First off, Thanks everyone here for their helpful breakdowns and advice. I took my DAT today and am very happy with my scores and I attribute it mostly to the great advice I have found on these forums.
Here are my scores from today:
PAT 24
QR 23
RC 26
BIO 20
GC 22
OC 25
TS 22
AA 23
Here are my practice test scores:
Kaplan: PAT/QR/RC/BIO/GC/OC/TS/AA
Diag:18/17/22/14/13/15/14/16
Mid: 20/16/21/16/14/19/16/17
Final:21/20/24/17/18/19/18/20
1:23/20/26/18/18/18/18/20
2:25/21/26/18/19/17/18/20
ADA 2009:
PAT/QR/RC/BIO/GC/OC/TS/AA
23/18/21/21/27/28/25/23
Crack DAT PAT:
1/2/3
22/20/20
Study Materials Used:
Kaplan Course + Online Material, DAT Destroyer '11, Math Destroyer '11, Cliff's AP Bio, and Chad's Videos
I feel like I was pretty lucky with the test version that I got. Compared to the 2009 there were easier parts and there were harder parts for me.
PAT
I think I am pretty good at PAT naturally. Through Kaplan's tests I got a decent feel for what the sections were like, even if the actual test was a bit more difficult overall. CDP was helpful and I feel like if I put more time into it then it could have taken me from good to great but ultimately I felt my time was spent better elsewhere.
QR
I was AMAZED at how I did on the QR section. I have never been 'good' at math and in fact three years in a row in high school I failed the trig section in 3 successive math classes. I would have been happy with an 18, and 23 is higher than in my wildest dreams. I don't know how I did so well! I did have Math Destroyer and went through tests 1-8, 11 and accidently did the first half of 9 and last half of 10 together. I finished off my math studying by watching some Khan Academy videos on age problems. Even though I did all those problems I felt like I was pretty lazy about learning from my mistakes, mostly because I was frustrated with how many I made. I never timed myself
working through the tests in Math destroyer and just focused on being able to solve the problems to the best of my ability.
Reading Comprehension:
Reading has always been what I am best at. I went to a liberal arts college where reading and talking about books is pretty much all we did. My strategy for RC is just to read the passages all the way through and then answer the questions. I usually remember around 5 of the questions per passage without having to go through and remember where the rest were fairly well. There was one geography question and two unit conversion questions in the reading comprehension section that I think I may have missed, but I am pretty sure I got everything else. Search and destroy seemed like it would have worked on these passages fairly well, I don't think all versions of the test have been made so it is a bad strategy.
BIO:
Bio was something that I did not spend a lot of time on. I followed the prevailing advice that you should focus on GC and OC to raise your TS and know enough bio so you don't look bad. I think getting a 20 is knowing just the right amount! I cant really remember anything that was on this section now but I can remember either knowing the question right away or being able to narrow it down to two choices, from the looks of it I guessed wrong on a lot of those two choice ones, but oh well. There was one 'random' question, but I didn't recognize any of the words really so I cant tell you what it was about and everything else in the section seemed like it was fair game.
As far as Bio Preparation went, I never spent any time 'studying' things for bio. I took fairly detailed outlines of Cliff's and did the practice problems, but only went through it once and didn't read through my outlines again. I did work through the bio in DAT Destroyer once too. One thing that I did do was type up into a file the explanation of all the problems that I missed in both the Kaplan section tests and DAT destroyer. I think simply taking the time to go through and type those up helped me internalize a lot of that information.
Gen Chem:
As far as the real DAT goes it seems like the test pretty much takes itself. Most the answers are set up for you and you only have to know the concepts and loosely how to apply them. Understanding the why of everything and how it all relates together is much more important than problem solving for this section in my opinion.
I started off my studying with watching Chad's videos and immediately saw returns on my practice tests. I watched the videos between taking the midterm and final of the Kaplan course and my score went up from 14 to an 18. Pounding through the Destroyer problems definitely was helpful. I went through the destroyer GC problems 2.5 times and went from getting about 60% right to 85% right.
Ochem:
There wasn't really anything too special about the O-Chem section. I cant really remember any of the problems that I had. I had a few basic reactions and I marked maybe one of these to review.
Ochem was something else that I didn't spend too much time on. I am a post bac student and had Ochem over the last two semesters so most of it was pretty fresh in my head. I watched Chad's videos once for this, but always on fastplay and then dived into DAT Destroyer. I started out getting around 70% of destroyer problems right with DAT destroyer and went through it 2.5 times just like the OChem, ending up getting around 90% of them right.
As you can see I improved a little bit over all after each practice test I took. I took the 2009 ADA test 5 days before my test and after I did so well on it I didn't want to take my last Kaplan test because I was afraid I'd only do worse and psych myself out. I think that Destroyer is really a good way to gauge your performance. If you do not
I started off with dentalWorks' schedule, condensed into 6 weeks and studied a solid 10 hours a day with many 12 and 14 hour days thrown in at the beginning when I was still full of energy. Once I finished chad's videos, I just took doing practice problems and tests at my own pace.
My main advice for preparation is : Know the big picture! Don't stress out over the structure of PGAL or how many platelets there are compared to thrombocytes. It is more important to understand how things work together rather than the specific mechanisms and that goes for all three science sections.
I'd love to go do dental school pretty much anywhere except NYU (NYC is just too much city for me to handle) with California schools at the top of my list and hopefully this score will make up for my 3.3 GPA (Both Sci and Overall).
Good luck everyone and I'd love to hear your opinions on my chances!
Here are my scores from today:
PAT 24
QR 23
RC 26
BIO 20
GC 22
OC 25
TS 22
AA 23
Here are my practice test scores:
Kaplan: PAT/QR/RC/BIO/GC/OC/TS/AA
Diag:18/17/22/14/13/15/14/16
Mid: 20/16/21/16/14/19/16/17
Final:21/20/24/17/18/19/18/20
1:23/20/26/18/18/18/18/20
2:25/21/26/18/19/17/18/20
ADA 2009:
PAT/QR/RC/BIO/GC/OC/TS/AA
23/18/21/21/27/28/25/23
Crack DAT PAT:
1/2/3
22/20/20
Study Materials Used:
Kaplan Course + Online Material, DAT Destroyer '11, Math Destroyer '11, Cliff's AP Bio, and Chad's Videos
I feel like I was pretty lucky with the test version that I got. Compared to the 2009 there were easier parts and there were harder parts for me.
PAT
I think I am pretty good at PAT naturally. Through Kaplan's tests I got a decent feel for what the sections were like, even if the actual test was a bit more difficult overall. CDP was helpful and I feel like if I put more time into it then it could have taken me from good to great but ultimately I felt my time was spent better elsewhere.
QR
I was AMAZED at how I did on the QR section. I have never been 'good' at math and in fact three years in a row in high school I failed the trig section in 3 successive math classes. I would have been happy with an 18, and 23 is higher than in my wildest dreams. I don't know how I did so well! I did have Math Destroyer and went through tests 1-8, 11 and accidently did the first half of 9 and last half of 10 together. I finished off my math studying by watching some Khan Academy videos on age problems. Even though I did all those problems I felt like I was pretty lazy about learning from my mistakes, mostly because I was frustrated with how many I made. I never timed myself
working through the tests in Math destroyer and just focused on being able to solve the problems to the best of my ability.
Reading Comprehension:
Reading has always been what I am best at. I went to a liberal arts college where reading and talking about books is pretty much all we did. My strategy for RC is just to read the passages all the way through and then answer the questions. I usually remember around 5 of the questions per passage without having to go through and remember where the rest were fairly well. There was one geography question and two unit conversion questions in the reading comprehension section that I think I may have missed, but I am pretty sure I got everything else. Search and destroy seemed like it would have worked on these passages fairly well, I don't think all versions of the test have been made so it is a bad strategy.
BIO:
Bio was something that I did not spend a lot of time on. I followed the prevailing advice that you should focus on GC and OC to raise your TS and know enough bio so you don't look bad. I think getting a 20 is knowing just the right amount! I cant really remember anything that was on this section now but I can remember either knowing the question right away or being able to narrow it down to two choices, from the looks of it I guessed wrong on a lot of those two choice ones, but oh well. There was one 'random' question, but I didn't recognize any of the words really so I cant tell you what it was about and everything else in the section seemed like it was fair game.
As far as Bio Preparation went, I never spent any time 'studying' things for bio. I took fairly detailed outlines of Cliff's and did the practice problems, but only went through it once and didn't read through my outlines again. I did work through the bio in DAT Destroyer once too. One thing that I did do was type up into a file the explanation of all the problems that I missed in both the Kaplan section tests and DAT destroyer. I think simply taking the time to go through and type those up helped me internalize a lot of that information.
Gen Chem:
As far as the real DAT goes it seems like the test pretty much takes itself. Most the answers are set up for you and you only have to know the concepts and loosely how to apply them. Understanding the why of everything and how it all relates together is much more important than problem solving for this section in my opinion.
I started off my studying with watching Chad's videos and immediately saw returns on my practice tests. I watched the videos between taking the midterm and final of the Kaplan course and my score went up from 14 to an 18. Pounding through the Destroyer problems definitely was helpful. I went through the destroyer GC problems 2.5 times and went from getting about 60% right to 85% right.
Ochem:
There wasn't really anything too special about the O-Chem section. I cant really remember any of the problems that I had. I had a few basic reactions and I marked maybe one of these to review.
Ochem was something else that I didn't spend too much time on. I am a post bac student and had Ochem over the last two semesters so most of it was pretty fresh in my head. I watched Chad's videos once for this, but always on fastplay and then dived into DAT Destroyer. I started out getting around 70% of destroyer problems right with DAT destroyer and went through it 2.5 times just like the OChem, ending up getting around 90% of them right.
As you can see I improved a little bit over all after each practice test I took. I took the 2009 ADA test 5 days before my test and after I did so well on it I didn't want to take my last Kaplan test because I was afraid I'd only do worse and psych myself out. I think that Destroyer is really a good way to gauge your performance. If you do not
I started off with dentalWorks' schedule, condensed into 6 weeks and studied a solid 10 hours a day with many 12 and 14 hour days thrown in at the beginning when I was still full of energy. Once I finished chad's videos, I just took doing practice problems and tests at my own pace.
My main advice for preparation is : Know the big picture! Don't stress out over the structure of PGAL or how many platelets there are compared to thrombocytes. It is more important to understand how things work together rather than the specific mechanisms and that goes for all three science sections.
I'd love to go do dental school pretty much anywhere except NYU (NYC is just too much city for me to handle) with California schools at the top of my list and hopefully this score will make up for my 3.3 GPA (Both Sci and Overall).
Good luck everyone and I'd love to hear your opinions on my chances!
