- Joined
- Mar 11, 2009
- Messages
- 286
- Reaction score
- 5
I took my DAT today and, while there is always room for improvement, i am satisfied with the overall results. My science gpa is 3.85 and overall gpa is 3.81 for those who wonder.
PAT 21
QR 18
RC 19
BIO 23
GC 20
OC 21
TS 21
AA 20
Short Version
PAT: Crack that PAT
QR: Math Destroyer
RC: no suggestions
BIO: Cliffs AP
GC: Chads Videos and KBB
OC: Chads Videos
Long Version
I studied for about six weeks and have to say that if i had to do it again, i wouldn't take this much time. I felt that after i had been through all my study materials at about four weeks, that would have been the best time to take the test.
PAT: I used crack that PAT, the ten test version. I went through all the tests and made sure to do one test per day the last five days to stay on top of this. I must admit i was a little surprised by how low this score was. I finished this section with 18 minutes to spare so i redid all the cube counting, aperture (keyhole), and TFE. I did find a couple i had done wrong and was able to correct these. The hole punching was a little weird as there were a few 1/3 paper folds and the smaller holes didn't seem to scale very well but i didn't think anything was particularly hard. I never really was exceptional on the angles on my practice tests but there were none any harder than what you find on CDP. The pattern folding were a little difficult but the last 3 tests (8,9,10) of CDP started to get a little more on par with the actual test.
QR: What can i say, i went in knowing this would be my lowest section. The last trig class i took was in high school 12 years ago. I used Math Destroyer, not the part that comes with in DAT Destroyer, but the 10 test version. In my view there is nothing else you need for this, there were questions on my test that were identical to the questions in Math Destroyer, with different numbers. I only got through the first four tests but i made sure to do one a day the last four days up to the test. There weren't any questions i couldn't do, just questions i made educated guesses on because of time.
RC: I got crack that reading for free when they messed up my initial order, but i didn't use it too much. I am a fast reader and was able to read the whole passage, then start answering questions. I did get the piano passage, it wasn't really that bad but it did have a lot of tone questions. I would say the tone questions are what make this section difficult. Everything that wasn't a tone question was pretty easy to find in the different passages, much easier than the CDR and achiever. (i think both of these come from the same company because my achiever tests had identical reading passages as CDR). I really didn't find any great approaches to this section because time was never an issue. I used a search and destroy approach for specific questions and just did my best on the tone ones.
Bio: Pretty happy with this score, i finished this section in about 15 minutes and was surprised how easy it was. There weren't any questions that were foreign to me subject wise, there were just a couple of questions that were very poorly worded which made it difficult to understand what they were really asking. I could have given you a 10 minute lecture on the questions, but i couldn't have told you what they were really asking for. I used Cliffs AP Bio for this pretty much exclusively, this was a great study guide. It really helps if you can conceptualize and understand the big picture concepts behind the facts and vocabulary in the Cliffs sections. The last week i used the Campbells study guide that came with my book when i originally purchased it, i read the chapter summaries on it and if there was anything i didn't know i looked it up in Cliffs or the Campbells book.
GC: I don't like gen chem, never have and never will. This section was the hardest of the sciences for me. Similar to the difficult bio questions, i would get a question that had concepts that i knew, but the questions were worded in ways that made it hard to understand. There were also a couple of calculation type problems that i got a little frustrated with because i knew i should be able to do them but i couldn't get the answer. Without the time constraints and stress i know i could have done them but oh well. I used Chads Videos for this and read over the KBB gen chem section. This was a good combination. Chads quizzes were right on as far as question difficulty, though i would like to see him add more problems that change up the approach to similar question types. If i had only one thing to purchase to study gen chem, it would be Chad's videos.
OC: Nothing fancy here, i just finished my one year sequence this semester and took the ACS final in mid May. Chads videos were a good review and his quizzes were good in this area as well. I didn't get to do the last two quizzes but there were no real surprises on this section.
*I purchase the DAT Destroyer 2010 version and felt it was a waste of time and money. Unrealistically difficult, if i had to do it over again i would just purchase the Math Destroyer book and nothing more.
**I also purchased Achiever, my first test AA was 17, second was 16. I got a little depressed after this so i didn't take the other tests. They were rather difficult and the two tests didn't really correlate well so studying the areas i missed on the first one did nothing for the second one. I think you need some type of test like this to nail down the timing for the real thing though.
Feel free to shoot me any questions you may have.
PAT 21
QR 18
RC 19
BIO 23
GC 20
OC 21
TS 21
AA 20
Short Version
PAT: Crack that PAT
QR: Math Destroyer
RC: no suggestions
BIO: Cliffs AP
GC: Chads Videos and KBB
OC: Chads Videos
Long Version
I studied for about six weeks and have to say that if i had to do it again, i wouldn't take this much time. I felt that after i had been through all my study materials at about four weeks, that would have been the best time to take the test.
PAT: I used crack that PAT, the ten test version. I went through all the tests and made sure to do one test per day the last five days to stay on top of this. I must admit i was a little surprised by how low this score was. I finished this section with 18 minutes to spare so i redid all the cube counting, aperture (keyhole), and TFE. I did find a couple i had done wrong and was able to correct these. The hole punching was a little weird as there were a few 1/3 paper folds and the smaller holes didn't seem to scale very well but i didn't think anything was particularly hard. I never really was exceptional on the angles on my practice tests but there were none any harder than what you find on CDP. The pattern folding were a little difficult but the last 3 tests (8,9,10) of CDP started to get a little more on par with the actual test.
QR: What can i say, i went in knowing this would be my lowest section. The last trig class i took was in high school 12 years ago. I used Math Destroyer, not the part that comes with in DAT Destroyer, but the 10 test version. In my view there is nothing else you need for this, there were questions on my test that were identical to the questions in Math Destroyer, with different numbers. I only got through the first four tests but i made sure to do one a day the last four days up to the test. There weren't any questions i couldn't do, just questions i made educated guesses on because of time.
RC: I got crack that reading for free when they messed up my initial order, but i didn't use it too much. I am a fast reader and was able to read the whole passage, then start answering questions. I did get the piano passage, it wasn't really that bad but it did have a lot of tone questions. I would say the tone questions are what make this section difficult. Everything that wasn't a tone question was pretty easy to find in the different passages, much easier than the CDR and achiever. (i think both of these come from the same company because my achiever tests had identical reading passages as CDR). I really didn't find any great approaches to this section because time was never an issue. I used a search and destroy approach for specific questions and just did my best on the tone ones.
Bio: Pretty happy with this score, i finished this section in about 15 minutes and was surprised how easy it was. There weren't any questions that were foreign to me subject wise, there were just a couple of questions that were very poorly worded which made it difficult to understand what they were really asking. I could have given you a 10 minute lecture on the questions, but i couldn't have told you what they were really asking for. I used Cliffs AP Bio for this pretty much exclusively, this was a great study guide. It really helps if you can conceptualize and understand the big picture concepts behind the facts and vocabulary in the Cliffs sections. The last week i used the Campbells study guide that came with my book when i originally purchased it, i read the chapter summaries on it and if there was anything i didn't know i looked it up in Cliffs or the Campbells book.
GC: I don't like gen chem, never have and never will. This section was the hardest of the sciences for me. Similar to the difficult bio questions, i would get a question that had concepts that i knew, but the questions were worded in ways that made it hard to understand. There were also a couple of calculation type problems that i got a little frustrated with because i knew i should be able to do them but i couldn't get the answer. Without the time constraints and stress i know i could have done them but oh well. I used Chads Videos for this and read over the KBB gen chem section. This was a good combination. Chads quizzes were right on as far as question difficulty, though i would like to see him add more problems that change up the approach to similar question types. If i had only one thing to purchase to study gen chem, it would be Chad's videos.
OC: Nothing fancy here, i just finished my one year sequence this semester and took the ACS final in mid May. Chads videos were a good review and his quizzes were good in this area as well. I didn't get to do the last two quizzes but there were no real surprises on this section.
*I purchase the DAT Destroyer 2010 version and felt it was a waste of time and money. Unrealistically difficult, if i had to do it over again i would just purchase the Math Destroyer book and nothing more.
**I also purchased Achiever, my first test AA was 17, second was 16. I got a little depressed after this so i didn't take the other tests. They were rather difficult and the two tests didn't really correlate well so studying the areas i missed on the first one did nothing for the second one. I think you need some type of test like this to nail down the timing for the real thing though.
Feel free to shoot me any questions you may have.
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