8/20/15 DAT BREAKDOWN AND SUCH

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nateriver

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So this is gonna be a long post I suppose, ill list my scores, how I studied, and what I would do different if I were still preparing for the DAT

So Bio: 25, this section was so random, and I must say destroyer and cliffs were amazing, read destroyer 4 times and cliffs twice

GChem 24: Destroyer is king here, also did bootcamp, but destroyer for sure

OChem: 20, honestly this was my best section when prepping for sciences so I feel I should have done better, I believe there are 2 reasons my Ochem was not higher, first, because I was scoring 25+ on bootcamp and felt good with the destroyer, I focused more on bio and gc, but I think in retrospect, I should have done a bit more orgo, just because something is your best science does not mean you should study it a bit less, gotta stay sharp, anyway 20 no harm done, the other thing is, as I was going through the sciences, I left 2 questions blank on bio, and I thought id have plenty of time to get back to it as I had always finished with extra time on my practices, but my gchem was a little calc heavy so that slowed me down, and thus I was ancy to get through orgo and cycle back to finish my few bio question.... Oh well, so lesson is, make sure you put an answer, even if you mark, that way you're not stressed....

TS:23 no complaints here

AA:21 decent score, but my math brought it down...

Reading: 22 so they did fire alarm testing while my reading section was going on, the fire alarm and sound were going for about like 5-8 min straight I believe, talk about nerve racking

Math: 16 :( well I knew math was not my strongest going in, I'm glad I pulled a 16, I had said to myself before the test 16-17 would be okay for me because I planned to rock the sciences... also, I took the test drive about a week before the test, the calculator was very different on the comp I used for the test drive as opposed to the one I had on the comp I took the test on, in particular, the test drive comp could do logs, trig functions, raising things to any power, etc, the comp I had on my exam was the basic one I had thought id get before doing the test drive, I feel that the impression of getting a better calc from the test drive made me more comfortable with the math section, and then when I saw the basic one, I was in disbelief, for someone who is better at math, perhaps it would have made a significant difference, but I didn't mention it to anyone because I was so tired, and Im not great in math anyway so I just figured whatever, my point is just be careful what you get from the test drive if you take it, at any rate I used math destroyer, in hindsight I should have prepared more for math, but honestly, I just felt like it was such a struggle to prepare for the math

Pat: 17 so I had been getting 18-19 on bootcamp and had been told the pat on the dat was a bit easier, but when I got to some sections I felt it was significantly harder, for example, about a quarter of my hole punches had 4 folds, and I saw one other hole punch with a punch on the lines of fold, which I had heard were no on the exam, anyway I know this score wont help me wow anyway, but with my TS and AA, I hope a 17 is enough of a threshold that it wont hurt me.....

If I think of anything else ill add it
Last remarks: destroyer is amazing, it is a must.... cliffs is awesome for bio.... and I think every test has one section that is very hard, Id say mine was the pat, and if I had to choose any section to be my difficult one, Id choose pat, overall I think my scores are decent, and I'm gonna enjoy the last week and a half of summer while filling in the last bits of my app before school starts, Good Luck to Everyone!!

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