Am I overdoing it with DAT resources?

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bila

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Hi all,
I completed the Kaplan Book & Chad’s videos but I don’t feel like I learned much, especially for Ochem bc I had to teach myself everything from scratch. What I’m planning to study next is:

Feralis Notes + Dat & Math Destroyer + BC + Cliffs + Dynamite Bio + Crack Dat Pat Ace Ed. + Barron’s + (Campbell to supplement learning of harder bio topics)
I’m also not sure if I should use DAT booster.

I plan to take the DAT in late September, will this be overkill, should I use different resources, or do you think it’s not enough?

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Hi there,

I just took my DAT yesterday, and prior to the test, I had exactly the same problem. I think for most people, it's helpful to minimize your resources as much as possible and organize them in a way that maximizes learning and minimizes burnout. To be completely honest, I'm sure you have enough time to use all of those resources, but I'm not sure how helpful it will be to try to get through all of them. I would definitely prioritize some of the more comprehensive materials, such as DATBC and DAT & Math Destroyer. In my opinion, Ferralis notes and Crack DAT PAT were not as helpful as the others; in terms of Biology, DATBC covers everything you need. I found that when I tried to supplement Biology with other resources, I just got overwhelmed and it was unnecessary. I have not seen it yet, but I would imagine that DATBooster is a great resource because PATBooster had an amazing structure and was very helpful. Overall, I would recommend spending the majority of your time learning everything once through either DATBooster or DATBC; once you complete that phase of your studying, I think it would be more helpful to go through DAT and Math Destroyer, which tend to be more difficult than the real DAT, and will help you focus on concepts that you may need to review one or two more times before the test.
I hope this helps! :happy:
 
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Yeah you're probably overdoing it. There's a lot of content overlap if you're going to use BC which is probably the most comprehensive. BC has its own version of Feralis notes and other overlaps. I took the DAT in 2019 and scored well using only DAT BC and the free orgoman math vids on YouTube but everyone is different. Dedicating myself to one platform helped with the flow and depth of learning for me.

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Hi all,
I completed the Kaplan Book & Chad’s videos but I don’t feel like I learned much, especially for Ochem bc I had to teach myself everything from scratch. What I’m planning to study next is:

Feralis Notes + Dat & Math Destroyer + BC + Cliffs + Dynamite Bio + Crack Dat Pat Ace Ed. + Barron’s + (Campbell to supplement learning of harder bio topics)
I’m also not sure if I should use DAT booster.

I plan to take the DAT in late September, will this be overkill, should I use different resources, or do you think it’s not enough?

I don't think the Kaplan book and chad's video is enough to do well. I would recommend DATDestroyer and DATBooster (includes PATBooster and Feralis Notes). That's what I'm using right now and I'm feeling pretty well prepared for the exam.

For the other resources you mentioned, I haven't heard anything good about CrackDAT's PAT other than it's not representative. Barron's and Campell's book is already covered in Feralis notes.
 
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I don't think the Kaplan book and chad's video is enough to do well. I would recommend DATDestroyer and DATBooster (includes PATBooster and Feralis Notes). That's what I'm using right now and I'm feeling pretty well prepared for the exam.

For the other resources you mentioned, I haven't heard anything good about CrackDAT's PAT other than it's not representative. Barron's and Campell's book is already covered in Feralis notes.

I hope studying went well for you! Could you give an update on how DAT Booster worked for you?
 
I hope studying went well for you! Could you give an update on how DAT Booster worked for you?
I honestly loved it, probably the best purchase I made. The questions were very high-yield (can't emphasize this enough) to what I saw on my exam, especially the last few tests.
 
Feralis Notes + Dat & Math Destroyer + BC + Cliffs + Dynamite Bio + Crack Dat Pat Ace Ed. + Barron’s + (Campbell to supplement learning of harder bio topics)
I’m also not sure if I should use DAT booster.

I plan to take the DAT in late September, will this be overkill, should I use different resources, or do you think it’s not enough?

I agree a lot with what was said above. You should really focus on optimizing your resources so you're not stuck going back and forth, and so you don't end up spending exorbitant amounts of money (the application cycle is expensive).

Personally, DAT + Math Destroyer, Dynamite Bio, and PATBooster were more than sufficient for me. Plenty of questions to practice, and all of the concepts were covered adequately without needing to use a ton of other resources. If you managed to teach yourself orgo, that's quite impressive! I think generally it's not a great idea to take the DAT before taking orgo, but if you really want to and think you can (as it seems you do), make sure you take a serious look at the OC section of the Destroyer. Might be worth getting another resource there as well (I've heard good things about the Orgo Odyssey, but never used it myself). I can't comment on DATBooster, wasn't around when I took the DAT.

Just so you know, I personally found Crack the DAT absolutely useless. Not representative at all of the DAT, especially not the PAT or QR sections. It was a waste of money for me.

Hopefully this helps narrow down your resources as you get closer to your test date. Best of luck!
 
I used CrackDAT as a great tool to get used to the full length exams timing and feel (especially PAT) for half the price.
Chads for video reviews and quizzes on chem/org.
Destroyer 2-3x
Found Kaplan and Cliffs less useful than the above three but they rounded out my materials.
 
I used DATBooster and believe that it is a resource you should consider as it was the most representative resource I have utilized and I can attribute my score to that resource. I found that Kaplan was not too good of a resource and I did not really use Destroyer as I did not really like the difficulty of the problems but I have heard that many people really liked it.
 
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