advice quick!

[msu08]

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im retaking the DAT for the third time 🙁 i've had 1 interview, 3 rejections and now im waiting to hear back from 11 schools...but i got a letter from a school asking if i'd like to take it again... so thats where i am! ANYWAYS, i've done the kaplan online and i like it, but obviously it didnt help enough. i have winter break (3 weeks) to study. im not sure if it was my study habits or what, but if anyone could make some other suggestions as to what would be helpful, that'd be great. i know absolutely nothing about destroyer, topscore, etc. so maybe some explanations would be nice too 🙂 i'm thinking of using kaplan again and maybe some books to help with the science and math? math is always hard for me and i've heard the kaplan GRE book is pretty good with that. i think i'm weak in bio as well. here are my scores:
AA 18
GCHEM 19
ORGO 18
BIO 18
RC 18
PAT 19
QR 16

im not sure how much i can raise them, the 16 in math is what the school is really concerned about, but i'd love to get all my scores WAY up once and for all(and not go down!). any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!

 

[Streetwolf]

This works when coupled with *GOOD STUDY HABITS* (AKA "smart" studying, at least what I'm calling it). In other words, don't sit down and study just because you have to study. Make sure you can absorb and retain the information you are studying. If you can't do this at a given moment of the day, your time is better spent elsewhere.

Now then... I did this and it apparently worked well. I continue to do this.

Take every practice quiz and test you can get your hands on *AFTER* you read the material for the given section. Make sure you didn't just browse through the material - read it. Absorb it. Then take the test - as you go through it, mark every question you don't answer with 100% certainty. Score yourself. You can check over the questions you knew briefly but I save that for any time left at the end. For those I would focus on figuring out why the wrong answers were wrong. But obviously you knew the concept(s).

For the answers you got right but marked because you were unsure: why did you choose that answer? What were you stuck between? Why was the other answer wrong? Why were all the other answers wrong? Why did you consider that one (or perhaps more than one) wrong answer? What about it threw you off?

For the answers you got wrong: did you narrow it down to that and the right answer or did you eliminate the right answer in your head right away? Why? Why are the wrong answers wrong? Why didn't you choose the right answer - what about it seemed wrong? Why did you choose the wrong answer - what about it seemed right?

For all wrong answers - what could you change about it to make it a correct answer (if possible)?

After that, you may want to skim back over the material (even though you'll probably be doing that a lot when you check out the wrong answers - that's why it's so good to do!!!) to re-review it. This should keep it in your head. It helps to get things wrong because you FOCUS on it and LEARN from it. You won't repeat mistakes after one or two times.

Do this for all the sections. Take all the practice tests and quizzes available to you. Retake them if you run out of stuff to do, and as you go through it you should tell yourself why A, B, D, and E are wrong and why C is right (for example).

P.S. This is my 777th post. So maybe it's lucky.

 

[rose786]

^ Listen to this man, he's our resident math professor.

If QR is your weakness, you need to crank out a ton of problems. And I mean as many as you can get your hands on. You can keep a tally of what types of questions you get wrong and then reread that chapter if needed. For memorizing formulas, flashcards seem to work well for me. I absolutely suck at math, but with practice I have gotten better.

Don't focus on QR so much that your other sections suffer. Give them all sufficient attention, espcially Bio, which seemingly is becoming more and more random.

Look at this test not as some crazy hurdle that you have to jump, but as a way of showing schools how capable you are and how badly you want this.

 

[saltlake007]

Wow good stuff. I am going to take up on your approach. I have been looking for a good way to study because I am such a slow learniner. I have been studying for 6 months and only mastered Chem...and already forgotten Bio.LOL. Thanks! I hope this works.