So I've pretty much exhausted Destroyer, gone over each section probably five or six times, and I don't think there's too much I can still get out of it. I've also studied from an older edition of Kaplan blue book DAT, but I think the missing content was covered in DEstroyer.
However when I took my DAT Achiever tests, I got 18, 17, and 17 on my SNS! Are these scores pretty indicative of how I'm going to score on the real thing?
I'm taking my DAT next Tuesday, and these scores have really got me down. I thought I knew more than this!
I'm sort of in the same boat you are. I'm using DAT destroyer as my main guide for gchem and biology. I've taken Achiever 2 and 3. This is what I got so far.
Achiever 2 (I was a nervous wreck while taking this and my scores show):
bio 18
gchem 18
ochem 21
Achiever 3 (took this test two weeks later, and much more composed...didn't do anything different...only did extra gchem quantitative problems)
bio 18 (pretty difficult)
gchem 20 (dumb mistakes)
ochem23 (rushed this section in 17 min)
Don't feel too bad about your achiever scores. I'm using only destroyer for gchem and biology. So far I've been through achiever 2 and 3. Haven't done achiever 1 yet....it's supposed to be a lot easier and i wanted to see how I'd do on a bad day. Achiever gchem is difficult no doubt, but in my opinion DAT Destroyer translates over to achiever pretty well if you really know the material inside and out. As far as descriptive chemistry is concerned my only source of practice problems is from destroyer and achiever hasn't been able to expose any weakness regarding descriptive/conceptual chemistry.
I think the hardest part of dat achiever gchem are the time consuming quantitative problems. Again, if you really understand destroyer quantitative problems....it should translate to achiever. However....that is in theory only. For example, when I took achiever 2 I got an 18 in gchem. When I went over the mistakes I made....most of my mistakes were from quantitative problems that were similar to destroyer gchem problems. What tripped me up were unfamiliar numbers....etc. If you have a weakness in gchem quantitative problems....find quantitative problems that are similar to destroyer/achiever problems and add those to your daily routine. That's what I did. I did that for two weeks...and took achiever 3 and my score went up to a 20 in gchem. Quantitative gchem problems are all about confidence...and seeing a wide variety of problems.
Biology....well achiever is pretty tricky for biology. Biology is my weakest subject by far. With biology again my main source of questions is destroyer...and I was fairly satisfied with my bio score. I thought destroyer translated over pretty well. Again knowing the material inside and out is important.
Ochem...can't really comment because I'm not really using destroyer for organic. Instead I'm using Dr. Romano's Organic Chemistry Odyssey. I'll just say this though...I know odyssey problems like the back of my hand....and every practice test is like a joke.
Overall, achiever is still probably harder than the real test. I think destroyer gives you all the fundamentals you need (I felt this was true for the achiever tests). What makes the difference is being calm and collected so you don't make dumb mistakes. Compare the difficulty of problems between achiever and destroyer (except ochem) and you'll see that they're about equal. Don't sweat it too much...if you've mastered destroyer, be more focused on being calm and collected so you don't make dumb mistakes. Same goes for encountering a problem you haven't seen. Try to think of an analog from the Destroyer and reason your way through it. The Destroyer has a wide variety of questions that can serve as valuable analogs. But....you have to be calm to do this. Hope this helps.
