Luke0edwards
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Howdy y’all! I hope your studies are going well. I took the DAT two weeks ago and got a 24 AA with a 20 in QR. I studied with DAT Bootcamp and I’d love to share my study strategies that might be helpful to you. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had to study for the DAT with Bootcamp. I know not everyone has the time or finances to utilize this program, so I count myself lucky to have had access. I stuck with the Bootcamp study schedule, with some variation to focus on my weaker sections. I studied for 61 days before taking the test and took all the pretests available on DAT Bootcamp. Each morning I did the daily warm-up and quick study, but about a month before the test I substituted that warm up and quick study with reviewing my weak areas and problems I kept missing.
For Biology, I read the Bootcamp Biology Notes twice as the schedule directed and only really dove into the lengthier Biology Academy Notes a few times for my weakest areas like photosynthesis and taxonomy. I kept the taxonomy cheat sheet in a pinned tab on my browser all the time so I could read through it about once a day along with some flashcards I made. I found that teaching the taxonomies and their characteristics to a friend on a whiteboard helped me recall what I studied and discover where my knowledge was lacking. I completed and tagged all the biobites questions for each biology unit after having read the notes on that section twice. After finishing the biobites for each biology section I would then take the practice questions. This certainly took a lot of time but was a worthy investment. On car trips, I would ask my friends to review all the red and yellow tagged questions I was learning and reviewing.
For chemistry, I printed off all the gen chem and Ochem outlines. I watched all of Mike's videos and did all of the question banks after finishing the videos. Before taking each practice test in general chemistry I reviewed a short list of the formulas that were hardest for me to remember. As I became more familiar with those tricky equations, that list became shorter. Although there is certainly merit in relaxing before the test without notes, the morning before taking the DAT I reviewed again that short list of the formulas I had the most difficulty remembering. Taking times practice tests it took me some time to learn the importance of quickly guessing and moving on when I found a problem I didn’t understand or didn’t feel confident that I could answer quickly. This became a crucial strategy for me in my QR section where running out of time was my biggest concern. I was pretty comfortable with Ochem having retained a lot from my Ochem classes. But what helped me most to memorize reactions in my Ochem classes was reviewing flashcards at a specific time each day. For mechanisms, my friends and I would draw out the mechanisms on whiteboards and teach each other till we could draw out each mechanism without looking at our notes.
For PAT I completed the trainer game each day trying to beat my high score each time. I tried to spend about an hour each day for the first few weeks doing ten minutes on each generator and ten minutes doing keyhole problems ( even though there’s not a keyhole generator there are 1171 keyhole questions so you won’t run out before the test don’t worry). Closer to my test date, I was doing pretty well in all the sections but angle ranking, TFE, and Keyhole so I reserved my daily PAT practice for exclusively studying those problems. For full-length tests, I determined how much time I wanted to spend on each section and memorized six time stamp checkpoints of when I wanted to end each section so that I could tell if I was behind or ahead. These times are just what I was shooting for, some sections may take longer or shorter for you but I recommend setting up these checkpoints for yourself so you don’t run out of time. I wanted to finish keyhole at 48 minutes left on the timer, finish TFE at 36 minutes, angle ranking at 28, hole punch at 20, cube counting at 12, and pattern folding at 4 minutes left on the timer to give me some time to review marked answers. If I was lagging behind a checkpoint I would guess on the last few in that section and mark them then come back to it with the four extra minutes I had at the end. With the PAT it’s all about practice, practice, practice, and pacing.
For the reading section, I tried the search and destroy strategy for a few weeks but found the most success with a personal adaptation of the BYU4you strategy. I highly recommend watching all the strategy videos and trying them out individually. For me, what worked best was to read the first two questions then read the passage for understanding till I answered one and read the next question. I would still mark the non-fact questions and return to them after answering the fact questions. I usually ended up reading most of the passage after finishing all the fact questions and understood enough to confidently answer the non-fact questions. I also memorized the time stamp checkpoints when I wanted to finish the sections. I wanted to finish all the questions for the first passage at 42 minutes left on the timer, finish questions for the second passage at 24, and the last passage at 6 minutes left on the timer to have those 6 minutes to check three or four of the questions I wasn’t too sure about. Besides that, I didn’t do a lot to prepare for reading. I tried to read a science article each day but I was doing rather well on the practice tests so closer to the test day I mainly focused on biology, chem, and PAT.
The QR section was my Achilles heel and was indeed my lowest score. I’m a slow math person so trying to keep each question down to one minute was challenging. After finishing all the practice questions (doing at least 15 a day) I had to do practice tests with one-minute alarms on my phone to keep myself from going overtime on a single question and running out of time at the end. On my test day, I got a little overconfident and slowed down trying to do each problem. I ended up having to guess on the last four questions because I ran out of time. I suppose my QR score would've been higher if I had remained disciplined to 60 seconds per question and used the last five minutes to review my marked QR. The videos on each practice question are well made and I recommend just going through 15 a day and perhaps reviewing four or five ones you’ve tagged red each day. Don’t slow down on test day and you’ll do great!
In closing, the DAT is a beast, but so are you! You can do this, with effort, commitment, and self-discipline. Be sure to take time to breathe and rest periodically from all your hard work. In the end, this test and your score do not define you. However, the study skills you develop and self-discipline you grow in preparation for this test will be invaluable resources to you as a future dental student and dentist! I cannot divorce my scientific knowledge from my spiritual knowledge and I wholeheartedly confess heaven's help in all of my preparation for this test. I couldn't have done it on my own! Along with my daily studies, I likewise prayed each day for God's help on this test and I believe He has answered my prayers. I sincerely encourage the exercise of faith in your diligent study!
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