Thanks for all the comments. Doing a whole lot of nothing right now so I'll put the "breakdown."
BIO: Like everyone says, some questions are pretty random, but most of the test was pretty basic. I think the more you study the less random the test will seem but there will always be a couple from left field. I took the kaplan class and used the review notes to make note cards. then i did all of the subject tests twice. I went through the destroyer twice. I also got a copy of Cliff's to fill in the holes. Finally and probably most important, I kept a notebook of everything I got wrong in any of these sources and continually reviewed that. I would have liked to read Cliff's a little more thoroughly because there were a couple questions that I knew, but was drawing a blank for some reason.
G.CHEM: Did the Kaplan subject test twice, and the destroyer twice. Both of these were harder than the real DAT. I didnt have to do hardly and calculating/adding up molecular weights so that saved me a ton of time. More conceptual and i think i may have missed a couple of those or somethin.
O.CHEM: Same preparation as bio and g.chem. I also just finished taking ochem this past year and got A's with flying colors so i remembered alot. the test was alot easier than kaplan or the destroyer. one question seriously asked me to name a hexane with two methyl groups at 2 and 4 or something. i was like..."really DAT, really?"
I finished the science section with 20 minutes left to a took a break for 10-15.
PAT: After reading all about CDP on this website i really thought i was going to get a 16 or 17 because i used kaplan and did a couple Barron's PAT tests. I didnt have the heart to spend anymore of my dad's money to buy CDP. I got 19-21s on kaplan. Keyhole and TFE i did not find hard. Angle rank was def harder than kaplan. Hole punch had some weird folds. Cube count wasnt bad, and folding shapes was about like kaplan. So although angle ranking was way harder, i thought keyholes and TFE were easier than kaplan and barron's so i did roughly the same as my practice tests.
RC: Im excited about this because i never scored above 19 on kaplan. I read each question and wrote keywords from the questions. Then i would read and answer every time I found something. This is a little more efficient than pure search and destroy. I used kaplan's method on my first couple practice exams, but my keywords/paraphrases from the passage itself were always usesless so it just ate up time.
QR: Should i bother writing lol? I must say the only thing I used to prepare for this was the destroyer math section(went through it once), my practice tests, and the two section tests from kaplan. I knew going in I hadn't really studied, but I got 16, 18, 18, 19 on practice tests so I figured I'd focus my studying elsewhere. I was wrong...
So anyway, I like my scores. There wasn't really any suprises so just study hard and you'll do fine. The most important thing is to keep a log of what you do wrong. Go over practice tests/destroyer/whatever else your using with a fine tooth comb. I did better on the real thing than any of my practice exams, again with the exception of QR (i really wish i did better just so i wouldnt have to keep saying "with the exception of QR")
Any other questions let me know, good luck to everybody with their applications.
