- Joined
- Jul 6, 2009
- Messages
- 179
- Reaction score
- 3
just kinda walked into that prometric center looking like arnold schwarzenegger outta 'commando' and went to town. after the dust settled, it read:
PAT: 24 (99.0)
QR: 18 (75.8)
RC: 28 (99.8)
BIO: 22 (95.7)
GC: 22 (90.1)
OC: 26 (98.1)
TS: 23 (98.2)
AA: 23 (98.3)
so holla. awwwww here goes...
woke up this morning at about 7.00 after going to bed at 12.30 and had a rush of adrenaline already. i reviewed for a little, reviewing the roadmaps from destroyer and the kaplan quick sheets along with my personal notes til about 10. watched a little of the Tour (contador sucks), didnt eat anything because milk was gone (hooray) and i was feeling pretty diesel so i went to the gym and busted out a chest workout like usual. i made a 'DAT playlist' on my iPod of those songs that just get you amped yadadamean and listened to them in the car while driving to the gym and from the gym to lunch and lunch to the testing center. everybody needs a DAT playlist on their iPod before going to take the test. NEEDS IT.
here's mine:
Head Bussa (feat. Lil Jon) - Lil Scrappy
Smooth Criminal - Michael Jackson
I Believe I Can Fly - R. Kelly
Jam - Michael Jackson
Arrival to Earth - Steve Jablonsky
Training Montage (from Rocky) - Vince Dicola
In the Air Tonight - Phil Collins
Santorini - Yanni (shutup - this song's the bomb.com/yourmom)
Life in Technicolor - Coldplay
Lose Yourself - Eminem
yeh so got to the testing center and scribbled some trig formulas on the laminated sheet during the tutorial, tested out the markers and good-for-nothing eraser, and then jumped into it.
TS- didn't know the first question. saa-weet. anyway, kept going and grinding, got easier once i got to GC - nothing too complex in the way of calculations - they did most of them out for you. a couple of the bio q's were straight off destroyer. and i don't know if i'm just blind or something because in kaplan, there was hardly any material about plants, but i got a good plant question on the test that i only had a relative idea about from the destoyer. ochem wasn't bad - it was all a blur - sorry guys, i don't remember many of the questions. i finished the science section with 35 mins left to go and thought i had skipped a section or something so i went thru each question again and double-cheked.
PAT - i thought CDP was right on for this. the angles were kinda tricky and some of the hole-punch fold i had never seen before, but nothing that threw me for a spin. my CDP scores were:
21/24/25/24/23/23/25/23/25/24
the pattern folding tossed my salad. finished with about 10 minutes left (about my usual on CDP) and reviewed the marked stuff.
took a break.
RC - nothing bad at all. i had hardly practiced this and using search and destroy on practice tests didnt work out well sometimes, but this time i gambled and it worked. i didnt get pianoed or frapped and... (for how popular this topic has been the past few days... here goes again) some other guy in the room got frapped (smelled like caramel to me) and he threw up on the keyboard and then they made him finish the frap and drink another one - he was a goner, poor guy. in all seriousness though, my reading passages were quite simple with s&d and finished with 12 minutes left. I knew about half the answers to my first passage without even reading the passage because of an almost violently enthusiastic molecular bio/genetics professor i had fall semester last year.
QR - ....scratch that. the qr tossed my salad. i marked about 10 of these i didn't know and felt like i was playing bingo or something. just the QR-express train barreling down a track, and i was trying to outrun it on a moped. that's what it felt like. i used destroyer for this and did all the topscores and kaplan tests in the BB.
the weapons:
-Kaplan BB 2009 - this was alright to get in the groove off the bat, but this book misses some pretty crucial stuff... like plants... and doesn't explain the calvin cycle or krebs cycle very well unless you like using your imagination to visualize stuff like this.
-Topscore - good practice tests - i didn't use these people the way people normally do... i used them to see where i was after finishing reading thru kaplan sections - after i finished bio, i'd do the bio section, and so on.
-DAT Destroyer 2009 - best thing for studying hands down. a couple questions were straight off this thing.
-Barron's AP Biology 2009 - this book was useful when i wanted more about things destroyer or kaplan would try and explain. photosynthesis and the kreb's cycle as well as plants are discussed fairly well in this book. i did the little practice tests that were in this book too- they might be a little over the top compared to the DAT, but it's worth it to know the concepts well.
-Barron's AP Chemistry 2009 - this book was useful for all the problems it had in it too. explained concepts in detail too. good reference and practice book.
-Crack DAT PAT (10Test) - this was by far the best gun i had going into the DAT. i was looking forward to the PAT going into this. in my opinion, the DAT was on right on in terms of difficulty compared to the DAT. It's an absolute must-have if you want to do well on this section.
-my notebook - i took notes in a marble notebook of everything i missed on tests, everything i thought i might forget, or everything i just felt like writing down to read later. this was one of the most helpful things to me in the last couple weeks leading up to the test. It helped me build confidence and I could easily take it around and read it during breaks at work or just eating dinner.
i studied for 2 months roughly - i made a schedule, set aside a month to read kaplan and take mini-practice tests for each science section. I didn't really set enough time aside for math, and I took the test anyway knowing I might blow it on this section. study for it. I gunned an 800 on my SAT in math, so don't let slack on it. Destroyer wasn't enough for QR. anyway, studied for 2 months, went to vegas for a week in the middle of it, and that was a waste of time, bc I'm not even 21 yet... yeah. Uhhh starting july 1st, i took my first practice test and got smoked. Hammered the destroyer 2x, and kept doing practice tests until 2days before, then went golfing the day before to relax/get pissed at my golf game instead. I also recommend hitting the gym a few hours before your exam - it really takes your body and nerves out of the equation, quiets the jitters. and with some endorphins in there too, it really just sets it up to let your mind and brain do the work alone - it was good. Here are all my practice tests I took:
BIOL/GC/OC/PAT/RC/QR|TS/AA
18/18/19/22/21/17|19/19 --- Kaplan Book 7/1/09
18/17/18/22/21/24|18/20 --- Kaplan CD 7/3/09
29/19/19/22/22/22|21/22 --- Topscore 3 7/5/09
19/23/30/23/21/24|22/23 --- ADA Sample Test 7/7/09
21/25/30/24/22/20|25/24 --- Topscore 2 7/9/09
18/23/20/24/17/20|20/20 --- Kaplan Free Practice DAT 7/11/09
21/23/28/25/25/23|23/24 --- Topscore 1 7/13/09
22/25/29/--/--/---|24/-- --- Kaplan Book (again) 7/16/09
I'm about to start my jr year, have a 3.22 GPA and same science GPA. i have quite a few EC's and have been working for an oral surgeon every summer and break for 3 summers now... i dunno how dental schools weight your GPA, but i'm uncertain. I had a terrible first semester of college (came out firing with a 2.45) and even though I've pulled it up with a couple good semesters, I don't know how dental schools walk around that without stepping in it... if you have advice, questions, comments, feedback, or concerns, it's all welcome. I think I'm gunning for UNC, NOVA, with maybe UCLA, Arizona, Columbia, and UoP, but I have no idea how my GPA will factor into all of this. what do you guys think? thank you muchly in advance, and thanks to all those SDNers out there who posted breakdowns. it really helped.
PAT: 24 (99.0)
QR: 18 (75.8)
RC: 28 (99.8)
BIO: 22 (95.7)
GC: 22 (90.1)
OC: 26 (98.1)
TS: 23 (98.2)
AA: 23 (98.3)
so holla. awwwww here goes...
woke up this morning at about 7.00 after going to bed at 12.30 and had a rush of adrenaline already. i reviewed for a little, reviewing the roadmaps from destroyer and the kaplan quick sheets along with my personal notes til about 10. watched a little of the Tour (contador sucks), didnt eat anything because milk was gone (hooray) and i was feeling pretty diesel so i went to the gym and busted out a chest workout like usual. i made a 'DAT playlist' on my iPod of those songs that just get you amped yadadamean and listened to them in the car while driving to the gym and from the gym to lunch and lunch to the testing center. everybody needs a DAT playlist on their iPod before going to take the test. NEEDS IT.
here's mine:
Head Bussa (feat. Lil Jon) - Lil Scrappy
Smooth Criminal - Michael Jackson
I Believe I Can Fly - R. Kelly
Jam - Michael Jackson
Arrival to Earth - Steve Jablonsky
Training Montage (from Rocky) - Vince Dicola
In the Air Tonight - Phil Collins
Santorini - Yanni (shutup - this song's the bomb.com/yourmom)
Life in Technicolor - Coldplay
Lose Yourself - Eminem
yeh so got to the testing center and scribbled some trig formulas on the laminated sheet during the tutorial, tested out the markers and good-for-nothing eraser, and then jumped into it.
TS- didn't know the first question. saa-weet. anyway, kept going and grinding, got easier once i got to GC - nothing too complex in the way of calculations - they did most of them out for you. a couple of the bio q's were straight off destroyer. and i don't know if i'm just blind or something because in kaplan, there was hardly any material about plants, but i got a good plant question on the test that i only had a relative idea about from the destoyer. ochem wasn't bad - it was all a blur - sorry guys, i don't remember many of the questions. i finished the science section with 35 mins left to go and thought i had skipped a section or something so i went thru each question again and double-cheked.
PAT - i thought CDP was right on for this. the angles were kinda tricky and some of the hole-punch fold i had never seen before, but nothing that threw me for a spin. my CDP scores were:
21/24/25/24/23/23/25/23/25/24
the pattern folding tossed my salad. finished with about 10 minutes left (about my usual on CDP) and reviewed the marked stuff.
took a break.
RC - nothing bad at all. i had hardly practiced this and using search and destroy on practice tests didnt work out well sometimes, but this time i gambled and it worked. i didnt get pianoed or frapped and... (for how popular this topic has been the past few days... here goes again) some other guy in the room got frapped (smelled like caramel to me) and he threw up on the keyboard and then they made him finish the frap and drink another one - he was a goner, poor guy. in all seriousness though, my reading passages were quite simple with s&d and finished with 12 minutes left. I knew about half the answers to my first passage without even reading the passage because of an almost violently enthusiastic molecular bio/genetics professor i had fall semester last year.
QR - ....scratch that. the qr tossed my salad. i marked about 10 of these i didn't know and felt like i was playing bingo or something. just the QR-express train barreling down a track, and i was trying to outrun it on a moped. that's what it felt like. i used destroyer for this and did all the topscores and kaplan tests in the BB.
the weapons:
-Kaplan BB 2009 - this was alright to get in the groove off the bat, but this book misses some pretty crucial stuff... like plants... and doesn't explain the calvin cycle or krebs cycle very well unless you like using your imagination to visualize stuff like this.
-Topscore - good practice tests - i didn't use these people the way people normally do... i used them to see where i was after finishing reading thru kaplan sections - after i finished bio, i'd do the bio section, and so on.
-DAT Destroyer 2009 - best thing for studying hands down. a couple questions were straight off this thing.
-Barron's AP Biology 2009 - this book was useful when i wanted more about things destroyer or kaplan would try and explain. photosynthesis and the kreb's cycle as well as plants are discussed fairly well in this book. i did the little practice tests that were in this book too- they might be a little over the top compared to the DAT, but it's worth it to know the concepts well.
-Barron's AP Chemistry 2009 - this book was useful for all the problems it had in it too. explained concepts in detail too. good reference and practice book.
-Crack DAT PAT (10Test) - this was by far the best gun i had going into the DAT. i was looking forward to the PAT going into this. in my opinion, the DAT was on right on in terms of difficulty compared to the DAT. It's an absolute must-have if you want to do well on this section.
-my notebook - i took notes in a marble notebook of everything i missed on tests, everything i thought i might forget, or everything i just felt like writing down to read later. this was one of the most helpful things to me in the last couple weeks leading up to the test. It helped me build confidence and I could easily take it around and read it during breaks at work or just eating dinner.
i studied for 2 months roughly - i made a schedule, set aside a month to read kaplan and take mini-practice tests for each science section. I didn't really set enough time aside for math, and I took the test anyway knowing I might blow it on this section. study for it. I gunned an 800 on my SAT in math, so don't let slack on it. Destroyer wasn't enough for QR. anyway, studied for 2 months, went to vegas for a week in the middle of it, and that was a waste of time, bc I'm not even 21 yet... yeah. Uhhh starting july 1st, i took my first practice test and got smoked. Hammered the destroyer 2x, and kept doing practice tests until 2days before, then went golfing the day before to relax/get pissed at my golf game instead. I also recommend hitting the gym a few hours before your exam - it really takes your body and nerves out of the equation, quiets the jitters. and with some endorphins in there too, it really just sets it up to let your mind and brain do the work alone - it was good. Here are all my practice tests I took:
BIOL/GC/OC/PAT/RC/QR|TS/AA
18/18/19/22/21/17|19/19 --- Kaplan Book 7/1/09
18/17/18/22/21/24|18/20 --- Kaplan CD 7/3/09
29/19/19/22/22/22|21/22 --- Topscore 3 7/5/09
19/23/30/23/21/24|22/23 --- ADA Sample Test 7/7/09
21/25/30/24/22/20|25/24 --- Topscore 2 7/9/09
18/23/20/24/17/20|20/20 --- Kaplan Free Practice DAT 7/11/09
21/23/28/25/25/23|23/24 --- Topscore 1 7/13/09
22/25/29/--/--/---|24/-- --- Kaplan Book (again) 7/16/09
I'm about to start my jr year, have a 3.22 GPA and same science GPA. i have quite a few EC's and have been working for an oral surgeon every summer and break for 3 summers now... i dunno how dental schools weight your GPA, but i'm uncertain. I had a terrible first semester of college (came out firing with a 2.45) and even though I've pulled it up with a couple good semesters, I don't know how dental schools walk around that without stepping in it... if you have advice, questions, comments, feedback, or concerns, it's all welcome. I think I'm gunning for UNC, NOVA, with maybe UCLA, Arizona, Columbia, and UoP, but I have no idea how my GPA will factor into all of this. what do you guys think? thank you muchly in advance, and thanks to all those SDNers out there who posted breakdowns. it really helped.
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