PAT: 17
QR: 15 (I know)
RC: 18
BIO: 24
GC: 23
OC: 21
TS: 23
AA: 20
First of all, I want to start by saying that it has been years since I took any science classes, and I was always very nervous when it came to the sciences, especially for bio. Second, while studying, I worked, volunteered, and took classes all at the same time. So before even beginning this breakdown, I want to say that the key to studying is time management, taking things slow, and taking break days.
Materials used: Chad’s Videos, DAT destroyer, Bootcamp, Crack the DAT,
Here is what I did for all sections:
OC: I watched Chad’s videos TWICE, took notes the first time and watched once again, and then I went through all of DAT destroyer. Here is the thing about destroyer, I read that many people said it was overkill and I certainly thought it was too, it kicked my ass the first time around…I would get 15/30 questions right, and at one point I even felt depressed. But I went through the solutions in DETAIL and actually understood what it was saying. Here is the thing though, I skipped a few questions that I thought were too hard for the DAT. Guess what? Similar questions like that showed up on my version. So to those saying that destroyer is overkill, I DISAGREE. I think that If I did not skip those few questions, my OC score would be higher. I also did practice tests on bootcamp, and thought that they had some really detailed and excellent explanations. Ari and his team did a wonderful job. Overall, I recommend doing Chad’s videos, DAT destroyer, practice ADA exam, and do bootcamps practice tests.
GC: Similar to orgo, I watched Chad’s videos, a little bit YouTube, and did destroyer again. Again, be careful with this section. You might think that some problems in destroyer are out of scope or too hard or involve too much math. But my version had a similar format. I will admit that my exam was easier, but there were many many problems that destroyer helped me with. Make sure you understand the questions that have the conceptual details. Especially the questions that have many different options, those are the best because you learn so much from them (the ones that say "all are true"). Other than that, I also liked bootcamps GC section, and Chads quizzes. Chad’s videos were AMAZING for gen chem., I can’t stress that enough. Not only was he captivating, there were days when I was tired and exhausted after work and could barely study. On those days, I watched his videos and the way he teaches makes you understand. The quizzes at the end of the videos help you finalize the information.
BIO: This was ironically my weakest subject… (and math was my strongest…
). What I did for this section was I SKIMMED through AP cliff notes. The key here is: Don’t memorize! Get a glimpse of where and what everything is. Then, I went through bio destroyer, yes ALL of the near 600 questions… and I got a lot of them wrong. The ones that I got wrong, I made flashcards of them, with my own modified version of the question, with the solution in the back. I also added more information from AP cliff on the flashcards, because I thought that I needed a little bit more to get the full understanding. Then, I skimmed through AP cliff again, but this time I knew what to focus on and where my weaknesses were, so I highlighted those areas. Just make sure you do not study the taxonomy chapter too much, its HEAVILY detailed and my test had around one question from that chapter, which was not even that bad. One thing about destroyer, I noticed that a lot of the questions were very random and there was a tremendous scope of possible questions. At first I thought this was weird, but then I actually enjoyed it. The key here is that since there are questions from so many different topics, anything can be thrown at us for this section. So I found it really nice to have questions come at me from many different directions, and this helped me a lot because instead of just studying everything and all of the topics together, I studied the different TYPES of topics. This made bio really interested and added the “spice” to my studying. For ex one question can be about the lac operon and then the next question is about jawless fish, and then about biomes, etc. I also watched YouTube videos, amoeba sisters/khan academy were really good. Overall, I’d say to skim through AP cliff, do all of the bio destroyer questions, and watch YouTube videos. I can link certain videos that I used upon request.RC: I was always good at reading. In bootcamp I got 22/21s….But in my version, I got two REALLY hard passages. My original method was to do a combo of search and destroyer and skimming, but these two passages made it really hard to do any S&D. The third passage was really easy, and that’s where I think I got most of my questions right. So be careful here, I would recommend practicing A LOT. I did not practice as much as I should have, and that made me panic , and I changed my technique and started to read the passage in detail and lose a lot of time. So perfect your technique, whatever it is and STICK to it.
QR: Ahh…my worst nightmare. If I posted up my QR scores up from bootcamp you would be surprised. I got 22/21/23/20/20/21/22 CONSISTENTLY. And on top of that I always finished in time. I was very confident with this section, until I saw the first few questions of my exam. They were worded much differently, and were REALLY hard. A lot of them were paragraph long questions, which might take someone a minute just to understand…My regret in this section is that I did not use a lot of math destroyer. I did the first five tests, and focused on other sources much more. BE CAREFUL here. Don’t make the same mistake I made. Because of this one section, I might retake the DAT. Either I got a really hard version, or I did not use the right sources. I would recommend doing all of either math destroyer or crack the dat math, because I have heard that those are hard, which is exactly what you need.
PAT: Again, Do not be fooled by online tests. A lot of them can be harder, easier, or close to your version but there is NO way to tell. I got 20s in crack the DAT PAT and 19s in bootcamp for 10 tests. On my version, I had a bunch of tricky problems. For keyholes a lot of my questions were rock keyholes, and for even simple sections like cube counting there were invisible cubes/illusions. I would recommend to do A LOT of practice, do not just do a few practice tests. Do this around a month before your test. I only started two weeks before my test.
FINAL ADVICE: DO NOT and I repeat do not ever get discouraged by online practice tests. And also do not get think that your practice tests online will be VERY similar to your actual DAT scores. The DAT is very unpredictable. For bio I would get 18s on online, and ended up with a 24. For orgo I would get 27s online and got a 21. For math I got 22s and got a FIFTEEN. Bottom line is: expose yourself to different sources, and find what is comfortable for you. Also, TAKE breaks. I tired myself out so much, that on the real test day I was like a zombie. It is possible to do good, don’t make the same mistake I did and focus on all of the sections. DO not just focus on the sciences only. I admit they look at science the most, and QR the least probably, but you do not want a 15 like me and have to retake or be worried for the summer for a hit or miss. Lastly, If I can get a 23 TS, so can you, you can get even higher than me. I'm just an average student. Don't be hesitant to ask me any questions, and good luck to you all.
