august 15 DAT

[reyk17]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I took the DATs yesterday and here are my scores:
PA:19
BIO:20
QR: 22
RC: 22
GCHEM:19
OCHEM: 20
TS:20
AA:21

The actual test was very different than i expected. I thought it was way harder than any topscore or kaplan tests and i was convinced i would do worse on the test than i had on my practice tests. a lot of the bio i was unsure about and was surprised with my scores. saying that, i think that the dat probably is more generous with grading than the practice tests, so i guess it evens out. i dont think i would change much if i could do it again just because the questions i didn't know were pretty much random and nothing you would learn from kaplan or the ap bio books.

i had been scoring 17 adn 18s on bio on topscore and 20s on the PA on topscore.

my advice for people taking the DATs is to stop reading everyones posts! i found this website around a week ago and it just completely freaked me out. it made me extremely nervous and most people who post get 20+, which i don't think is indicative of the real averages. people on this website make it seem liek 18s are horrible, when in fact it's a competitive score. i know plenty of people who have gotten into dental school with 17s or 18s. one person i know got in to a great dental school even though she scored a 16 on RC. that being said, i hope this post or the forum in general doesn't discourage those of you who still have to take the DAT like it did to me. I stopped reading posts after a few days when i realized it was doing more harm to my nerves than good.

 

[xdianaax]

Good job on getting through it, those are solid scores. Good luck on the rest of your app.

 

[prettysmile]

Can you me what you were getting in Kaplan test. I have my Dat in 3 weeks and now I am practicing Kaplan's test. Just want to know where I am now.

You did a very good job on your DAT.

 

[saaz55]

those a very good stats. you should be a shoe in with a solid gpa. and i second the part where you shouldnt read the posts on sdn as much. or if you do, believe only the ones where people said the exam was easy like phraud's if i recall correctly. puts ur mind at ease.

 

[aggiedentist29]

hey is there anyone you can put up how you studied and what you used and how many hours a day/week? thanks!

 

[reyk17]

i think on kaplan i got a 19 on pa and 20 on aa. i try not to pay too much attention to my scores becuase the important thing is to learn what you did wrong and scores will just discourage you or make you overconfident.

i was abroad last semester and didnt get home until may so i literally didnt open a book until the end of may/beginning of june. for two weeks i studied around 4-5 hours a day in the beginning of june. after that, i started a sumemr class-anatomy and physiology which was pretty intense. i had two or three tests a week so i didnt have much time to study. on the other hand, i went over a lot of things on the dat, like the nervous system, etc. my class ended july 15 so it was pretty mucha month of hardcore studying.

i read through kaplan a couple of times and after i thought i mastered most of the information, i would write down things that i thought were important and wanted to remind myself of. that really helped me b/c it let me focus on my weaknesses.
i also have barrons, which is a good supplement. i took one practice test a week between barrons, kaplans, and topscore and always made sure to take a few hours to look back to see what i got wrong.
last week after reading everyones post , i freaked out about qr and biology so i bought the GRE book for math (i think its kaplan), and literally spent a day reading through that and doing allt he practice problems and i thought that really helped. the bio book i got was barrons ap biology, which i also thought was great.

just remember you're not supposed to know everything and youre not supposed to get a 30. you have no control over what they ask you, so the best thing to do is to put youself in a mindset to prepare yourself the best you can. go in there knowing that you maximized your control and taking the test is the easy part. stay calm and its very doable to get great scores with only a few months of hard studying.