Hi guys! I'm new to posting on SDN here but I would really love to give back to all you wonderful people especially after looking up so many DAT-related posts.
I took my DAT on September 7th after about 2.5 months of studying:
Bio 22
Chem 21
Orgo 23
PAT 23
QR 23
RC 21
TS 22
AA 22
First off, a disclaimer: I am not a naturally science-minded person. I struggled a lot in my general chemistry and physics classes in undergraduate and was constantly contemplating if investing my entire summer into the DAT was worth it. But if I can pull this off, you can too!!! This exam is definitely not impossible to do well on for the average applicant if you trust in your abilities and know to do what is best for you! Everyone goes into studying for this exam with a different amount of natural science/ reading/ math ability and it's most important to trust your instincts with how much you think you need to review a certain concept, when to take breaks, what resources to use, etc. Try not to freak out if one of your friends is using a different resource for studying than you are! My advice is to stick to a few resources that most people have had success from.
These are the resources I used:
Bio:
Review: AP Cliffs and AP Barrons Biology
Practice: DAT Destroyer
Practice Tests: DAT Bootcamp
This section is by far the most up in the air. I primarily used AP Cliffs and annotated the book entirely, plus took all of the quizzes at the end of the section. I went through this book multiple times reading my notes, adding to them, and making sure I got the concepts down. I also used Barrons to supplement the taxonomy and plant sections. I definitely recommend using the taxonomy cheat sheet found on the DAT Bootcamp site to memorize all the different phyla! I truly believe this section is so random that there is no way to be 100% prepared for it, but you can get at least 85% prepared for it so I went into the exam thinking this section was definitely going to be my lowest score and was really surprised when I saw my actual score.
GC/ OC:
Review: Chad's videos
Practice: DAT Destroyer
Practice Tests: DAT Bootcamp
CHAD IS AMAZING. He is really good at summarizing the material and effectively teaching you only what you needed to know. I went through all of his videos (minus the biochemistry section for Orgo; I was told the actual exam would likely not have any questions on this section and if they did show up it'd only be 1 or 2 questions), took very detailed notes, and took all of his quizzes at the end of the video lectures. Afterwards, I went through all of the Destroyer problems I could, referencing the notes I had made from Chad's videos when I was confused on a question. After I felt I knew the material to the best of my ability, I began taking the Bootcamp practice tests and when I got a question wrong, I would again reference my notes from Chad's videos.
Also, because organic chemistry has a lot of reagents/ products to memorize, I made a little booklet of note cards so that when I had some down time I could just look through those quickly and continually keep them fresh in my mind.
PAT:
Review: Intro videos in Crack the PAT
Practice Tests: Crack the PAT & DAT Bootcamp
Initially, I was the most nervous for this section since I had never done problems like these before. I recommend watching the introduction videos for each problem type on Crack the PAT and see if the strategies they present to you work. Then, all you can do is keep doing practice problems using those strategies, building up your speed. I did not time my first couple of practice sections I took on Crack the PAT, but once I got more comfortable with the problem types I did start timing myself. I would say Crack is a pretty accurate representation of the real exam, with the exception of the hole punch and keyhole being too easy and the cube counting being a little more difficult. DAT Bootcamp was overall a little more difficult than my real exam, but I really recommend their angle generator! Angle ranking was the section I struggled in most and using their generator I think helped me a ton.
RC:
Practice Tests: DAT Bootcamp
I didn't really study for this section. I just did the five practice tests on Bootcamp. My method was to read the first question, and then start skimming the passage. I would quickly jot down what each paragraph in each article was primarily about until I found the answer to the first question. Then I'd go on to the next question and do the same thing until I found the answer. The paragraphs in Bootcamp and the real exam are numbered so that really helped when later I had a question to answer, I knew which paragraph the answer would be in. Also, if there were scientist names or specific terms, I also wrote down which paragraphs they appeared in because there are often questions about that. It saved me a lot of time!
I have also heard of people who have read science articles to help them improve their RC scores.
QR:
Practice: DAT Math Destroyer
Practice Tests: DAT Bootcamp
This section was kind of a toss up for me. I had heard a lot of different opinions about what to study and what would actually show up on the real exam. I ended up doing the first three exams in DAT Math Destroyer and found them pretty difficult, so I switched to DAT Bootcamp to see if it was also just as difficult. It was a little bit easier, and since I could take full-length tests under real time constraints on Bootcamp, I started reviewing there. However I do really recommend DAT Math Destroyer for the equations and trigonometry information at the beginning of the book!
*I know a lot of people really amped up their studying in the last week. For me, I did the opposite. With the school semester starting and everything else going on, I felt the need to take it easy and try to relax. I felt that I knew the material to the best of my ability and tried to spend time doing things I really enjoyed so last minute nerves wouldn't get to me. But again, everyone is different!!
Overall, I'm really happy with the consistency of my scores in all the individual sections and I hope you guys can find some use to this post!
Best of luck with your studies!
I took my DAT on September 7th after about 2.5 months of studying:
Bio 22
Chem 21
Orgo 23
PAT 23
QR 23
RC 21
TS 22
AA 22
First off, a disclaimer: I am not a naturally science-minded person. I struggled a lot in my general chemistry and physics classes in undergraduate and was constantly contemplating if investing my entire summer into the DAT was worth it. But if I can pull this off, you can too!!! This exam is definitely not impossible to do well on for the average applicant if you trust in your abilities and know to do what is best for you! Everyone goes into studying for this exam with a different amount of natural science/ reading/ math ability and it's most important to trust your instincts with how much you think you need to review a certain concept, when to take breaks, what resources to use, etc. Try not to freak out if one of your friends is using a different resource for studying than you are! My advice is to stick to a few resources that most people have had success from.
These are the resources I used:
Bio:
Review: AP Cliffs and AP Barrons Biology
Practice: DAT Destroyer
Practice Tests: DAT Bootcamp
This section is by far the most up in the air. I primarily used AP Cliffs and annotated the book entirely, plus took all of the quizzes at the end of the section. I went through this book multiple times reading my notes, adding to them, and making sure I got the concepts down. I also used Barrons to supplement the taxonomy and plant sections. I definitely recommend using the taxonomy cheat sheet found on the DAT Bootcamp site to memorize all the different phyla! I truly believe this section is so random that there is no way to be 100% prepared for it, but you can get at least 85% prepared for it so I went into the exam thinking this section was definitely going to be my lowest score and was really surprised when I saw my actual score.
GC/ OC:
Review: Chad's videos
Practice: DAT Destroyer
Practice Tests: DAT Bootcamp
CHAD IS AMAZING. He is really good at summarizing the material and effectively teaching you only what you needed to know. I went through all of his videos (minus the biochemistry section for Orgo; I was told the actual exam would likely not have any questions on this section and if they did show up it'd only be 1 or 2 questions), took very detailed notes, and took all of his quizzes at the end of the video lectures. Afterwards, I went through all of the Destroyer problems I could, referencing the notes I had made from Chad's videos when I was confused on a question. After I felt I knew the material to the best of my ability, I began taking the Bootcamp practice tests and when I got a question wrong, I would again reference my notes from Chad's videos.
Also, because organic chemistry has a lot of reagents/ products to memorize, I made a little booklet of note cards so that when I had some down time I could just look through those quickly and continually keep them fresh in my mind.
PAT:
Review: Intro videos in Crack the PAT
Practice Tests: Crack the PAT & DAT Bootcamp
Initially, I was the most nervous for this section since I had never done problems like these before. I recommend watching the introduction videos for each problem type on Crack the PAT and see if the strategies they present to you work. Then, all you can do is keep doing practice problems using those strategies, building up your speed. I did not time my first couple of practice sections I took on Crack the PAT, but once I got more comfortable with the problem types I did start timing myself. I would say Crack is a pretty accurate representation of the real exam, with the exception of the hole punch and keyhole being too easy and the cube counting being a little more difficult. DAT Bootcamp was overall a little more difficult than my real exam, but I really recommend their angle generator! Angle ranking was the section I struggled in most and using their generator I think helped me a ton.
RC:
Practice Tests: DAT Bootcamp
I didn't really study for this section. I just did the five practice tests on Bootcamp. My method was to read the first question, and then start skimming the passage. I would quickly jot down what each paragraph in each article was primarily about until I found the answer to the first question. Then I'd go on to the next question and do the same thing until I found the answer. The paragraphs in Bootcamp and the real exam are numbered so that really helped when later I had a question to answer, I knew which paragraph the answer would be in. Also, if there were scientist names or specific terms, I also wrote down which paragraphs they appeared in because there are often questions about that. It saved me a lot of time!
I have also heard of people who have read science articles to help them improve their RC scores.
QR:
Practice: DAT Math Destroyer
Practice Tests: DAT Bootcamp
This section was kind of a toss up for me. I had heard a lot of different opinions about what to study and what would actually show up on the real exam. I ended up doing the first three exams in DAT Math Destroyer and found them pretty difficult, so I switched to DAT Bootcamp to see if it was also just as difficult. It was a little bit easier, and since I could take full-length tests under real time constraints on Bootcamp, I started reviewing there. However I do really recommend DAT Math Destroyer for the equations and trigonometry information at the beginning of the book!
*I know a lot of people really amped up their studying in the last week. For me, I did the opposite. With the school semester starting and everything else going on, I felt the need to take it easy and try to relax. I felt that I knew the material to the best of my ability and tried to spend time doing things I really enjoyed so last minute nerves wouldn't get to me. But again, everyone is different!!
Overall, I'm really happy with the consistency of my scores in all the individual sections and I hope you guys can find some use to this post!
Best of luck with your studies!
