Hi everyone!
I took the DAT on Monday, August 8th. A bit of background: I am a neuroscience major and a rising junior. That being said, I have taken only one intro biology course (bad decision), but have all of general chemistry and all of organic chemistry completed.
Here’s my breakdown:
PAT: 22
QR: 27
RC: 21
BIO: 23
GC: 30
OC: 27
TS: 25
AA: 26
I followed a modified version of Ari’s schedule, only studying five days a week instead of six to accommodate my part time job. A typical day for me included studying from 9am-1pm, some form of working out (to keep my brain from shutting down on me) and working for the rest of the day. I also left an extra five days at the end of Ari’s schedule so I could review on my own time and tie up some loose ends. For each problem that I got wrong/guessed right/had answer choices that were unfamiliar, I wrote down the question accompanied by the answer and an explanation of each answer choice.
Materials I used:
1) Chad’s Videos (1x): very comprehensive. If you watch this and do gen chem/orgo destroyer, you will be set. What he writes on the whiteboard, you write down in your notebook. Take the quiz and review your notes at the end of the day. I ended up not watching his QR videos because I felt that Math Destroyer was a much better tool.
2) Cliff’s AP Bio (1x): Took notes by hand. I started off with an incredibly weak background in plants, developmental biology, diversity, and human reproduction, which I think this book covers really well. Cliff’s is lacking a bit in terms of human physiology, but is a good tool to read before you start Bio Destroyer.
3) Math Destroyer (1x): SO HELPFUL. QR is the one place that you don’t want to lose points. Destroyer teaches you how to solve those couple of questions you can’t quite remember how to do from algebra 2 and also helps build endurance.
4) DAT Destroyer (2x): Very, very helpful for me, especially in biology. Covers a huge range of topics. You’re going to want to do this at least twice so that everything really sinks in. Though I found myself becoming extremely frustrated from getting so many questions wrong, Destroyer was really the resource that helped me build mental stamina. For this resource especially, make sure you look up any answer choices you are unfamiliar with!
5) DAT Bootcamp (1x): The most similar material to what’s actually on the test. Allows you to become comfortable with the online format that you’ll be face to face with come testing day. Ari does a great job at explaining why the answer is correct and, more importantly, why other choices are wrong. Great resource for the full length tests and PAT generators. However, I found that PAT tests 6-10 were WAY harder than the real thing (1-5 were definitely more accurate).
6) 2007 Official Practice Test: Orgo and the PAT were much too easy on this test. I made a lot of dumb mistakes on bio, which prompted me to heavily review during the last five days before my test.
7) 2009 Official Practice Test: Like a lot of others have said, QR on this section is insane. Lots of weird mirror problems that you won’t have enough time to solve on here, so don’t take your QR score too much into account on this test. I found this test as a pdf somewhere on SDN, and the answer key was riddled with mistakes. Of the two practice tests, this test was the most similar to the actual exam (excluding QR and PAT, which was too easy).
ACTUAL DAT
Best advice is to BE CONFIDENT and DON’T DOUBT YOURSELF! Take some deep breaths, focus, and power through the exam. You get two thin sharpie-like pens and two laminated sheets of paper that you can exchange when you fill up.
1) BIO/23
This has always been my hardest section, and it was no different on the actual DAT. No matter how much you study for bio, there are always doing to be a couple questions on some topic you’ve never seen before. Breadth over depth! In the end, I had about eight questions marked that I made guesses on.
2) CHEM/30
Problems on this section were very, very similar to those on Bootcamp. Nothing really notable.
3) ORGO/27
Again, very similar to Bootcamp. If you complete all of Bootcamp’s practice tests and do destroyer x2, you will score well on gen chem and orgo.
4) PAT/22
This section was most similar to Bootcamp tests 1-5. Compared to Bootcamp, I found keyholes to be easier, TFE to be a tiny bit harder, angle ranking the same, hole punching easier, cube counting the same, and pattern folding easier.
5) READING COMP/21
I never grasped the search and destroy method, so I opted for the “vanilla” method of just reading the entire passage and writing down keywords in each paragraph. In the end, I ran out of time to check the last ~five answers I put down.
6) QR/27
This section was harder than Bootcamp in my opinion, but still far from Destroyer level. The key to this section is to be fast and make sure you’re reading the question correctly. Again, Destroyer will teach you everything you need to know.
Last bits of advice: supplement your summer of studying with something else. Working a part time job is doable (I worked 17h/week), and so is letting yourself have fun and take breaks (I ended up going on vacation for a week and limiting myself to two weekend-long concerts). Studying day in and day out is exhausting, and your brain needs to relax! Keep yourself healthy and whatever you do, don’t lose your motivation. GOOD LUCK!
I took the DAT on Monday, August 8th. A bit of background: I am a neuroscience major and a rising junior. That being said, I have taken only one intro biology course (bad decision), but have all of general chemistry and all of organic chemistry completed.
Here’s my breakdown:
PAT: 22
QR: 27
RC: 21
BIO: 23
GC: 30
OC: 27
TS: 25
AA: 26
I followed a modified version of Ari’s schedule, only studying five days a week instead of six to accommodate my part time job. A typical day for me included studying from 9am-1pm, some form of working out (to keep my brain from shutting down on me) and working for the rest of the day. I also left an extra five days at the end of Ari’s schedule so I could review on my own time and tie up some loose ends. For each problem that I got wrong/guessed right/had answer choices that were unfamiliar, I wrote down the question accompanied by the answer and an explanation of each answer choice.
Materials I used:
1) Chad’s Videos (1x): very comprehensive. If you watch this and do gen chem/orgo destroyer, you will be set. What he writes on the whiteboard, you write down in your notebook. Take the quiz and review your notes at the end of the day. I ended up not watching his QR videos because I felt that Math Destroyer was a much better tool.
2) Cliff’s AP Bio (1x): Took notes by hand. I started off with an incredibly weak background in plants, developmental biology, diversity, and human reproduction, which I think this book covers really well. Cliff’s is lacking a bit in terms of human physiology, but is a good tool to read before you start Bio Destroyer.
3) Math Destroyer (1x): SO HELPFUL. QR is the one place that you don’t want to lose points. Destroyer teaches you how to solve those couple of questions you can’t quite remember how to do from algebra 2 and also helps build endurance.
4) DAT Destroyer (2x): Very, very helpful for me, especially in biology. Covers a huge range of topics. You’re going to want to do this at least twice so that everything really sinks in. Though I found myself becoming extremely frustrated from getting so many questions wrong, Destroyer was really the resource that helped me build mental stamina. For this resource especially, make sure you look up any answer choices you are unfamiliar with!
5) DAT Bootcamp (1x): The most similar material to what’s actually on the test. Allows you to become comfortable with the online format that you’ll be face to face with come testing day. Ari does a great job at explaining why the answer is correct and, more importantly, why other choices are wrong. Great resource for the full length tests and PAT generators. However, I found that PAT tests 6-10 were WAY harder than the real thing (1-5 were definitely more accurate).
My scores for each section of bootcamp:
BIO: 21/18/20/23/22 AVG: 20.8
GC: 20/20/30/21/21 AVG: 22.4
OC: 27/22/25/29/28 AVG: 26.2
PAT: 19/20/20/20/20/23/21/23/22/20 AVG: 20.8
RC: 21/22/22/24/22 AVG: 22.2
QR: 30/25/22/30/25/30/23/30/30/22 AVG: 26.7
GC: 20/20/30/21/21 AVG: 22.4
OC: 27/22/25/29/28 AVG: 26.2
PAT: 19/20/20/20/20/23/21/23/22/20 AVG: 20.8
RC: 21/22/22/24/22 AVG: 22.2
QR: 30/25/22/30/25/30/23/30/30/22 AVG: 26.7
6) 2007 Official Practice Test: Orgo and the PAT were much too easy on this test. I made a lot of dumb mistakes on bio, which prompted me to heavily review during the last five days before my test.
BIO: 19/GC: 21/OC: 30/QR: 29/RC: 20/PAT: 22
AA: 24
AA: 24
7) 2009 Official Practice Test: Like a lot of others have said, QR on this section is insane. Lots of weird mirror problems that you won’t have enough time to solve on here, so don’t take your QR score too much into account on this test. I found this test as a pdf somewhere on SDN, and the answer key was riddled with mistakes. Of the two practice tests, this test was the most similar to the actual exam (excluding QR and PAT, which was too easy).
BIO: 21/GC: 24/OC: 20/RC: 21/QR: 19/PAT: 24
AA: 21
AA: 21
ACTUAL DAT
Best advice is to BE CONFIDENT and DON’T DOUBT YOURSELF! Take some deep breaths, focus, and power through the exam. You get two thin sharpie-like pens and two laminated sheets of paper that you can exchange when you fill up.
1) BIO/23
This has always been my hardest section, and it was no different on the actual DAT. No matter how much you study for bio, there are always doing to be a couple questions on some topic you’ve never seen before. Breadth over depth! In the end, I had about eight questions marked that I made guesses on.
2) CHEM/30
Problems on this section were very, very similar to those on Bootcamp. Nothing really notable.
3) ORGO/27
Again, very similar to Bootcamp. If you complete all of Bootcamp’s practice tests and do destroyer x2, you will score well on gen chem and orgo.
4) PAT/22
This section was most similar to Bootcamp tests 1-5. Compared to Bootcamp, I found keyholes to be easier, TFE to be a tiny bit harder, angle ranking the same, hole punching easier, cube counting the same, and pattern folding easier.
5) READING COMP/21
I never grasped the search and destroy method, so I opted for the “vanilla” method of just reading the entire passage and writing down keywords in each paragraph. In the end, I ran out of time to check the last ~five answers I put down.
6) QR/27
This section was harder than Bootcamp in my opinion, but still far from Destroyer level. The key to this section is to be fast and make sure you’re reading the question correctly. Again, Destroyer will teach you everything you need to know.
Last bits of advice: supplement your summer of studying with something else. Working a part time job is doable (I worked 17h/week), and so is letting yourself have fun and take breaks (I ended up going on vacation for a week and limiting myself to two weekend-long concerts). Studying day in and day out is exhausting, and your brain needs to relax! Keep yourself healthy and whatever you do, don’t lose your motivation. GOOD LUCK!
Still got two years to go!