- Joined
- Feb 10, 2010
- Messages
- 135
- Reaction score
- 57
First off, I want to say thank you to this entire community. Everyone on here is very supportive and helpful. Having an awesome community of other people in the same boat made this experience a lot less stressful. Also, a special thanks to Nancy and Dr. Romano, Feralis, Don Kim, and Chad from Chad’s videos.
My scores:
AA/TS/Bio/Gchem/Ochem/RC/QR/PAT
24/26/25/26/30/20/19/18
I realize that my scores are a little lop-sided and not perfect. However I feel like throughout this experience I picked up some nuggets of wisdom that I think would be beneficial to others who are in the same struggle.
My background:
I am a RN; graduated from nursing school this past August, and worked for about 3 months in the Neuro ICU. However, I feel like that degree helped me very little as far as the sciences on the DAT go. It certainly helped with things like the endocrine system, however I couldn’t begin to tell you anything about DNA replication, or what the structure of a dicot root looks like. Also this was my second time taking the DAT. I took it once before, back in 2010. At that point I was 2 years out of undergraduate. These are my scores from that test:
AA/TS/Bio/Gchem/Ochem/RC/QR/PAT
22/23/22/29/23/17/17/19
Seeing as how that test was 7 years ago, I had forgotten everything science related. I also had to relearn several math equations, like trig, log functions, and geometry. (which by the way were on the real test. I know that is possibly a source of confusion right now)
Materials used:
DAT Destroyer
Destroyer Ochem Odyssey
Math Destroyer
Chad’s videos Ochem/Chem/Math
Cliffs AP Bio 3rd edition
DAT Bootcamp
Exam Krackers for Chem and Ochem
DAT Qvault (RC only)
General advice:
First and foremost, there is not only one way to be successful on the DAT! Don’t think that you have to do exactly what anyone else did so you can achieve good scores. Everybody is different, and we all start on different pages, with different back grounds, and learn differently. If someone tells you they did 5 practice tests and went through the destroyer 4 times, don’t think you have to do the exact same thing. (everyone knows 5 is the right amount of times to do the destroyer
) I have seen people studying for only 28 days, and some people studying for 6 months. We are all different. What I did was I looked at SEVERAL of these breakdowns and took bits and pieces from each one that I thought would help me out the most. Two of the main ones I took from was from Feralis and Don Kim; both of which are really cool guys and were more than helpful when I needed to ask a question.
I developed my own study plan based on my needs, and what other successful people did. For example, I knew that I really needed to work on my Reading Comprehension. So I saw that Feralis, and others, were reading Scientific American everyday. So every morning, I would wake up and read 1-2 articles. My problem was that I was ALWAYS running out of time during the RC, so I really needed to pick up my reading speed. (And that brings me to another great point. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t improve on an area. I heard that lie during my preparation. Just because you aren’t naturally good at something doesn’t mean that through some hard work, you can’t improve.) Also the only way to judge if you are improving is to track your progress. So what I would do is go to an article, copy and past the whole thing in a word document to quickly get a word count. Then I would time myself while reading the article. I documented all of that, including my words/second rate, in an excel spreadsheet and tracked my progress that way. However, to be honest, I don’t think reading those articles really helped me all that much. I think what really helped was actually reading passages and answering questions. I bought DAT Qvault, the RC only, and would do a passage and those questions every morning. We are allowed 72 seconds/question, so before doing my daily passage I would quickly look to see how many questions that passage contained, without reading them or the passage, and then multiply that number by 72, and that would be my allowed time in seconds. I set a timer for each passage, and documented each attempt in a spreadsheet. I think this method was more effective for me because it allowed me to play around with different strategies, and see which one worked best for me. Toward the end, I knew I wasn’t going to have time to do the full length Bootcamp practice tests, so I started using those passages as my RC source. I was nervous when doing these because everything I read was saying how tough they were and that they were harder than the real thing. I took that with a grain of salt and just did my best. I only ended up being able to do 4 of these passages (not exams), and here is my conclusion; it is very similar to the real DAT. The passages from each Bootcamp test are placed that in such you get one hard, one medium, and one easier passage. Keep in mind, I only did 4 of these passages, so I have a small sample size. And these are just my opinions from my own experiences. During the real test, my first passage was absolutely brutal. I burned up half of my time just trying to do that one passage. And the questions on that thing were out of this world. I was so happy to see that the next passage was very easy, and the one after that was medium difficulty. I did my best to rush through those.
Scheduling a test date:
This can be a very tricky task! Schedule your test too soon, and you won’t be ready. Schedule it too late and you might have forgotten stuff. And then it is very easy to fall into the cycle of constantly rescheduling. My advice for this is to start by setting a date. This will give you motivation to be ready by a certain date. Otherwise I think it would be too easy to half-heartedly prepare. Secondly, as that date approaches, you need to have an honest conversation with yourself, and ask if you will really be prepared for all sections by test date. If not, I would advise you to push it back. Don’t be afraid of doing that, but I would try my best to push it back just once, and at the most twice. I pushed my test date back once by two weeks, and that was probably one of my smartest decisions. Before, I was stressing out majorly, feeling as if I there was just no way I could be prepared in time. I was just blowing through the Destroyer, and not really getting the full potential out of that resource that I could have. And then I had that honest conversation, and pushed it back 2 weeks. This allowed me time to actually dive deep into the sciences, and learn them properly.
My general study plan:
Since I forgot everything science related I was practically starting from ground zero. I stumbled upon Chads videos, and used those. Those videos and courses, are AWESOME. I remember when I first found out about those, I texted my friend “Dude, I just found the thing that’s gonna get us back in the OChem game.” Then I did the Destroyer Ochem Odyssey, and Math Destroyer (first 10 exams). Then I started to work on the destroyer. I got about a third of the way through it, and realized that I was severely lacking in concepts for Chemistry. So then I stopped doing the destroyer and took the next four days to do the Exam Krackers Chemistry book. Those EK books are awesome! They really break things down, and explain things well. They are designed for the MCAT, but the topics are pretty much the same as for the DAT. The author kept mentioning the MCAT, and I would say to myself “C’mon man, just slip up one time and say DAT.” Lol, that never happened. I read that and did all the practice problems that came along with it. I then went back to the Destroyer and finished it. I went through all the Destroyer problems a second time. While I was going through it, I would really try to learn everything I could from it. That means, understanding why the right answers are right, as well as why the wrong answers are wrong. This was crucial. If I felt like I needed more knowledge on a topic, I would stop and read up on it. While I was doing all of this, I would also include some daily PAT and RC practice. I would wake up and do 15 minutes of one DAT Bootcamp PAT generator, and then another 15 minutes with a different generator. I spent more times on sections that I thought I needed the most help on. (pattern folding and TFE). Then I would either read a couple of SA articles, or do a passage with questions.
DAT Destroyer:
I cannot say enough good things about those products, and more so, the people that are behind those products. These products are HIGHLY effective. One of the main reasons why I was able to do well in the sciences both test times was because of these products. The last time I took the DAT was 7 years ago, and the Destroyer was one of the top preparatory products out then. Well, 7 years later and guess what, they are still on top of the game. I think that alone says volumes of how dedicated these people are to creating quality products. I’m not even lying yall, some of the questions and explanations from the Destroyers saved me on multiple questions on the real test. Also, Nancy and Dr. Romano are always on SDN replying to students who have questions related to the destroyer content. I know I needed clarification on several topics, and they were gracious enough to break each one down for me. This certainly contributed to a more efficient and less stressful study time for me. Thank you guys for that.
Bootcamp:
This was another great resource. I would have bought this if the only thing it came with was the PAT generators because those things are awesome! My only criticism is that it needs more keyhole practice. It gives you about 100 keyhole problems, but gives you endless practice with the generators from the other sections. You can use the keyhole practice problems from other practice tests though, which is what I did. The Keyholes from BC were excellent! Not only were they very representative of the real thing, but the explanations were incredible. I took about 3 days, 30 minutes/day, doing nothing but keyholes, studying the rationales, and I felt that drastically improved my abilities. As far as comparison to the real test, I felt like all the sections were pretty similar to BC, except the pattern folding. The pattern folding on my real test was insane; nothing like what I had seen or prepared for. I just did my best, and did a lot of praying. The hole punches were pretty similar, with the real test being only slightly more challenging. The real test mixed in some varying sized holes, and different styles of folding. The TFE on the real test was way more challenging than BC as well. Again, there were just some way more intricate shapes than what BC presented. Angles were pretty well representative of the real thing. I only scored an 18 on the PAT, but honestly I was very happy to see that score. I did so much guessing, I felt like my score could have easily been a 16/17. I guess an educated guess is a lot better than I thought. By the end of this section, I was saying to myself “Dear Lord, just please make it stop…” I’m sorry yall, but I don’t have any excellent advice on how to conquer this section.
Overall, for the reading practice from BC was very representative of the real thing. If anything it was only slightly harder. I really enjoyed this practice. The explanations from these questions were outstanding! I really felt like I was improving my skills due to those explanations. They helped me to understand why I got something right/wrong, and how to approach questions.
The math sections were also very helpful, with great explanations. I felt like the math sections were much easier, and more representative of the real thing, than Destroyer. Don’t get me wrong, practicing with the more difficult Math Destroyer will certainly be excellent preparation. However, if you are strapped for time, I would focus more on the BC practice tests. Since the questions are easier, you can be exposed to more different types of questions in a shorter amount of time. Obviously, the best thing you could do is to do both. I only did 11 of the 18 Destroyer practice problems, and then started to do only BC math practice tests a week before my test, so I could be exposed to as many different types of problems as possible. I only ended up with a 19 on QR, but I was fine with that. The ideal situation I believe to get 21 plus on QR is to do all 18 Destroyer tests, go through them again, and then do all 10 of the BC tests.
Chad’s Videos:
These videos and courses were extremely helpful. They were perfect for reintroducing me to topics that I had totally forgotten. I watched all of these videos, some twice, and took notes. The notes he provides to follow along with are excellent too. Before I took my test I went over all the notes I took, plus the notes he provides, and I felt like this was a great way to review right before the test. Also, I’m not sure if many people know, but he has a site that is separate from Coursesaver now. On Coursesaver, his courses are like $25, or something like that. On his newer site, Chemistryprep.com, each course is $10 or you can get a site-wide subscription plan for $10/month, which is what I did. Also Chad himself is a really cool guy. I reached out to him several times on something I didn’t understand, and he kindly helped me out.
More General Advice:
Preparing for this test is a grueling process. I spent in total, a little under 3 months preparing for this test. I first started studying while I was working full time as a nurse. After 2 or 3 weeks of that, I looked at my progress and how much more I had to go, and I realized that there was no way I could continue and be ready in time. So I quit my job on Jan. 20, and put in 12 hr days, everyday, until test day (Apr. 7). There were only 2 days during that time span that I did something fun. Once I went to top golf for a friends Bday party for 2 hrs, and once I went to a basketball game with a friend that we had been planning for about 10 months in advance. I was starting from ground zero with most of the sciences, so I had a lot of catching up to do. It takes that kind of dedication to do well. If you find yourself feeling not motivated to study, I think you should really stop and think about why you are doing this. I mean, we all want to be dentists; that’s our ultimate goal. So stop and think about what that means to you. For me it meant that I could have a dream job, and be financially stable. It meant I would be able to do some really nice things for my parents in the future. It meant I could treat and help many patients, and earn the respect of society as a doctor. And those reasons mean the world to me. It’s important to create the environment that will position you best for success. I bought this poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he won Mr. Olympia and it has him posing with the word “Conquer.” on it. I had this poster right in front of my study desk. I wrote down some motivational phrases that I liked in big letters, and taped them on my wall. One of my favorites was from Dr. Eric Thomas, and it simply said “I can. I will. I must.” I told myself this on several occasions. I also posted my scores from 2010 on my wall. The last week was the most grueling and intense. When I would take breaks, I would watch only motivation videos on youtube to keep my mindset right. In order to pace myself, I would study for 50 minutes, and rest for 10. I actually made a spreadsheet of these hours too. When it was time to study, I would write down at what particular time I was gonna take a 10 min break. Until that time I ignored everything else, and focused only on my studies. I feel like this is a good method to get you through some long days, and still retain as much info as possible.
Sleep. Sleep is probably one of the most important things. I would set goals for each hour, and each day. However if I had not met those goals by the time it was time to go to bed, I forced my self to quit for the day. Rest is immensely important. Also, you need some time to unwind each day in order to get a restful sleep. I learned this the hard way. Generally I would stop studying and start getting ready for bed an hour before I wanted to sleep. And do your best to get enough rest the night before the test. I was extremely nervous the first time, and ended up only sleeping like 4 hours. This definitely hurt me in the reading and QR sections. So this time, I thought I would beat that and could block out the pre-test nerves. Well, that didn’t happen and again, I only slept about 5-6 hours. Also the neighbors barking dog didn’t help. I seriously wanted 2 tranquilizers; one for me and one for that dog lol. My goal for this test was no 17’s, and thankfully through preparation, I was able to achieve that goal.
Online Videos. Online videos are great. There is literally a video somewhere on the internet explaining pretty much anything you could want to know. If I was curious about a topic, I would do a quick google search, find a video, and start learning. Also, what makes videos great is you can put these on 1.5x speed, and get the same information in a lot less time. I found this out about half-way through my test, and it blew my mind lol. A great way to get information quickly.
Breadth not depth. I had heard that the way to beat the biology section was to focus more on breadth than depth. Honestly, I felt that this was the way to tackle all three of the sciences, and the math section. For the most part, those sections are pretty basic, and don’t require some really in-depth knowledge. The problem is DAT creators have such a large hat of questions to pull from. Don’t get me wrong though, you definitely still have to study hard. I would just focus on as many topics as possible, without going too much in depth in any one in particular. They could ask you the most random stuff, and while it’s not that challenging, if you’ve never been exposed to it you wouldn’t be able to answer the question.
I’m not the smartest person, and I know my score is not perfect. However I do have an incredible work ethic, and I consider my score competitive, ultimately making this a successful experience. This was just the story of how I conquered the DAT. All you have to do is work extremely hard, focus on the areas you lack in, and figure out what you will say when you share your successful story.
“I can. I will. I must.”
My scores:
AA/TS/Bio/Gchem/Ochem/RC/QR/PAT
24/26/25/26/30/20/19/18
I realize that my scores are a little lop-sided and not perfect. However I feel like throughout this experience I picked up some nuggets of wisdom that I think would be beneficial to others who are in the same struggle.
My background:
I am a RN; graduated from nursing school this past August, and worked for about 3 months in the Neuro ICU. However, I feel like that degree helped me very little as far as the sciences on the DAT go. It certainly helped with things like the endocrine system, however I couldn’t begin to tell you anything about DNA replication, or what the structure of a dicot root looks like. Also this was my second time taking the DAT. I took it once before, back in 2010. At that point I was 2 years out of undergraduate. These are my scores from that test:
AA/TS/Bio/Gchem/Ochem/RC/QR/PAT
22/23/22/29/23/17/17/19
Seeing as how that test was 7 years ago, I had forgotten everything science related. I also had to relearn several math equations, like trig, log functions, and geometry. (which by the way were on the real test. I know that is possibly a source of confusion right now)
Materials used:
DAT Destroyer
Destroyer Ochem Odyssey
Math Destroyer
Chad’s videos Ochem/Chem/Math
Cliffs AP Bio 3rd edition
DAT Bootcamp
Exam Krackers for Chem and Ochem
DAT Qvault (RC only)
General advice:
First and foremost, there is not only one way to be successful on the DAT! Don’t think that you have to do exactly what anyone else did so you can achieve good scores. Everybody is different, and we all start on different pages, with different back grounds, and learn differently. If someone tells you they did 5 practice tests and went through the destroyer 4 times, don’t think you have to do the exact same thing. (everyone knows 5 is the right amount of times to do the destroyer
) I have seen people studying for only 28 days, and some people studying for 6 months. We are all different. What I did was I looked at SEVERAL of these breakdowns and took bits and pieces from each one that I thought would help me out the most. Two of the main ones I took from was from Feralis and Don Kim; both of which are really cool guys and were more than helpful when I needed to ask a question.I developed my own study plan based on my needs, and what other successful people did. For example, I knew that I really needed to work on my Reading Comprehension. So I saw that Feralis, and others, were reading Scientific American everyday. So every morning, I would wake up and read 1-2 articles. My problem was that I was ALWAYS running out of time during the RC, so I really needed to pick up my reading speed. (And that brings me to another great point. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t improve on an area. I heard that lie during my preparation. Just because you aren’t naturally good at something doesn’t mean that through some hard work, you can’t improve.) Also the only way to judge if you are improving is to track your progress. So what I would do is go to an article, copy and past the whole thing in a word document to quickly get a word count. Then I would time myself while reading the article. I documented all of that, including my words/second rate, in an excel spreadsheet and tracked my progress that way. However, to be honest, I don’t think reading those articles really helped me all that much. I think what really helped was actually reading passages and answering questions. I bought DAT Qvault, the RC only, and would do a passage and those questions every morning. We are allowed 72 seconds/question, so before doing my daily passage I would quickly look to see how many questions that passage contained, without reading them or the passage, and then multiply that number by 72, and that would be my allowed time in seconds. I set a timer for each passage, and documented each attempt in a spreadsheet. I think this method was more effective for me because it allowed me to play around with different strategies, and see which one worked best for me. Toward the end, I knew I wasn’t going to have time to do the full length Bootcamp practice tests, so I started using those passages as my RC source. I was nervous when doing these because everything I read was saying how tough they were and that they were harder than the real thing. I took that with a grain of salt and just did my best. I only ended up being able to do 4 of these passages (not exams), and here is my conclusion; it is very similar to the real DAT. The passages from each Bootcamp test are placed that in such you get one hard, one medium, and one easier passage. Keep in mind, I only did 4 of these passages, so I have a small sample size. And these are just my opinions from my own experiences. During the real test, my first passage was absolutely brutal. I burned up half of my time just trying to do that one passage. And the questions on that thing were out of this world. I was so happy to see that the next passage was very easy, and the one after that was medium difficulty. I did my best to rush through those.
Scheduling a test date:
This can be a very tricky task! Schedule your test too soon, and you won’t be ready. Schedule it too late and you might have forgotten stuff. And then it is very easy to fall into the cycle of constantly rescheduling. My advice for this is to start by setting a date. This will give you motivation to be ready by a certain date. Otherwise I think it would be too easy to half-heartedly prepare. Secondly, as that date approaches, you need to have an honest conversation with yourself, and ask if you will really be prepared for all sections by test date. If not, I would advise you to push it back. Don’t be afraid of doing that, but I would try my best to push it back just once, and at the most twice. I pushed my test date back once by two weeks, and that was probably one of my smartest decisions. Before, I was stressing out majorly, feeling as if I there was just no way I could be prepared in time. I was just blowing through the Destroyer, and not really getting the full potential out of that resource that I could have. And then I had that honest conversation, and pushed it back 2 weeks. This allowed me time to actually dive deep into the sciences, and learn them properly.
My general study plan:
Since I forgot everything science related I was practically starting from ground zero. I stumbled upon Chads videos, and used those. Those videos and courses, are AWESOME. I remember when I first found out about those, I texted my friend “Dude, I just found the thing that’s gonna get us back in the OChem game.” Then I did the Destroyer Ochem Odyssey, and Math Destroyer (first 10 exams). Then I started to work on the destroyer. I got about a third of the way through it, and realized that I was severely lacking in concepts for Chemistry. So then I stopped doing the destroyer and took the next four days to do the Exam Krackers Chemistry book. Those EK books are awesome! They really break things down, and explain things well. They are designed for the MCAT, but the topics are pretty much the same as for the DAT. The author kept mentioning the MCAT, and I would say to myself “C’mon man, just slip up one time and say DAT.” Lol, that never happened. I read that and did all the practice problems that came along with it. I then went back to the Destroyer and finished it. I went through all the Destroyer problems a second time. While I was going through it, I would really try to learn everything I could from it. That means, understanding why the right answers are right, as well as why the wrong answers are wrong. This was crucial. If I felt like I needed more knowledge on a topic, I would stop and read up on it. While I was doing all of this, I would also include some daily PAT and RC practice. I would wake up and do 15 minutes of one DAT Bootcamp PAT generator, and then another 15 minutes with a different generator. I spent more times on sections that I thought I needed the most help on. (pattern folding and TFE). Then I would either read a couple of SA articles, or do a passage with questions.
DAT Destroyer:
I cannot say enough good things about those products, and more so, the people that are behind those products. These products are HIGHLY effective. One of the main reasons why I was able to do well in the sciences both test times was because of these products. The last time I took the DAT was 7 years ago, and the Destroyer was one of the top preparatory products out then. Well, 7 years later and guess what, they are still on top of the game. I think that alone says volumes of how dedicated these people are to creating quality products. I’m not even lying yall, some of the questions and explanations from the Destroyers saved me on multiple questions on the real test. Also, Nancy and Dr. Romano are always on SDN replying to students who have questions related to the destroyer content. I know I needed clarification on several topics, and they were gracious enough to break each one down for me. This certainly contributed to a more efficient and less stressful study time for me. Thank you guys for that.
Bootcamp:
This was another great resource. I would have bought this if the only thing it came with was the PAT generators because those things are awesome! My only criticism is that it needs more keyhole practice. It gives you about 100 keyhole problems, but gives you endless practice with the generators from the other sections. You can use the keyhole practice problems from other practice tests though, which is what I did. The Keyholes from BC were excellent! Not only were they very representative of the real thing, but the explanations were incredible. I took about 3 days, 30 minutes/day, doing nothing but keyholes, studying the rationales, and I felt that drastically improved my abilities. As far as comparison to the real test, I felt like all the sections were pretty similar to BC, except the pattern folding. The pattern folding on my real test was insane; nothing like what I had seen or prepared for. I just did my best, and did a lot of praying. The hole punches were pretty similar, with the real test being only slightly more challenging. The real test mixed in some varying sized holes, and different styles of folding. The TFE on the real test was way more challenging than BC as well. Again, there were just some way more intricate shapes than what BC presented. Angles were pretty well representative of the real thing. I only scored an 18 on the PAT, but honestly I was very happy to see that score. I did so much guessing, I felt like my score could have easily been a 16/17. I guess an educated guess is a lot better than I thought. By the end of this section, I was saying to myself “Dear Lord, just please make it stop…” I’m sorry yall, but I don’t have any excellent advice on how to conquer this section.
Overall, for the reading practice from BC was very representative of the real thing. If anything it was only slightly harder. I really enjoyed this practice. The explanations from these questions were outstanding! I really felt like I was improving my skills due to those explanations. They helped me to understand why I got something right/wrong, and how to approach questions.
The math sections were also very helpful, with great explanations. I felt like the math sections were much easier, and more representative of the real thing, than Destroyer. Don’t get me wrong, practicing with the more difficult Math Destroyer will certainly be excellent preparation. However, if you are strapped for time, I would focus more on the BC practice tests. Since the questions are easier, you can be exposed to more different types of questions in a shorter amount of time. Obviously, the best thing you could do is to do both. I only did 11 of the 18 Destroyer practice problems, and then started to do only BC math practice tests a week before my test, so I could be exposed to as many different types of problems as possible. I only ended up with a 19 on QR, but I was fine with that. The ideal situation I believe to get 21 plus on QR is to do all 18 Destroyer tests, go through them again, and then do all 10 of the BC tests.
Chad’s Videos:
These videos and courses were extremely helpful. They were perfect for reintroducing me to topics that I had totally forgotten. I watched all of these videos, some twice, and took notes. The notes he provides to follow along with are excellent too. Before I took my test I went over all the notes I took, plus the notes he provides, and I felt like this was a great way to review right before the test. Also, I’m not sure if many people know, but he has a site that is separate from Coursesaver now. On Coursesaver, his courses are like $25, or something like that. On his newer site, Chemistryprep.com, each course is $10 or you can get a site-wide subscription plan for $10/month, which is what I did. Also Chad himself is a really cool guy. I reached out to him several times on something I didn’t understand, and he kindly helped me out.
More General Advice:
Preparing for this test is a grueling process. I spent in total, a little under 3 months preparing for this test. I first started studying while I was working full time as a nurse. After 2 or 3 weeks of that, I looked at my progress and how much more I had to go, and I realized that there was no way I could continue and be ready in time. So I quit my job on Jan. 20, and put in 12 hr days, everyday, until test day (Apr. 7). There were only 2 days during that time span that I did something fun. Once I went to top golf for a friends Bday party for 2 hrs, and once I went to a basketball game with a friend that we had been planning for about 10 months in advance. I was starting from ground zero with most of the sciences, so I had a lot of catching up to do. It takes that kind of dedication to do well. If you find yourself feeling not motivated to study, I think you should really stop and think about why you are doing this. I mean, we all want to be dentists; that’s our ultimate goal. So stop and think about what that means to you. For me it meant that I could have a dream job, and be financially stable. It meant I would be able to do some really nice things for my parents in the future. It meant I could treat and help many patients, and earn the respect of society as a doctor. And those reasons mean the world to me. It’s important to create the environment that will position you best for success. I bought this poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he won Mr. Olympia and it has him posing with the word “Conquer.” on it. I had this poster right in front of my study desk. I wrote down some motivational phrases that I liked in big letters, and taped them on my wall. One of my favorites was from Dr. Eric Thomas, and it simply said “I can. I will. I must.” I told myself this on several occasions. I also posted my scores from 2010 on my wall. The last week was the most grueling and intense. When I would take breaks, I would watch only motivation videos on youtube to keep my mindset right. In order to pace myself, I would study for 50 minutes, and rest for 10. I actually made a spreadsheet of these hours too. When it was time to study, I would write down at what particular time I was gonna take a 10 min break. Until that time I ignored everything else, and focused only on my studies. I feel like this is a good method to get you through some long days, and still retain as much info as possible.
Sleep. Sleep is probably one of the most important things. I would set goals for each hour, and each day. However if I had not met those goals by the time it was time to go to bed, I forced my self to quit for the day. Rest is immensely important. Also, you need some time to unwind each day in order to get a restful sleep. I learned this the hard way. Generally I would stop studying and start getting ready for bed an hour before I wanted to sleep. And do your best to get enough rest the night before the test. I was extremely nervous the first time, and ended up only sleeping like 4 hours. This definitely hurt me in the reading and QR sections. So this time, I thought I would beat that and could block out the pre-test nerves. Well, that didn’t happen and again, I only slept about 5-6 hours. Also the neighbors barking dog didn’t help. I seriously wanted 2 tranquilizers; one for me and one for that dog lol. My goal for this test was no 17’s, and thankfully through preparation, I was able to achieve that goal.
Online Videos. Online videos are great. There is literally a video somewhere on the internet explaining pretty much anything you could want to know. If I was curious about a topic, I would do a quick google search, find a video, and start learning. Also, what makes videos great is you can put these on 1.5x speed, and get the same information in a lot less time. I found this out about half-way through my test, and it blew my mind lol. A great way to get information quickly.
Breadth not depth. I had heard that the way to beat the biology section was to focus more on breadth than depth. Honestly, I felt that this was the way to tackle all three of the sciences, and the math section. For the most part, those sections are pretty basic, and don’t require some really in-depth knowledge. The problem is DAT creators have such a large hat of questions to pull from. Don’t get me wrong though, you definitely still have to study hard. I would just focus on as many topics as possible, without going too much in depth in any one in particular. They could ask you the most random stuff, and while it’s not that challenging, if you’ve never been exposed to it you wouldn’t be able to answer the question.
I’m not the smartest person, and I know my score is not perfect. However I do have an incredible work ethic, and I consider my score competitive, ultimately making this a successful experience. This was just the story of how I conquered the DAT. All you have to do is work extremely hard, focus on the areas you lack in, and figure out what you will say when you share your successful story.
“I can. I will. I must.”
