- Joined
- Jul 9, 2008
- Messages
- 345
- Reaction score
- 5
today im finally done with this mofo. its been a long road of studying but now def worth all of the sacrifice. i hope this can serve as some inspiration or something. this thing kicked me in the nuts twice so this was my last chance to get even and i think i did.
DAT 1 DAT 2 DAT 3
(10/2008) (7/2009) (5/2010)
PAT 18 18 20
QR 17 16 20
RC 20 18 20
Bio 17 17 21
GC 17 17 22
OC 15 21 23
TS 16 18 22 (96.0)
AA 17 18 21 (93.0)
i know of a couple bio questions i missed which pisses me off but oh well. had to throw those percentiles in there. first time in a while ive felt smart. probably too many concussions playing college soccer. considering i got 2 hrs of sleep last night i'm happy. i remedied with a bunch of coffee, eric prydz and benny benassi this morning to get the juices going. a couple times during the exam i wouldve bet a thousand bucks i'd blown it but then i saw may scores at the end and was fist pumping all the way to the parking lot. prometric ppl prob thought something was wrong with me.
i'll put up a better breakdown later if i'm not too hammed. thanks to everyone on here that helps out esp when i ask annoying questions. sdn has been an invaluable resource
Breakdown
The 3rd time taking this thing is rough. Just the pressure going in thinking what the hell do I do if "f" this one up too. My gpa is only a 3.4 from undergrad so if I ripped 17s again I would have been under the bus bigtime. I feel like a hit a free kick upper 90 with this test. One of my best pieces of advice…DON'T TAKE IT THREE TIMES. Knock the thing out on your first or second attempt. I consider myself fortunate to be able to quit my job, move home and study for 3 months. Most people have other responsibilities and can't just put everything else on hold. But I could, and did for 3 months. Go hard or go home. Yeah I prob put on a few lbs and my friends call me a hobbit but whatever. I studied about 6 hrs a day, 6 days a week. A couple vacas in there but studied on those too. More like 8 hrs a day toward the end. I'm really into like health and fitness, proper sleep cycles and that garbage so I nearly cut TV out of my life and to tell you the truth I don't miss it. I slept better which meant better production.
I have a new found respect for the people that roll up and drop 24s on the dat first time around. These kids must have an incredible ability to retain detail. This is something ive become better at. I think with the sciences you have to want to understand why things work the way they do. Yeah we can all breeze campbells but can you piece things together? Afterall its only basic bio so anybody can connect the dots from a book like that, but you have to want to. Forget the shortcuts, try to understand things from the core, even if it takes a few extra hours.
Test Day
Like I said, I didn't sleep a lick the night before but your body can flush adrenaline when you need it. But the strangest thing was that I wasn't even tired after the test. I probably could have done another one. This is why practice exams are so important. Once you become a beast at those, you can smoke thru the test like its nothing.
I used a 20-30-20 minute method on the sciences and it worked fine. Finished about 15 mins early and had plenty of time to go back. I suggest using something similar. My biggest problem is that I relish on problems I didn't answer with confidence. Don't let this happen to you. Even if you think you've done poorly on a question, you have to let it go. You'll prob do better than you think.
Bio: Like I said, it's basic biology. It's not super complicated stuff, but like dentalworks always says, you need to be able to apply what you know in the context they use. Ask yourself on the tough questions, "what is this dude trying to ask me?" and more times than not, its just a simple concept. However, basic bio is broad and nearly every topic from undergrad text is fair game, so don't sell yourself short. I used Campbells 7th edition. Can't say enough about this book. Contrary to what I stated above, I didn't read the whole thing. I mean theres a ton of taxonomy that I couldn't be bothered to know. But the most important chapters I read a few times. I tagged and clipped certain pages and diagrams. I used cliff's ap as well. I really like cliffs but if you want to dig a bit deeper, you need a text book by your side. i also have this notebook of about 15-20pgs of important stuff I always reviewed.
Gen Chem: I'm sure the exams vary but I prob had 2 theory/conceptual type questions for 1 needing math or an equation. Use chad's videos, theyre great. I took gen chem like 6 yrs ago so its been a while. I suggest using these before starting anything else. I watched his vids then moved on the ACS chem review guide, which can be a bit over kill, but helped nonetheless. Destroyer is nice and I would recommend. Its tedious as hell but you'll become quick at the math. I also bought some text book from amazon for like 8 bucks and was a huge help.
OChem: I swear that theres always more ochem1 material on these things than ochem2. But know your reactions! If you do, ochem section will take like 15 mins max. Chad's videos again to start my review. Then I moved on to destroyer. Print those roadmaps and study them. The textbook I used was bruice I think the 4th edition. Again with ochem you need to want to know the details for a good score.
I've got this stack of flashcards that I made probably like 8in deep and would stop a magnum bullet without a doubt. Probably 300-400 of them for bio, 200 for each of the chems. I knew I was ready for the exam when I hadn't looked at them for 3 weeks right before my test. I knew them cold.
RC: The problem with RC is that sometimes search and destroy works, sometimes it doesn't. I live and die by it. At one point I had 25 questions left with 22 mins to go because S&D wasn't working. I thought my ship was sunk. Then somehow I got myself together and beasted the rest of the questions as fast as I could. Not much prep really..Ive been reading weird michio kaku stuff on theoretical physics before bed that about it man.
QR: My method…run through the problems you know. The worst is being in a situation where you have 5mins left on the clock and 10 questions to go. Don't let this happen. Make sure you try every problem. I'm decent enough at arithmetic and figuring out word problems, which probably got me through. And my biggest problem is that every time I try to study math I end throwing it aside to work on sciences. I bought the math destroyer and ran through 7 tests I think before I got so sick of math. I honestly prepared less this time for QR.
PAT: CDP. Great resource. The angles are pretty tough on the real thing, but then you'll find other sections to be a bit easier. I thought I would do better. I think most of the cdp scores were 22-23. Oh well.
Achiever: my TS scores were 18-19 for all three I think. Yeah its more difficult, but I recommend it. If nothing else, its another chance to practice
Topscore 1: TS 21 AA 20
Topscore 2: TS 21 AA20
Topscore 3: TS 22 AA 20
Looking at these now, I realize theyre a pretty good indication of how you'll do on the real thing. I also used the Kaplan subject test. Lots of good questions on those.
CDP: 20, 21, 21, 19, 22, 23, 23 probably should have done more of them but I didn't
Sorry this is so long. I'm too lazy to proof read this so I apologize if its jumbled. A bunch of people have been really helpful on this site to name a few dentalworks, ucb05 , joonkim, nze something, klutzy and some others that don't post too much anymore. Hopefully I can be of some help to people who haven't done well on the 1st or 2nd try.
DAT 1 DAT 2 DAT 3
(10/2008) (7/2009) (5/2010)
PAT 18 18 20
QR 17 16 20
RC 20 18 20
Bio 17 17 21
GC 17 17 22
OC 15 21 23
TS 16 18 22 (96.0)
AA 17 18 21 (93.0)
i know of a couple bio questions i missed which pisses me off but oh well. had to throw those percentiles in there. first time in a while ive felt smart. probably too many concussions playing college soccer. considering i got 2 hrs of sleep last night i'm happy. i remedied with a bunch of coffee, eric prydz and benny benassi this morning to get the juices going. a couple times during the exam i wouldve bet a thousand bucks i'd blown it but then i saw may scores at the end and was fist pumping all the way to the parking lot. prometric ppl prob thought something was wrong with me.
i'll put up a better breakdown later if i'm not too hammed. thanks to everyone on here that helps out esp when i ask annoying questions. sdn has been an invaluable resource
Breakdown
The 3rd time taking this thing is rough. Just the pressure going in thinking what the hell do I do if "f" this one up too. My gpa is only a 3.4 from undergrad so if I ripped 17s again I would have been under the bus bigtime. I feel like a hit a free kick upper 90 with this test. One of my best pieces of advice…DON'T TAKE IT THREE TIMES. Knock the thing out on your first or second attempt. I consider myself fortunate to be able to quit my job, move home and study for 3 months. Most people have other responsibilities and can't just put everything else on hold. But I could, and did for 3 months. Go hard or go home. Yeah I prob put on a few lbs and my friends call me a hobbit but whatever. I studied about 6 hrs a day, 6 days a week. A couple vacas in there but studied on those too. More like 8 hrs a day toward the end. I'm really into like health and fitness, proper sleep cycles and that garbage so I nearly cut TV out of my life and to tell you the truth I don't miss it. I slept better which meant better production.
I have a new found respect for the people that roll up and drop 24s on the dat first time around. These kids must have an incredible ability to retain detail. This is something ive become better at. I think with the sciences you have to want to understand why things work the way they do. Yeah we can all breeze campbells but can you piece things together? Afterall its only basic bio so anybody can connect the dots from a book like that, but you have to want to. Forget the shortcuts, try to understand things from the core, even if it takes a few extra hours.
Test Day
Like I said, I didn't sleep a lick the night before but your body can flush adrenaline when you need it. But the strangest thing was that I wasn't even tired after the test. I probably could have done another one. This is why practice exams are so important. Once you become a beast at those, you can smoke thru the test like its nothing.
I used a 20-30-20 minute method on the sciences and it worked fine. Finished about 15 mins early and had plenty of time to go back. I suggest using something similar. My biggest problem is that I relish on problems I didn't answer with confidence. Don't let this happen to you. Even if you think you've done poorly on a question, you have to let it go. You'll prob do better than you think.
Bio: Like I said, it's basic biology. It's not super complicated stuff, but like dentalworks always says, you need to be able to apply what you know in the context they use. Ask yourself on the tough questions, "what is this dude trying to ask me?" and more times than not, its just a simple concept. However, basic bio is broad and nearly every topic from undergrad text is fair game, so don't sell yourself short. I used Campbells 7th edition. Can't say enough about this book. Contrary to what I stated above, I didn't read the whole thing. I mean theres a ton of taxonomy that I couldn't be bothered to know. But the most important chapters I read a few times. I tagged and clipped certain pages and diagrams. I used cliff's ap as well. I really like cliffs but if you want to dig a bit deeper, you need a text book by your side. i also have this notebook of about 15-20pgs of important stuff I always reviewed.
Gen Chem: I'm sure the exams vary but I prob had 2 theory/conceptual type questions for 1 needing math or an equation. Use chad's videos, theyre great. I took gen chem like 6 yrs ago so its been a while. I suggest using these before starting anything else. I watched his vids then moved on the ACS chem review guide, which can be a bit over kill, but helped nonetheless. Destroyer is nice and I would recommend. Its tedious as hell but you'll become quick at the math. I also bought some text book from amazon for like 8 bucks and was a huge help.
OChem: I swear that theres always more ochem1 material on these things than ochem2. But know your reactions! If you do, ochem section will take like 15 mins max. Chad's videos again to start my review. Then I moved on to destroyer. Print those roadmaps and study them. The textbook I used was bruice I think the 4th edition. Again with ochem you need to want to know the details for a good score.
I've got this stack of flashcards that I made probably like 8in deep and would stop a magnum bullet without a doubt. Probably 300-400 of them for bio, 200 for each of the chems. I knew I was ready for the exam when I hadn't looked at them for 3 weeks right before my test. I knew them cold.
RC: The problem with RC is that sometimes search and destroy works, sometimes it doesn't. I live and die by it. At one point I had 25 questions left with 22 mins to go because S&D wasn't working. I thought my ship was sunk. Then somehow I got myself together and beasted the rest of the questions as fast as I could. Not much prep really..Ive been reading weird michio kaku stuff on theoretical physics before bed that about it man.
QR: My method…run through the problems you know. The worst is being in a situation where you have 5mins left on the clock and 10 questions to go. Don't let this happen. Make sure you try every problem. I'm decent enough at arithmetic and figuring out word problems, which probably got me through. And my biggest problem is that every time I try to study math I end throwing it aside to work on sciences. I bought the math destroyer and ran through 7 tests I think before I got so sick of math. I honestly prepared less this time for QR.
PAT: CDP. Great resource. The angles are pretty tough on the real thing, but then you'll find other sections to be a bit easier. I thought I would do better. I think most of the cdp scores were 22-23. Oh well.
Achiever: my TS scores were 18-19 for all three I think. Yeah its more difficult, but I recommend it. If nothing else, its another chance to practice
Topscore 1: TS 21 AA 20
Topscore 2: TS 21 AA20
Topscore 3: TS 22 AA 20
Looking at these now, I realize theyre a pretty good indication of how you'll do on the real thing. I also used the Kaplan subject test. Lots of good questions on those.
CDP: 20, 21, 21, 19, 22, 23, 23 probably should have done more of them but I didn't
Sorry this is so long. I'm too lazy to proof read this so I apologize if its jumbled. A bunch of people have been really helpful on this site to name a few dentalworks, ucb05 , joonkim, nze something, klutzy and some others that don't post too much anymore. Hopefully I can be of some help to people who haven't done well on the 1st or 2nd try.
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