30 AM - PAT and QR
8:30AM-11AM - Gen Chem Mikes and Gen Chem Chads, BC 6
11AM-1PM- O Chem Mikes and Chad's, BC 6
1-2PM - Eat
2-4PM - Math Destroyer/Look over Chems
4-7- Workout/Eat
7-11 - Bio Destroyer, Videos on issues I was having with bio

I usually tried to get through 4 sections a day of mikes and chad's, and then the next day I would do the next bootcamp test.

Anyways, I took my Bootcamp 1 practice last weekend and scores 23 in GC and 21 in OC. My test is coming up as well (August 3rd). It may sound like backtracking, but I think if you do this for a week a lot of things will come together for you. Good luck!

 

[Jyggaswoop]

I took 5 weeks to study for the dat so i understand the time pressure you are feeling. For math, ari's equation sheet is a great boon and you should basically memorize those 7 pages. For the sciences it's basically practice chemistries and review chads notes everyday and for bio make quizlet flashcards of feralis. I started making my own word doc also but switched to flashcards as I can pull them on my phone easily and it helped a lot with memorizing. Make flashcards from feralis and bootcamp questions you miss and go over them. Also take full lengths at 9 am review then day after review more and the day after than take another. Schedule it so you have 2 days of rest between your last full length and the real dat. That's what I did and ended up 21 aa ts

 

[FeralisExtremum]

I have gone through the Destroyer once already, currently going through it once more. I have created a Word document containing all the topics that were discussed in the biology section and have been trying to memorize the details. I have also been reading Feralis' notes on top of the notes that I took while going through Cliff's.

Have you been actively memorizing these notes you've been taking for the biology section?

As for chemistry and organic chemistry, I have been reading/memorizing the notes that I took while watching Chad's. Also been going through 20 problems from the Destroyer in a day.

Memorizing is important for chemistry as well, but practicing is equally important to reinforce the material. I would personally be doing more than 20 questions a day. Have you worked through Chad's quizzes as you went through the videos? How did you do on those quizzes?

As for math, I have watched Chad's videos and have taken plenty of notes. I found that to be useless since it did not help me when going through the Math Destroyer. I have also been doing 20 problems of these a day.

Chad's videos are good for the basics in math but there are sections like probability and statistics that you want more practice in from outside content review sources (like Khan Academy). If you've got the formulas down, you should at least be doing decently in Math Destroyer (which can get pretty challenging). Again, do more than 20 problems a day here - shoot for one full Math Destroyer test a day and try to do them under timed conditions.

 

[ppaa]

I was kind of in your shoes a couple of weeks ago. I decided to postpone my exam by 3 weeks. But since you have about 3 weeks left, this is what I did and my scores improved majorly for the sciences. I still have 10 days till the DAT and I'm at this point rn.
My avg before: Bio 17-19, GC 21-24, OC 18-19 and now they are Bio 21-24 and OC 21 (didn't really focus on GC since I think its good)

I basically did everything you did except I hadn't gone over destroyer fully. I think you should go over destroyer again for all subjects. You definitely need to do more than 20 problems, I did 100 problems a day for bio so I could finish in 6 days. I did 100 each day for ochem so finished in 3 and 100 in gchem so finished in 4. By this rate you can finish in 14 days but you can pair subjects together and try to finish in 10. And on top of that do PAT and math/reading everyday as well.

For bio: Go over destroyer and make flashcards for EVERYTHING. By this I don't mean write down the question and answer, right down definitions, purpose of xyz etc. Even if you get the questions right, if you stop focusing on it by the time 3 weeks are over you might forget. Also read the solutions, the solutions have info that might help you understand the info more even if you got the question right. For the which one is false, I would right down all the trues on separate flashcards because they might be good info to know. Then I did all the bootcamp tests 6-10, wrote flashcards for everything. Then study the flashcards everyday, trust me it really helps. Each day I did 100 questions, then I would study them before bed. Every 3 days, I would see which ones I knew really well and which ones I didn't then split them up and studied the ones I didn't know more. But I still studied the ones I knew every 2-3 days.
For Ochem: Write out the roadmaps on a sheet of paper with blanks so you can fill them in and copy them for like 10 days (theres 8 roadmaps so you can do 4 a day). Understand the reactions and write down flashcards for reactions that you find tough. Write down rules for nucleophilicity, acidity, Sn1 etc. I feel like with Ochem there is only so much they can ask you so you can def master this section.
For math: take a test a day, go over what you got wrong, write flashcards for formulas and whatever you need to memorize.