Advice for DAT in December 2018

[deleted945327]

I'm retaking the DAT this December of 2018. This will be my second attempt at the exam which I had taken this past August. With the exam, I will also be taking classes like biochemistry, genetics, and psychology classes (psychology major). My scores are as followed below. Do you guys have any advice on how I should study? I really had a lot confidence in myself prior to the exam (anyone's advice would be really helpful).

QR: 15
BIO: 17
GC: 18
OC: 19
RC: 21
PAT: 18
TS: 18
AA: 18

Side Note:
-With QR, I 100% knew going into the exam this was my weakest subject. I didn't mainly focus on it until around 2-3 weeks before the exam.
-With Bio, I was very confident in this subject as I was scoring a lot better than OC and GC on DAT Bootcamp
- I will also be purchasing DAT Bio on Qvault, not sure if I should purchase the bundle, but let me know what you guys think of the bundle if you have purchased it before.

Sources Used:
-DAT Bootcamp: went through each exam individually and then did full lengths towards 2 weeks prior to DAT exam (except for QR, did only 4 exams along with 4 for RC on full lengths and never did a single PAT exam off there because I used a different source)
-DAT destroyer: Went through OC twice, Bio once, GC once
-Chads videos: went through them twice on course saver
-Cliffs AP Bio 3rd edition: read through it once (3 months before my exam) and never looked at it again
-Crack DAT PAT: was scoring very well on there but the keyholes and pattern folding seemed to be completely different on the exam (won't be using this only source again, will throw in DAT Bootcamp PAT)

Any recommendations on sources would be helpful! Thank you!

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[deleted903013]

I took the DAT after winter break. My approach was to study for at least a couple hours per week (if not more) during the fall semester. In fact, I was even studying for it during many of my classes. By the time winter break came around, I had mastered all of ferrallis and watched and studied all of chad's videos. During winter break, I was able to do mostly practice tests and practice problems and dive even deeper on subjects I had trouble with because I had such a head start. I took the DAT two weeks after winter classes started. I was very happy with this approach and having the DAT done during the winter means more time can be spent polishing up your application instead of stressing over the DAT. Hope this helped and good luck!

 

[IdleKoala]

When you study, make sure its quality over quantity. You can "study" for 10 hours, checking your phone every 5 minutes and with Netflix playing in the background. That is not high quality studying, which is something I definitely struggled with since I love to work with the Office playing in the background lol. So what I did was leave my phone outside the room and just focus on studying for 25-30 minutes, then I would come out and check my phone for 5 minutes and then get back to studying. After I started doing that it really increased my productivity and quality of studying.

Another thing I would say is, since your DAT is in December, start working on it now. 30minutes-1 hour a day will really add up over the next few months. Since you already took the DAT once make sure to focus on your weak points and try to brings those up. Best of luck!

 

[Pearl E. White]

Take notes on topics you are not getting correct and review them often! Good luck!

 

[shinebright88]

I'm retaking the DAT this December of 2018. This will be my second attempt at the exam which I had taken this past August. With the exam, I will also be taking classes like biochemistry, genetics, and psychology classes (psychology major). My scores are as followed below. Do you guys have any advice on how I should study? I really had a lot confidence in myself prior to the exam (anyone's advice would be really helpful).

QR: 15
BIO: 17
GC: 18
OC: 19
RC: 21
PAT: 18
TS: 18
AA: 18

Side Note:
-With QR, I 100% knew going into the exam this was my weakest subject. I didn't mainly focus on it until around 2-3 weeks before the exam.
-With Bio, I was very confident in this subject as I was scoring a lot better than OC and GC on DAT Bootcamp
- I will also be purchasing DAT Bio on Qvault, not sure if I should purchase the bundle, but let me know what you guys think of the bundle if you have purchased it before.

Sources Used:
-DAT Bootcamp: went through each exam individually and then did full lengths towards 2 weeks prior to DAT exam (except for QR, did only 4 exams along with 4 for RC on full lengths and never did a single PAT exam off there because I used a different source)
-DAT destroyer: Went through OC twice, Bio once, GC once
-Chads videos: went through them twice on course saver
-Cliffs AP Bio 3rd edition: read through it once (3 months before my exam) and never looked at it again
-Crack DAT PAT: was scoring very well on there but the keyholes and pattern folding seemed to be completely different on the exam (won't be using this only source again, will throw in DAT Bootcamp PAT)

Any recommendations on sources would be helpful! Thank you!

I would biy Qvault for OC, GC and biology. For these sections more exposure to different type of questions help. For biology, bootcamp has amazing detailed notes that are organized well so I would recommend reading through that thorougly now. Feel free to ask me questions about how I approached my retake differently (AA 19 to a 24, TS: 19 to a 22)

 

[IcyFox]

I'm retaking the DAT this December of 2018. This will be my second attempt at the exam which I had taken this past August. With the exam, I will also be taking classes like biochemistry, genetics, and psychology classes (psychology major). My scores are as followed below. Do you guys have any advice on how I should study? I really had a lot confidence in myself prior to the exam (anyone's advice would be really helpful).

QR: 15
BIO: 17
GC: 18
OC: 19
RC: 21
PAT: 18
TS: 18
AA: 18

Side Note:
-With QR, I 100% knew going into the exam this was my weakest subject. I didn't mainly focus on it until around 2-3 weeks before the exam.
-With Bio, I was very confident in this subject as I was scoring a lot better than OC and GC on DAT Bootcamp
- I will also be purchasing DAT Bio on Qvault, not sure if I should purchase the bundle, but let me know what you guys think of the bundle if you have purchased it before.

Sources Used:
-DAT Bootcamp: went through each exam individually and then did full lengths towards 2 weeks prior to DAT exam (except for QR, did only 4 exams along with 4 for RC on full lengths and never did a single PAT exam off there because I used a different source)
-DAT destroyer: Went through OC twice, Bio once, GC once
-Chads videos: went through them twice on course saver
-Cliffs AP Bio 3rd edition: read through it once (3 months before my exam) and never looked at it again
-Crack DAT PAT: was scoring very well on there but the keyholes and pattern folding seemed to be completely different on the exam (won't be using this only source again, will throw in DAT Bootcamp PAT)

Any recommendations on sources would be helpful! Thank you!

Reading your post, it seams like you're relying on doing questions from particular resources rather than learning the material. It's not about the resource that you use, the amount of work you put in is more important.

I would scrap all the resources, learn the content and go back and do practice problems. Good luck

 

[deleted945327]

Thank you all for your responses. I feel like it didn’t have much to do with what I studied but with how I handled the testing environment. I got anxious right before I took the exam and I had gone back through biology and changed around 5-7 questions on the biology section once I finished GC and OC. Maybe that was a bad idea. Either way, I know my weak points and it’s most definitely QR and Bio, from the scores I received. I still felt the most confident about biology prior to the exam so I was really upset I didn’t do as well as I thought I would on that section.

 

[deleted945327]

Also, Cliffs AP Bio notes didn’t seem to help me only because I’m not a biology major and had taken only General Bio 1/2 + Microbiology. I’m also taking genetics now so that should help as I study for the DAT. Perhaps this time I’ll read over DAT bootcamp notes instead of cliffs AP Bio

 

[ddsortho]

Hello!

I recently just took the DAT and scored well. I also started studying the quantitive reasoning section relatively late and only spent about a week studying for that section. That being said, I think if you are in a time crunch I would highly suggest taking as many practice tests as you can from Ari's DAT Bootcamp. After each exam look through all the answers (right or wrong) and try to understand how each problem is solved. After a few practice exams you will begin to see patterns within the questions. Once this happens, you will start reading each question with the mindset of identifying the "type" of problem, instead of trying to interpret each question at face value.

Hope this helps! Again, there are many ways to do the QR section, but this is what worked for me with the allotted time I had.