- Joined
- Aug 18, 2011
- Messages
- 128
- Reaction score
- 24
About F****** time!!! Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who wished me luck and encouraged me to keep at it. I've taken the DAT four times in the past year, 18 x3 and finally a 20. I figured I might as well go for broke. I'm a non-trad who majored in fine arts, wound up with a finance degree and decided to pursue dentistry. Hated working in finance, went back to school to do a post-bacc, finished that and tried taking the DAT throughout the past year. I had a lot of setbacks during the last year, I lost my father on New Year's Eve, and my brother was in jail/rehab for the past year, so I've been pretty much on my own lately and it was hard to stay focused sometimes. I think I can pinpoint what went wrong the first few times and why I was successful on this last attempt. I took Dr. Romano's course (guy who wrote destroyer) last summer and studied primarily off of his notes and destroyer, no practice tests besides getting halfway through a topscore exam only to have the computer crash. Same deal the next two times.
Here's what I did differently the last time I took the exam:
1. CHAD: He is all powerful. I spoke to him on the phone and he gave me some great advice and was convinced I could get my scores up. His videos are succinct and cover as much depth as is required for the exam. My problem was memorizing what was going on in the destroyer a lot and not really focusing on concepts. The destroyer is an excellent, well-made, pre-dent eating torture device as far as the gen chem section goes, but other than a handful of a few random facts that you will need on your exam, it's almost like it's built for a different exam. No problem on the DAT will dive in nearly as deep as destroyer gen chem. In fact, if there's any advice I can give it's that you should memorize the facts that are presented in the gen chem section NOT THE LONG CALCULATION PROBLEMS, they will never be more than one or two steps, destroyer has multiple 3 or 4 step problems. All the questions on the DAT are basic and simple, in fact the test seems outdated in it's format itself, it's entirely white and looks like an old microsoft notepad document. Chad will do you good. His GC and OC is a must. This should be your foundation for both section.
I didn't go back and change any science questions I had marked I finished my first exam with 30 minutes left, then 15 minutes each time. I had about ten minutes left this time too, and I smacked myself and said don't you dare, just hit END SECTION and let the chips fall where they may. Now, as for the math section, I went back and looked over the first two with the time I had left and changed them, one was wrong the other was correct. If you have time and you're unsure about a math problem and it's possible, PLUG THE ANSWER CHOICES INTO THE EQUATION, WHY NOT? Just do it, you might as well if there's time instead of making a stupid mistake.
I HATE MATH DESTROYER, I HATE IT. I WILL BURN THIS BOOK RIGHT AFTER I RIGHT THIS BREAKDOWN That being said, make sure you do this book, I had such a hard time with math the entire time taking the exam. I couldn't grasp the concepts in the math destroyer, but for some reason this time around everything clicked in my head. My friend who was tutoring me used to yell and say she wanted to hit me because it was soooo simple she was like "I can't do this it's frustrating!". Also, if you're tutor is hot, maybe don't study the hard stuff with her. As soon as I was on my own the gears starting to turn and things made sense. Math destroyer is basically a core set of problems presented in a different light each test, and once you get the concepts down you're okay. I went through the first ten tests and test number 13, don't bother with test 11 or 12 you don't need them, trust me.
PRACTICE TESTS DAT BOOTCAMP is an excellent excellent excellent program. My hat goes off to Ari for putting it together. It really doesn't get much better than Bootcamp unless you write the DAT for a living. It's marvelous. The topics are relevant, the style of questions are relevant, I only wish the real DAT interface looked the same it's very bland. Practice tests are important, start doing them a month before your exam, you can see where your weaknesses lie and you can only improve your scores. Also, keep in mind, theres only so many kinds of questions you can ask on these exams, some of them are exactly the same as the practice tests 😉 so you're getting your moneys worth if you know them in and out.
UNDERSTAND WHY YOU ARE GETTING PRACTICE QUESTIONS WRONG, AND OH YEAH, PRACTICE QUESTIONS!DO A TON! Nothing is better than doing lots of problems and knowing why the answer is right and the other answers are wrong. Not only will it build your confidence but it will guarantee that high school you want. Just get into it, it feels really good to know the material and you're nerves will be under control during test day. I only practiced GC destroyer the first 3 times and it's so unrepresentative of the DAT, once I went through chads I understood all the concepts and it was easy. That's another thing, destroyer isn't meant to teach it's meant to test, it should be the last thing you go through. It will help you pick up a few things that will come in handy on the exam so don't neglect it but don't bank on it. I'd say use it for BIO the most, and OCHEM, but just memorize the conceptual stuff and understand it for GCHEM.
Okay so here's what I used:
Cliffs AP BIO 3rd edition ( I was using the second edition before this exam, it's missing a LOT of stuff so make sure you've got the right one) Read this, do the quizzes at the end, understand and memorize the information and take the two practice tests at the end.
CHAD Start with this, no matter what. I had bought these for the first 3 exams but I never used them, what an idiot I am. Chad is excellent to watch, he keeps it fun and he really knows his material. I think he is hands down the best prep to have for these sections. I owe him my score. This guy can have my first daughter if he wants. My subscription ended the day before my exam so I re-purchased the GCHEM and OCHEM quizzes, but only used the gen chem ones. I would say do these quizzes, all of them, just keep doing them up until the day of the exam. Make sure they are all fresh in your head.
Destroyer Memorize all the BIO stuff, it will help. You WILL get random facts that are covered in the destroyer so go through it. Make sure you read the explanations, they are a gold mine and will save your ass on more than one occasion. OCHEM is great too, Dr. Romano's specialty is OCHEM. Once you know what you're doing you should be able to do all the ochem problems in that book in two hours max. You should fly through it. And GCHEM, well, I already gave my two cents on it above. It is beyond overkill, it's peter griffins bunker bustin mega ultra super BOOM! It is simply overkill. Know the concepts though, they'll come in handy.
MATH DESTROYER Hate it and love it. This is all you need for math, and if you don't understand an explanation in the book, then google it. It will take 5 minutes to learn any math concept.
BOOTCAMP This thing is amazing, used it for the sciences. Totally worth every penny. It speaks for itself. Get it. Get it now.
BIO: It was simplistic, I had some homozygous question that threw me off but it seemed easy not sure if I got it right. Nothing I hadn't heard of before. They were all actually pretty simple, even the ones I didn't know. It was all facts and not too much of the "reach into the back of your brain" kind of questions. I think cliffs and destroyer is solid for this. Maybe feralis note's if you want to really feel like the man.
GC: Again, simplicity. Know chad, know the destroyer concepts. Make sure you can do all the problems in bootcamp and you'll be fine. I had a weird Kb acidity question, maybe I went back and answered it...no wait I don't think so. Take an educated guess if you get stuck. Look for the odd man out, chances are he's your answer.
OC: Pretty easy, always my strongest section. You could probably get ****faced before the exam and still do really good on this. The ones that I missed were probably stupid reaction problems. Know as many as you can.
RC: I never studied for this. I had a mind boggling first passage about lasers and photons and I wanted to vomit, then I had two easier pleasant passages so I focused more on those. Search and destroyer. Sometimes you get cool passages too that are pleasant.
QR: It's 80% algebra, 10% doable word problems and 10%Go F*** yourself you're not getting this right. I went through everything I knew first round, 2nd round went through the next batch, third round same thing, fourth round I stared into space. I had 45 seconds left at the end, and my friend told me I actually scored a 20.4 so if I would have gotten one more math problem correct I would have gotten a 21. C'est la vie.
I studied from a week after my last exam which was May 23rd, so June. I buckled down and learned everything I could. Gym everyday, girl everyday and that's it. No TV, studying almost everyday probably 7-8 hours a day. My sleep schedule always got messed up from this exam so I usually woke up at 10 or sometimes 11, then studied until 8 at night, then gym then bed. I hope this breakdown helps anyone having questions or doubts, don't give up guys, you can all do this exam. I'm gonna pass out now. Thanks again everyone! If you have any questions please ask, I am more than happy to help, SDN is a great network and you guys are all a good support system. Cheers
