5/23/09 DAT Done! Comments please! + Breakdown

[baliztiknsg]

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Hey SDN, so i just took the DAT this morning, and its great to be done!

Thanks to everyone on SDN! Helped a lot to get info from everyone about how practice tests relate and everything.

Here are my scores, didn't do as well as I wanted to with Bio/QR/PAT though

Bio - 18; 64.6%
GC - 20; 81.3%
OC - 20; 81.3%
TS - 20; 86.2%
QR - 18; 75.8%
RC - 23; 94.5%
AA - 20; 87.1%
PAT - 19; 73.7%

so all in all, I don't think I am going to do a retake. My target schools are Cali & near Cali preferably, but I know UCSF/UCLA are probably out of reach. I'm shooting towards UOP/WesternU/UNLV.

If anyone wants to see all my practice test scores, check my previous thread:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=628768

What do you guys think are my chances of the schools listed above (including LA/SF)? I'm still going to apply to a bunch of schools but i just prefer those. Here's the rest of my personal stats:

I go to UCI, 4th year biology major in my last quarter, with a 3.79 cumulative GPA (Bio GPA 3.84, Physical Sciences GPA 3.718), dental volunteering @ a regular clinic & a free clinic for homeless/financially unstable individuals, 2 years of research with 1 publication for an abstract (me being primary author), waiting on a 2nd publication, and a presentation @ a huge neuroscience conference (SNM) in Toronto for the published abstract, social chair in AED (pre-health honors fraternity), nominated into Phi Kappa Beta honors society, graduating with Latin Honors, and some other random volunteering positions

As for the test, here's a short breakdown

My study materials were
Kaplan course/Kaplan big blue book/online materials for kaplan class - these were pretty good for g chem/o chem/bio, but the PAT holes/angles were a lot easier than the real test

Destroyer - awesome for all the sciences, and the QR was good for some word problems and great for algebra/trig stuff

DAT Achiever - Achiever owned me, and i thought nearly every section was harder than the real test except for RC/QR. RC was pretty much the same, while QR was easier on achiever IMO

Topscore - Pretty damn similar to the real test in every way, except for Bio/QR i felt was easier on topscore

CDP - Awesome for PAT, its very similar to the real test. A lot better than the other materials I had for PAT

As for the test:
Bio - I thought the bio was pretty tough, but I think it was the luck of the draw and I didn't know a lot of the concepts they happened to question on. They weren't too hard or detailed, I just didn't know them. I did better in practice tests, but I felt like I knew those a lot more. The real Bio is harder than Topscore imo, but easier than achiever

Gchem - pretty simple, not that many calcs, a lot easier than achiever, and pretty equivalent to topscore...nothing crazy here

Ochem - same as chem in every way pretty much, i didn't get any NMR, it was mostly reactions/trends

PAT - CDP was clearly very equivalent, and I thought I did a lot better than my score shows. But again, CDP was the closest I've seen to the real test. I thought the holes/angles were easier than I expected after doing Achiever/Topscore/CDP

RC - Super easy, I got lucky I didn't get frapped/piano. My passages were all bio related, but they were super simple, one passage was only 10 paragraphs (one was 17 though). I was expecting a hard passage but this was pretty straight forward. There were some interesting types of questions, but beware, practice tests do mostly detail/which of the following is false questions, when the real test has a lot more inference/tone type questions

QR - I got absolutely owned on this section. I had only done 34 problems when I had 2 min left, and I guessed on a few in the 34 that I did. I don't know what happened, but I definitely didn't pace myself. Practice tests are VERY misleading, because my QR, along with most people, had mostly word problems. You HAVE to work fast, I guessed blindly on like the last 5 and somehow still got an 18, i thought i bombed this completely

Short breakdown, but if anyone has any questions I'll try my best to answer them. Again, comments on my chances of getting into places would be greatly appreciated 👍

 

[iwannabadentist]

congrats! pretty decent scores! with that GPA, i'm sure u'll get interviews somewhere, maybe even SF or LA but I wouldn't count on it too much. def apply to privates out of state - bu, nyu, tufts, temple etc. i'm sure u'll get a few interviews! i go to irvine as well, will be takin my test on wednesday! lets see how it goes! 🙂

 

[DoctaWalnuts]

You did really great, especially compared to your pre-test scores. You did not get owned on QR b/c I've seen some PRETTY bad scores for QR. You have a good shot b/c your EC's are really amazing and so is your GPA. I'm hoping for a CA school for you! Don't count any school out because you are a competitive applicant! Thank you so much for your breakdown, it's a huge help in the calming my nerves.

 

[whc235]

congratz!! I've been reading your score updates thru out.. and kept comparing my progress with yours hehe. U're def a competitive applicant and best of luck to u!!

 

[tinman831]

Above average DAT scores, above average GPA. Sounds like you are good to go. With your scores, I wouldn't hesitate to apply to whichever schools I was interested in.

 

[tizom]

how long did you study for?

 

[doc3232]

Good stats IMO, but if you want to retake, go ahead.
Your TS is unusually high. I would expect a 19 for it considering your bio, ochem, and chem.

 

[baliztiknsg]

I studied from January-Febuary alot, but then I focused on other things more. 2 weeks before the test I studied about 10am-2am everyday...it was tough but it paid off considering how low my scores are when i started taking practice tests

And yeah my TS is high considering, I thought that was weird...hopefully the official score is the same!

 

[peerless218]

That's weird..did you make a typo or something?? Cause I got 18 bio, 20 ochem, and 22 gchem. How can I have a lower TS than you??

 

[iwannabadentist]

That's weird..did you make a typo or something?? Cause I got 18 bio, 20 ochem, and 22 gchem. How can I have a lower TS than you??

its possible. i had 17 bio, 18 gc, and 20 oc, and my TS was also 19. TS is not the average of bio, gc and oc but they count how many questions you got right out of 100 and standardize that on a scale of 1-30. so just as an example (these are just random numbers, nothing accurate) - a 30 outta 40 on bio could get me a 17 bio, and 23 outta 30 on gc could get me an 18, and a 25 outa 30 on OC could get me a 20. you may have gotten 32 outta 40 on bio, 27 outta 30 on GC, and 25 outta 30 on OC. now if getting anywhere from 78-84 on the sciences is a 19, then we can both get a 19. hope that makes sense...the DAT scoring can be wierd sometimes, and sometimes 1 question makes a difference between a 19 and a 20 - so according to this example, if OP had 85 total correct, his 20 > our 19. This may not seem too fair, but thats what it is.

 

[Jongho Yoon]

Good score. You mentioned that cdp was the closest thing to PAT, however, I have problem doing top score keyholes (no problem doing cdp keyholes). I found top score keyholes to be unclear for some questions, while I found cdp keyholes to be very clear (have good reason to eliminate other answer choices). How's the real test pat keyholes like? Is it hard to choose the right answers for some questions? (vague?)

I just wanted to avoid getting low score in pat compare to my cdp scores (seems like most people get lower pat score than their cdp score)

 

[baliztiknsg]

According to my score sheet, i got a TS of 20, so im just hoping that its going to stay that way since this score is "unofficial"

As for keyholes, I actually thought they were pretty easy on the real test. The whole symmetry method by kaplan doesnt work so hot, but the folds never got too complicated. I thought it was equivalent to CDP for the most part. When i first started doing keyholes that werent Kaplan, I thought they were pretty hard, but then I got used to the more complicated folds. Make sure you go through the explanations for CDP because theres only so many types of folds you can do, so once you see how a bunch are done, it makes any potential problem alot easier. There were a couple "hole on a diagonal" problems, but they werent too bad.

 

[doc3232]

According to my score sheet, i got a TS of 20, so im just hoping that its going to stay that way since this score is "unofficial"

As for keyholes, I actually thought they were pretty easy on the real test. The whole symmetry method by kaplan doesnt work so hot, but the folds never got too complicated. I thought it was equivalent to CDP for the most part. When i first started doing keyholes that werent Kaplan, I thought they were pretty hard, but then I got used to the more complicated folds. Make sure you go through the explanations for CDP because theres only so many types of folds you can do, so once you see how a bunch are done, it makes any potential problem alot easier. There were a couple "hole on a diagonal" problems, but they werent too bad.

It isn't going to change...it is just unusual. I don't know why you are retaking...

 

[baliztiknsg]

im not retaking though haha...i prefer not to

 

[allstardentist]

because of your high gpa, i think you def have chance at all the schools in cali except ucla

 

[iwannabadentist]

According to my score sheet, i got a TS of 20, so im just hoping that its going to stay that way since this score is "unofficial"

As for keyholes, I actually thought they were pretty easy on the real test. The whole symmetry method by kaplan doesnt work so hot, but the folds never got too complicated. I thought it was equivalent to CDP for the most part. When i first started doing keyholes that werent Kaplan, I thought they were pretty hard, but then I got used to the more complicated folds. Make sure you go through the explanations for CDP because theres only so many types of folds you can do, so once you see how a bunch are done, it makes any potential problem alot easier. There were a couple "hole on a diagonal" problems, but they werent too bad.

i think you mean holepunches...the post before you was talking about Keyholes or Apertures! I had the same question as him/her so if you could clear that up itd be great! 👍

 

[baliztiknsg]

i think you mean holepunches...the post before you was talking about Keyholes or Apertures! I had the same question as him/her so if you could clear that up itd be great! 👍

oops! your right i was talking about the holes. Ok so for keyholes, I thought CDP was alot closer to the real test, and some choices were quickly eliminated. The topscore was harder imo. Sorry for the typo!