Scores: (sorry about the bad picture, my testing center was out of toner)
PAT-26
QR-28
RC-30
Bio-30
GC-24
OC-30
TS-28
AA-28
Hey y’all! I’m a first time DAT taker, and I thought I would write a breakdown of how I studied because I kind of deviated from the norm. A lot of the breakdowns that I read were from people who studied for 3 months or more, and I only studied for about 6 weeks while balancing a summer research fellowship, so I thought I would share my experience to maybe reassure people who are studying in a shorter timeline. The resource I found most helpful in my studying was DATBooster, but I’ll describe all of the ones I used below.
Background:
I’m an upcoming Senior at Washington and Lee University pursuing a Chemistry and Neuroscience double major with a 3.98 GPA. I switched from pre-med to pre-dental during my junior year, so I’m somewhat new to the pre-dental field. I took gen chem and bio my freshman year, organic chem my sophomore year, and biochemistry my junior year. I scheduled my DAT back in the middle of May, and I just took it July 5th. I didn’t start actually studying for the test until about the last week in May because I didn’t finish Spring semester classes until May 24th. I would drive to where I was working about an hour or so early everyday and study until I had to start working. When I didn’t have something to work on in my fellowship, I would also study while I was at work, but I did the majority of my studying in the evenings after I would get home. On the weekends, I would devote most of Saturdays to studying, then I would take a full test on Sundays, take a little break and then review the whole test that same night. On the week leading up to my test, I took a full practice test on Sunday and Monday, and on Tuesday and Wednesday I took what amounted to about one and a half practice tests, but I took them by individual sections.
Materials used (chronological order):
Jackson Westin ( https://jackwestin.com/w/dat/courses/ ): When I first started studying, I was really hesitant to spend a lot of money on study materials or online courses because taking the DAT is expensive already, and buying a 3 month course when I only had 6 weeks to study seemed like a lot. I started researching free DAT resources, and for anyone who’s taken the DAT, you probably know that there are not a lot. Aside from the free versions of DATBooster and DATBootcamp, I also found a resource called Jack Westin that was offering a free self-paced DAT course. The course consisted of videos for each subsection of biology, gen chem, and organic chem, followed by questions associated with each topic. I watched all of the biology videos and did the associated questions first because that was the section I remembered the least. I also reviewed the organic chemistry sections that went over the different reactions. There were also videos for the PAT that detailed strategies, which I watched to get familiar with the different types of questions. They also had question banks for the PAT sections, but I only used them a little as I was mainly focused on reviewing the science material. The course had 2 full length Prometric style practice exams (I took one of them), and they were pretty reflective of what was on the DAT, but their interface was somewhat janky and there were a couple of typos.
YouTube videos: Because of my research fellowship, which I started about the same time as I started studying, I had about a 1.5-2 hour commute everyday, and to take advantage of the time, I listened to review videos while I was driving. At first I just googled DAT biology videos, and I used this playlist: . I got through about half of the videos, usually on 1.5 or 2x speed because they were somewhat slow before I switch to watching the Hank Green Crash Course videos. I went through his entire biology 2012 playlist (), then I watched his entire general chemistry () and anatomy playlist (). While these aren’t necessarily geared towards the DAT, they cover most of the same material and are presented in a way that is engaging, making the information easy to remember. Because I had such a short study timeframe, I really wanted to maximize my time, and this worked incredibly well for me, keeping the material in my mind. I did this up until I took my test, even listening to a few videos I really wanted to review the morning of my test.
DATBooster (DATBooster | The #1 DAT Study Tool): About two and a half weeks into studying and after talking to some incoming dental students about their studying strategies, I reached out to the Booster staff using the chat function to ask if there was a way to purchase a shorter subscription because by this time, I had less than a month left. The staff was really great and got back to me the same day with an offer of a one month subscription at a discounted price. I started using the full site immediately, focusing first on the PAT question banks, as I hadn’t done much in regard to studying for that yet. I also did the daily warmup everyday which were nice to start off studying with, and you can also earn more days with a certain number of daily streaks. Overall, I mainly utilized the full practice tests, taking them all at once when I had a full 5 hours to dedicate and once section at a time when I only had a shorter amount of time. Taking the full 5 hour test was definitely helpful, and I would really recommend doing the full thing as much as you can before your actual DAT, but once I had the timing down and knew testing fatigue wouldn’t be a big issue for me, I felt good just taking one section at a time. Especially for the sciences, timing wasn’t an issue for me, but I needed as much review and exposure to questions as I could get. I finished all of the bio, GC, and OC practice tests, marking the questions I got wrong after I took each test, and I would periodically go through them to make sure I understood what I had done wrong and fully learned the concept. I also watched all of the chemistry videos because I hadn’t reviewed a ton of chemistry yet, and the videos were super helpful, especially with the practice problems. I usually watched these on 1.5 or 2x speed as well. I only got through about half of the PAT practice tests but I did a lot of the question banks, and I think both really helped me prepare. For reading, I also mainly used the practice tests, but when I didn’t have a full hour, I would use the question banks for quick practice. I didn’t really use any kind of concrete strategy for the reading section, I usually just tried to skim until I found the part of the passage where the answer might be, but sometimes I would start reading the whole passage from the beginning if I couldn’t immediately find something. For the QR, I used the question banks to review some topics (mainly some things about probability) that I had forgotten, and then I completed all of the practice tests, reviewing them the same ways as I did for the science sections.
Comparing to the actual DAT:
For the science section of the DAT, booster was definitely reflective of the actual material on the test, and some of the questions in the biology section on my test were verbatim to what was on Booster. For OC, a lot of my test was more conceptual rather than a predict the product scenario, and there was definitely a lot of acidity related questions. Overall, I think the Booster material was even harder than the actual test, so I felt really well prepared. In terms of the Jack Westin material, the biology section matched the difficulty of the test, but the chemistry section felt a bit lacking compared to the actual test. The biology and anatomy YouTube videos I watched also definitely helped me with remembering material for the biology section, especially the ones about organism classifications.
For the PAT, Booster was definitely harder than the actual test, especially in regard to the hole punching and pattern folding questions. The angle ranking was about the same level of difficulty just because of the nature of those questions, but the strategies and practice questions on Booster definitely helped me be prepared. My strategy for the section was to start with the TFE, move to the hole punching and go through the end, and then finish with keyholes and angle ranking because those were my most variable sections in terms of scores. Also, if I was running low on time, I could go through the angle ranking relatively quickly. I’ve heard of a ton of different strategies for this section, but it’s important to find which one is right for you because this is a stressful section, and having a solid game plan will absolutely help.
For the reading, I also thought the actual test was easier than booster. For one, the passages were generally split into smaller paragraphs making it easier to skim. Additionally a lot of the questions were very straightforward, it was a lot of just finding the sentence with the answer and not a ton of inferring. On my test, I also didn’t get any of the “are these statements correct and related” questions, so that made it easier as well.
For the QR section, I think Booster pretty much matched with the difficulty of the actual test. I didn’t have as many probability questions on my test, which sometimes trip me up, so it was slightly easier, but not substantially so.
One thing I was really worried about for the test was all of the horror stories I had heard about lag during the test eating up time, especially during the PAT. While there was a decent amount of lag between questions, which seemed to increase as I moved through the test, the time didn’t seem to run during the lag. Only when it lagged the longest (like 5-6) seconds did it take up about 2 seconds of my time. I don’t know if this would be the same for every Prometric testing center, but it was true for me at the Dallas center.
Also, at my test center, when I turned on the NumLock on the keyboard, I was able to use the keyboard for the calculator on the math section, which was really nice. It even let me type the multiplication or division symbols with the keyboard. I had practiced both with and without using the keyboard, so it wasn’t a huge advantage for me, but it was something I was more comfortable with.
Studying for and taking the DAT is definitely a nerve racking process, and waiting in the lobby of the Prometric center before the test definitely doesn’t help with the nerves, but it’s important to take a few moments to center yourself, calm down, and get in a good mindset. You just have to remember that you’ve studied hard and be confident in your abilities.
