Bump up DAT score

[bkdeluca]

Hi! I'm sad to say I took the DAT yesterday and did pretty terrible. I knew going in I wasn't going to make a high score which made it a little more bearable when I saw my final scores.

Obviously I'm not giving up. I'm just curious who else got a VERY low score and then was able to bump it up? How many times did you take it until you had a worthy score? And also what did you use as study material/what was different about your studying from the time you didn't do so hot to the time you got a good score??

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[dnz2]

First of all try not to be too hard on yourself, DAT is stressful and difficult especially if this was your first time. My first attempt my total science score was a 18 and the second time I took it was a 21 so trust me it certainly is possible to bump it up! The main study tool I used was DAT bootcamp, My biggest piece of advice would be to do practice questions as much as you can - I had only 2 months to study because I wanted to apply this cycle, the first month was striclty content review and the second month was ALL practice questions. I'd then look back at which questions/concepts I kept getting wrong and would go back to those sections and study them again. It's more about strategically studying and understanding your strengths/weaknesses. Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions

 

[bkdeluca]

First of all try not to be too hard on yourself, DAT is stressful and difficult especially if this was your first time. My first attempt my total science score was a 18 and the second time I took it was a 21 so trust me it certainly is possible to bump it up! The main study tool I used was DAT bootcamp, My biggest piece of advice would be to do practice questions as much as you can - I had only 2 months to study because I wanted to apply this cycle, the first month was striclty content review and the second month was ALL practice questions. I'd then look back at which questions/concepts I kept getting wrong and would go back to those sections and study them again. It's more about strategically studying and understanding your strengths/weaknesses. Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions

Thanks so much for the feedback! You did way better than me your first attempt 😭 it's hard to not be hard on myself, but I'm pushing through. I think not doing practice tests may be where I went wrong though. I'm seeing a lot of people suggesting practice tests. I'm trying to figure out if I want to do DAT Bootcamp or DAT Booster but I'm seeing more recemmendations for Bootcamp than Booster. I used the DAT Destroyer.

 

[MLC45]

The first time I took it I got a 16. I guess that wasn't so bad since I had only taken general biology and General Chem 1 at the time and mainly studied Ochem and other bio on my own. 2nd and 3rd time I got TS 17. I was really more prepared the third time, but the DAT test I had was harder than the first 2 times and I allowed myself to become discouraged. It went downhill during the english and math section. The 4th time I got a TS 19. I had taken Gen Chem 1 & 2, O chem 1 and was in 2, had taken anatomy and microbiology, and basically had more confidence. In fact I was surprised I didn't do better than a 19, but oh well it was enough to get in.

The first 3 times I did Kaplan blue book, Chad's Videos, a few other books...The last time I did DAT Destroyer and DAT Bootcamp. I think Bootcamp help me the most.

 

[bkdeluca]

The first time I took it I got a 16. I guess that wasn't so bad since I had only taken general biology and General Chem 1 at the time and mainly studied Ochem and other bio on my own. 2nd and 3rd time I got TS 17. I was really more prepared the third time, but the DAT test I had was harder than the first 2 times and I allowed myself to become discouraged. It went downhill during the english and math section. The 4th time I got a TS 19. I had taken Gen Chem 1 & 2, O chem 1 and was in 2, had taken anatomy and microbiology, and basically had more confidence. In fact I was surprised I didn't do better than a 19, but oh well it was enough to get in.

The first 3 times I did Kaplan blue book, Chad's Videos, a few other books...The last time I did DAT Destroyer and DAT Bootcamp. I think Bootcamp help me the most.

I did Destroyer and I think I just didn't have sufficient time to study the way the Destroyer is formatted. I'm getting Bootcamp this time around to add to my studying so hopefully it works 🤞 I got an AA of 14 this first time 😩

 

[RyuTatum]

Hi! I'm sad to say I took the DAT yesterday and did pretty terrible. I knew going in I wasn't going to make a high score which made it a little more bearable when I saw my final scores.

Obviously I'm not giving up. I'm just curious who else got a VERY low score and then was able to bump it up? How many times did you take it until you had a worthy score? And also what did you use as study material/what was different about your studying from the time you didn't do so hot to the time you got a good score??

I personally would recommend booster over bootcamp (I used both and scored really well). There were questions on booster that were identical/very similar to what showed up on my real exam but nothing like that for bootcamp.

At the end of the day, both are great resources but I think you need to figure out where you went wrong. Did you not do enough practice tests? Were you able to review the content enough times?

 

[Abbasr2000]

I would also recommend that you utilize dat booster it has questions that are a lot more representative of the real Dat. I believe that you can do very well with just DATBooster and it’s less than half the cost of bootcamp. If you need more practice supplement with DatDestroyer but in my opinion you don’t need anything other than datbooster.

 

[d9m7]

One thing I would like to add is to not take the test until you are confident you will do well! There has to be a balancing act of getting a good DAT score and submitting the application early. I think delaying the test a few weeks is OK if it means you will be able to score higher.

Two study tips that help me:
- I don't move on from a concept until I fully understand it. I seek out several videos on the concept and watch them until I feel comfortable with it.
- After studying, I get a blank sheet of paper and write down as much as I can remember about the topic. Then, compare that to the notes I took and/or the text I read. Repeat. This is very good for topics like OC.

 

[dnz2]

One thing I would like to add is to not take the test until you are confident you will do well! There has to be a balancing act of getting a good DAT score and submitting the application early. I think delaying the test a few weeks is OK if it means you will be able to score higher.

Two study tips that help me:
- I don't move on from a concept until I fully understand it. I seek out several videos on the concept and watch them until I feel comfortable with it.
- After studying, I get a blank sheet of paper and write down as much as I can remember about the topic. Then, compare that to the notes I took and/or the text I read. Repeat. This is very good for topics like OC.

probably the best study advice ive heard on sdn, definitely wish I had known this when I was a freshman in undergrad!

 

[babycorn10]

I did Destroyer and I think I just didn't have sufficient time to study the way the Destroyer is formatted. I'm getting Bootcamp this time around to add to my studying so hopefully it works 🤞 I got an AA of 14 this first time 😩

Can I ask you how you studied with using destroyer? I only have destroyer and am scared I too won’t score well.

 

[ChemistryDentist]

Can I ask you how you studied with using destroyer? I only have destroyer and am scared I too won’t score well.

There are plenty of people who relied on the Destroyer alone and do very well on the DAT! I would say it's the majority, frankly, and definitely the case for me. Check out some of the breakdowns here on SDN!

You really need to make sure you understand all of the questions, each of the answer choices, the rationales, and concepts behind everything in that book. If you do, you will be set to succeed, because there's not much they could ask that would throw you off guard! I always advocate for going through the book at minimum 2 times to make sure you can do that, but the more you go through it the better. Take notes on things you didn't understand when answering the question, and make sure to note questions that seemed particularly important or difficult. If you do all that, you'll be on the path to success.

Supplementing with questions from the Facebook group, YouTube videos, and Dynamite Bio review are always a good idea too, which can really help enrich your understanding of some of the topics. The name of the game is understanding, not memorization.

Hopefully that's a bit reassuring and helpful. Best of luck!