predent0909
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Hi! I found these breakdowns extremely helpful when I was prepping for the DAT, so I thought I’d write one of my own. For context, I took the DAT the summer after sophomore year as a Chemical Engineering major, right after taking gen bio and ochem. Also, I’ve always had a really bad habit of cramming for exams, which ended up helping since I only had ~3 weeks fully dedicated to studying.
Scores
PAT - 22
QR - 24
RC - 24
Bio - 20
GC - 25
OC - 23
TS - 22
AA - 23
Resources
I originally intended to follow the DAT Booster 8 week study plan to take the exam on the first week of August, but I ended up getting sick twice, causing me to lose two weeks of studying, and I was also working roughly ~30 hours a week (at a dental office and at a grocery store). So, my original plan did not end up working out since I was so tired and only ended up studying inefficiently for maybe like 1-2 hrs a day.
The last week of July I decided I’d push back my exam to mid August and use about 20 days to actually prep for the exam (DON’T BE AFRAID TO PUSH IT BACK IF U FEEL LIKE U NEED TO! The fee beats having to retake!) I bookended my shifts at the grocery store so I could have more free time, and the dentists I was working with were extremely understanding and they let me take these three weeks off to focus on studying. However, these 20 days were extremely stressful, since I was studying about 8-10 hours a day and I was trying to cover all the content + practice exams in such a short amount of time. There were days where I felt like I wasn’t going to make it, knowing that my schedule was not the best.
Just so you can have a rough idea of how I studied during those 20 days, here’s what I did:
I took two practice tests before this (as diagnostics), getting scores as low as a 13 on GC (so don’t let this discourage you!)
First week
Booster Averages (of all tests I took) - 17 Bio, 20 GC, 20OC, 22PAT, 22RC, 24QR
I was a little disappointed in my QR and PAT scores since I had averaged a 26 on the last 4 QR tests I took, and a 24 on the last 5 PAT tests I took, but I think it’s because I messed up my PAT practice (and neglected QR near the end) due to traveling on the week of my exam, so BE CONSISTENT. (As you can see the overall booster avg was pretty accurate on those two)
I also ended up getting an unexpected number of a certain question type on my QR section which threw me off, so make sure you're comfortable with all the questions on Booster.
Takeaways
Highly recommend Booster since it has all you need at a great price. I don’t recommend cramming if you don’t have to, but if you find yourself in that position just do your best. Try to stay calm on test day and during your study period (also make sure to get enough sleep leading up to your exam). Good luck!
Scores
PAT - 22
QR - 24
RC - 24
Bio - 20
GC - 25
OC - 23
TS - 22
AA - 23
Resources
- DAT Booster - Highly recommend it since it’s one of the most affordable options and it has literally everything you need.
- DAT Bootcamp HY Bio Notes - Helped in refreshing stuff from the semester, but I didn’t have time to finish reading.
I originally intended to follow the DAT Booster 8 week study plan to take the exam on the first week of August, but I ended up getting sick twice, causing me to lose two weeks of studying, and I was also working roughly ~30 hours a week (at a dental office and at a grocery store). So, my original plan did not end up working out since I was so tired and only ended up studying inefficiently for maybe like 1-2 hrs a day.
The last week of July I decided I’d push back my exam to mid August and use about 20 days to actually prep for the exam (DON’T BE AFRAID TO PUSH IT BACK IF U FEEL LIKE U NEED TO! The fee beats having to retake!) I bookended my shifts at the grocery store so I could have more free time, and the dentists I was working with were extremely understanding and they let me take these three weeks off to focus on studying. However, these 20 days were extremely stressful, since I was studying about 8-10 hours a day and I was trying to cover all the content + practice exams in such a short amount of time. There were days where I felt like I wasn’t going to make it, knowing that my schedule was not the best.
Just so you can have a rough idea of how I studied during those 20 days, here’s what I did:
I took two practice tests before this (as diagnostics), getting scores as low as a 13 on GC (so don’t let this discourage you!)
First week
- I took one day to go through all the Booster GC videos. These were extremely helpful since I had forgotten a lot of the gen chem knowledge I acquired during freshman year. I took very few notes from the videos and focused on learning how to work through the sample problems.
- I used another day to cover roughly 50% of the GC question banks and read from the DAT Bootcamp Bio Notes. I’ve never been great at conceptual stuff, and therefore, never been the best at Bio, so I just read the Bootcamp notes and made my own “cheat sheets” to just have a general idea about the concepts.
- My main strategy was trying to master the stuff I knew I could do better on (GC, OC, QR, RC) and doing ok on Bio. *I made a 2 - page GC cheat sheet based on the explanations of conceptual stuff and formulas from all the QB questions, which I would read over every 3 days ish to really remember the definitions/what formulas meant.
- I took another day or two to go through all the OC videos and the study notes (I would read the notes for one subchapter and watch the videos right after to sort of solidify my understanding). This was essential since I had a lot of gaps in conceptual knowledge from taking the class during the school year. Like I mentioned, I’ve never been great at conceptual stuff, so I didn’t really focus on memorizing the reactions until closer to the exam.
- For QR, I had a solid understanding of most of it (due to a good background in math) except for the probability/statistics concepts, so I mainly skipped the videos for algebra and the other topics (or watched them at 2x speed) and focused on the ones for prob/stats. I didn’t really dedicate much time to prepping for this section since I was pretty confident I could do well. I got 21 & 23 on this section for the practice tests I took as diagnostics (before content review). Once I covered the prob stats sections I was scoring 25-28 on Booster. (I did 1-2 section tests a week and went over what I got wrong to make sure I understood)
- That week I also started doing 90 PAT questions a day (15 from each section), which I kept doing for the majority of the 20 days of studying. Every couple of days I would do a section test instead so I could get an idea of where my score was at. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
- I also did one full RC test every 3-4 days ish. I would read each passage in 10-12 mins and highlight stuff I thought I might get asked about and then dedicated 8-10 mins to answering the questions. I think getting good at identifying what they might ask is extremely helpful since you can go through the questions pretty quickly if you know where the answers are.
- I did a couple of section tests for each topic during this week.
- I finished most of the GC QB questions (like 90%)
- I read more of the Bootcamp HY Notes but didn’t have time to finish them (~70%), so most of my knowledge ended up coming from what I learned during the school year.
- I reviewed the answers to the practice tests I had already taken. I also took a couple more section tests (mainly for chem). ATP I was averaging 18 on OC, and 21 on GC on Booster.
- I did one full length exam (at the same time my actual test was going to be) at the end of this week and got a 22AA (20 Bio, 22GC, 18OC, 26PAT, 21RC, 28QR)
- I took a day to go over the OC rxn sheet and made my own. I did about 40% of the OC question banks, focusing on the reactions I understood the least. I also watched all the video explanations for the tests I’d taken (HIGHLY RECOMMEND DOING THIS, after watching these explanations I averaged a 23 on the section tests I took).
- I did two full length exams this week (also following testing conditions) and went over the solutions.
- I unfortunately didn’t have time to go over the bio exam answers (I only did 7 of the bio practice tests), which I do believe would’ve been really helpful since I ended up seeing really similar questions on my exam.
- I got a 22AA on my last two full length practice tests
Booster Averages (of all tests I took) - 17 Bio, 20 GC, 20OC, 22PAT, 22RC, 24QR
I was a little disappointed in my QR and PAT scores since I had averaged a 26 on the last 4 QR tests I took, and a 24 on the last 5 PAT tests I took, but I think it’s because I messed up my PAT practice (and neglected QR near the end) due to traveling on the week of my exam, so BE CONSISTENT. (As you can see the overall booster avg was pretty accurate on those two)
I also ended up getting an unexpected number of a certain question type on my QR section which threw me off, so make sure you're comfortable with all the questions on Booster.
Takeaways
Highly recommend Booster since it has all you need at a great price. I don’t recommend cramming if you don’t have to, but if you find yourself in that position just do your best. Try to stay calm on test day and during your study period (also make sure to get enough sleep leading up to your exam). Good luck!
