Bootcamp difficulty compared to actual DAT

[Nawit]

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Hey everyone,

Apologies if this isn't the right place for this question. It's my first time posting here after lurking for a while.

I have my DAT in about a week (the 31st) and I have been taking a bunch of practice tests; mainly DAT Bootcamp. I seem to score well on the sciences (mid to high 20s) but drop to 18-19 on the QR and PAT sections. I have gone through Chad's videos and destroyer for QR and did great there but I find Bootcamp to be more challenging. As for PAT, I did most of my studying through the generators provided by bootcamp. But the actual practice exams they provide are quite a bit different, specifically in the TFE section.

I was just wondering how these sections (or the test as a whole) compares in difficult to the practice tests provided by DAT bootcamp. With my test right around the corner, I am trying to focus on my weak points.I am just a bit confused because I found the QR in the destroyer easier than the bootcamp and the PAT different from what I initially practiced with the generators (specifically in TFE). Just trying to see where I stand. I'm hoping to score in the mid to low 20s.

P.S- Any tips on RC? I have not bothered looking at that section yet but I will probably take 3-4 practice ones before my test.

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[The Dentanator]

The QR is the hardest section on BC, but that's how it's made. If you are pulling off 18 and 19 then you seem to be in pretty good shape. The highest I scored was a 20 on test 4, only to score under a 16 on test 5. On my real DAT I got a 19, so I was fine with that. The PAT is slightly harder, especially for the apertures I thought and some of the TFE. On the final 5 tests I scored 18,18,19,20,20, and I got a 24 on the real DAT. BC really is top of the line for PAT I believe. Take advantage of those generators. For RC, look on BC at the different methods they posted, those help a lot. Try to find what's comfortable for you. Good Luck!

 

[efseders]

I took the real thing yesterday, and had used BC for about 4 weeks prior to my test. I had taken the DAT twice before yesterday, with a 19 and 19 in RC, 16 and 17 in QR, and 15 and 19 on PAT. I attempted one practice test for RC and QR before yesterday, and they were ridiculous and I did horribly, so I didn't do those again. On the real thing, I scored a 22 on RC, 18 in QR, 21 on PAT - I'm happy with those, considering basically all my time studying was devoted to the sciences.

RC: search and destroy all the way! The questions were very straight forward, with only a handful of tone/inference questions. I finished with about 8 minutes to spare and had plenty of time to go back to the few questions that I had marked.

QR: do not get stressed from doing poorly on BC or Destroyer, the real thing was much better with simple conversions, few trig questions, and basic algebra. Also, become comfortable with scientific notation.

PAT: I was scoring 19s and 20s on Bootcamp - I would essentially get all of TFE, HP, and Cube Counting right and then bomb on Keyhole, Angle Ranking, and Pattern Folding. I really struggled with Pattern Folding in the past, so BC was great for that, and I made good improvements on PF over the course of my studying, but continued to only get 7-9 out of 15 on Keyhole and Angle Ranking. If you are in the same situation, don't sweat. Both of these sections were much better on the real thing. In practice, it would take me about 10-12 minutes to answer the Keyhole questions, yesterday I was done in 7 minutes. The objects were much more manageable, and answer choices were easily eliminated. I only marked 1 or 2, and would be surprised if I didn't get at least 12 out of 15 right. Same thing with angle ranking, much better on the real thing. PF - there were only 2 or 3 odd patterns, the rest very manageable. Also, the Hole Punches were very straight forward - grid method is the way to go. Finished the whole thing with about 5 mins to spare, which never happened in practice. Used that time to answer the few that I had marked, and went back over Keyholes.

My best advice: BC is good practice, but don't let yourself get worked up and stressed if you aren't seeing the scores you want, especially RC and QR. They are designed to be difficult and present challenging questions so that you are well prepared and can answer questions on the real thing in a timely fashion.

 

[Nawit]

PAT: I was scoring 19s and 20s on Bootcamp - I would essentially get all of TFE, HP, and Cube Counting right and then bomb on Keyhole, Angle Ranking, and Pattern Folding. I really struggled with Pattern Folding in the past, so BC was great for that, and I made good improvements on PF over the course of my studying, but continued to only get 7-9 out of 15 on Keyhole and Angle Ranking. If you are in the same situation, don't sweat. Both of these sections were much better on the real thing. In practice, it would take me about 10-12 minutes to answer the Keyhole questions, yesterday I was done in 7 minutes. The objects were much more manageable, and answer choices were easily eliminated. I only marked 1 or 2, and would be surprised if I didn't get at least 12 out of 15 right. Same thing with angle ranking, much better on the real thing. PF - there were only 2 or 3 odd patterns, the rest very manageable.

I am so glad to hear this because the Keyhole questions are so frustrating on Bootcamp compared to other sources such as Kaplan. The differences between the actual object and potential keyholes are so absolutely minuscule that I end up overlooking them. I am trying to train myself to notice those slight differences but with the time constraint I tend to end up overlooking them.

 

[stuntdragon]

Hey man, you're doing well on your bootcamp exams so there's not too much to worry about.

You're also doing exactly what you should be doing by finding your weak points.

Taking your question into consideration, PAT on the exam is easier, I scored 18-20s on bootcamp but scored 23 on the actual PAT exam. I knew that if I practiced my angle-ranking (weakest point) a lot more that I could really turn my scores around, and it did. It was also a LOT harder on the exam (just the angle ranking).

The RC for me was unexpected and I studied two or three weeks before. I scored 18-25 on datbootcamp RC, but scored 18 on the real thing. What caught me off guard was the big amount of questions that had one statement true and one false and you would have to figure it out from the passage.

For QR, datbootcamp is a lot harder than it is on the actual exam, but Ari and his team designed it so you can physically and mentally endure the strain from the practice difficulty of the last section of the exam. What he wants to teach you is to do the QR portion in 'Waves', easiest first, medium second, and hardest last. You have to just keep skipping and marking and have the confidence in doing so.

Good luck with your studies future dentist!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dwight Beet Farm]

Man thanks for calming me down! I am having the exact same problems with Bootcamp. I just finished with test 4 today and didn't get quite good results for PAT, RC, and Math! Gotta keep practicing. That's the best I can do!

 

[Nawit]

Man thanks for calming me down! I am having the exact same problems with Bootcamp. I just finished with test 4 today and didn't get quite good results for PAT, RC, and Math! Gotta keep practicing. That's the best I can do!

Hah. We're in the same boat. I'm literally getting straight 19s on the PAT practice exams. Angle ranking is always a toss up but I am straight up bombing the keyhole section cause of these tiny differences. I'll keep practicing, but I am definitely hoping that the differences between the choices on the actual DAT are at least a little more obvious than the ones Bootcamp provides.

As for math, I basically stopped doing the practice test. At the end of the day, I understood all of Chad's videos and I felt like doing the bootcamp QR sections made me more demoralized than anything. Don't get me wrong, it is great preparation cause if you can do that you can do anything but I just felt down after taking one. I would jump back to the Destroyer or Chad's videos, I would understand a majority of the problems so I feel like its unnecessary to make myself feel bad when I am still grasping the knowledge.

Now if someone could just magically make me better at keyholes.... 🙁

 

[510586]

Hah. We're in the same boat. I'm literally getting straight 19s on the PAT practice exams. Angle ranking is always a toss up but I am straight up bombing the keyhole section cause of these tiny differences. I'll keep practicing, but I am definitely hoping that the differences between the choices on the actual DAT are at least a little more obvious than the ones Bootcamp provides.

As for math, I basically stopped doing the practice test. At the end of the day, I understood all of Chad's videos and I felt like doing the bootcamp QR sections made me more demoralized than anything. Don't get me wrong, it is great preparation cause if you can do that you can do anything but I just felt down after taking one. I would jump back to the Destroyer or Chad's videos, I would understand a majority of the problems so I feel like its unnecessary to make myself feel bad when I am still grasping the knowledge.

Now if someone could just magically make me better at keyholes.... 🙁

I heard the keyholes on the DAT are either way easier or way harder (rocks)

 

[Dwight Beet Farm]

Hah. We're in the same boat. I'm literally getting straight 19s on the PAT practice exams. Angle ranking is always a toss up but I am straight up bombing the keyhole section cause of these tiny differences. I'll keep practicing, but I am definitely hoping that the differences between the choices on the actual DAT are at least a little more obvious than the ones Bootcamp provides.

As for math, I basically stopped doing the practice test. At the end of the day, I understood all of Chad's videos and I felt like doing the bootcamp QR sections made me more demoralized than anything. Don't get me wrong, it is great preparation cause if you can do that you can do anything but I just felt down after taking one. I would jump back to the Destroyer or Chad's videos, I would understand a majority of the problems so I feel like its unnecessary to make myself feel bad when I am still grasping the knowledge.

Now if someone could just magically make me better at keyholes.... 🙁

Many people on here say that Math destroyer is pretty much representative of the real DAT. So, as you said, focus on that! I try to use the calculator for some and that seems to help too! Also, I agree for Keyholes. There are some ugly minute differences between answer choices the main shape! I am hoping, it will manageable on the real thing!

 

[Carbohydrates]

I'm in the same situation as you and freaking out every day since my test is next week too.

One quick stupid question though, what is rock in the PAT mean?

 

[510586]

I'm in the same situation as you and freaking out every day since my test is next week too.

One quick stupid question though, what is rock in the PAT mean?

People say it's like 20 side figures or something and every answer choice looks quite similar. In many breakdowns (even people who score phenomenally), people talk about rocks as being tough and hard to differentiate. Wish I could see an example of a real one before going in but whatever.

 

[Nawit]

Just took the 5th PAT Bootcamp test and got my 5th 19. Breakdown:
6/15 Keyhole
11/15 TFE
10/15 Angle Ranking
14/15 Hole Punching
15/15 Cube Counting
13/15 Folding

Every test it seems to be a toss up between my luck in angle ranking and how badly I bomb keyhole (could also use slight improvement in TFE). I know this might be getting slightly off the topic of the post, but does anyone have tips for keyhole problems? This is why I was wondering about the difference between Bootcamp and the actual test with regards to keyhole specifically.

 

[Carbohydrates]

Just took the 5th PAT Bootcamp test and got my 5th 19. Breakdown:
6/15 Keyhole
11/15 TFE
10/15 Angle Ranking
14/15 Hole Punching
15/15 Cube Counting
13/15 Folding

Every test it seems to be a toss up between my luck in angle ranking and how badly I bomb keyhole (could also use slight improvement in TFE). I know this might be getting slightly off the topic of the post, but does anyone have tips for keyhole problems? This is why I was wondering about the difference between Bootcamp and the actual test with regards to keyhole specifically.

Hey you did pretty good!!!
I stuck on keyholes a lot too. But what I usually do is look at the answer, determine whether it's top, front, or right and then compare it with that side to see if it match.

May I ask what do you do for cube counting? I usually get them wrong and never seem to get 15/15 on that but everyone said it's the easiest.

 

[Nawit]

May I ask what do you do for cube counting? I usually get them wrong and never seem to get 15/15 on that but everyone said it's the easiest.

For cube counting all I really do make a tally with the numbers 0-5 listed. I start counting the cube faces from the front to the back of the figure, bottom up. You tally up how many of each face you have and thus by going through the entire figure once you can answer all three questions related to that figure with ease.

 

[Dwight Beet Farm]

A quick tip to those who are taking the DAT on the 31. If you feel like you're not ready, postpone it and take it mid august (still can get your application in by that time). I had to reschedule my test which was suppose to be on the 31st! Just a quick wake up call! Good luck to you guys!

 

[Jay20155555]

Do people that use bootcamp usually take full length tests or do them section by section? When I tried to do gen chem by itself I was out of time. I knew most of it but just couldn't finish it with the given time. Does anyone else have this problem?

 

[Futuredentista62]

I had that problem in the beginning, but now I finish with about 3 minutes to spare. I think it's really good to try to do it within that time because on the exam you will have more time to look over it since bio and orgo should take significantly less time.

 

[Nawit]

A quick tip to those who are taking the DAT on the 31. If you feel like you're not ready, postpone it and take it mid august (still can get your application in by that time). I had to reschedule my test which was suppose to be on the 31st! Just a quick wake up call! Good luck to you guys!

I definitely feel prepared enough for the sciences and a majority of the PAT. I know most of QR based on Chad's videos/problems and the Destroyer. Just gotta try a couple RC sections in a couple days before I take the test. I think I am prepared, but I am a natural worrier so if it was up to me I'd keep pushing it off so I have to just focus on getting it done ASAP. Can't handle the stress and nervousness anymore.

 

[Dwight Beet Farm]

I definitely feel prepared enough for the sciences and a majority of the PAT. I know most of QR based on Chad's videos/problems and the Destroyer. Just gotta try a couple RC sections in a couple days before I take the test. I think I am prepared, but I am a natural worrier so if it was up to me I'd keep pushing it off so I have to just focus on getting it done ASAP. Can't handle the stress and nervousness anymore.

Go defeat it Tiger! Best of Luck