DAT 6/28 Breakdown

[11LB11]

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First of all, to all the people still studying for the test, just keep going at it, practice is the only way to really do well on this damn exam.

My Breakdown:

PAT:19 😕
QR:16
RC: 22 👍
BS: 19
GC: 21
OR: 22 😡
TS: 20
AA: 20

I am a little confused about they calculate the TS because from every calculation i have made, i shouldve gotten a 21.

Materials Used:
KBB, Destroyer, datQvault, Cliff AP Bio, Undergrad Organic Book, Crack the PAT, Wikipedia, Chad, Achiever and TopScore.

Studied for 2 months. Usually about 8 hours a day. Of those 8 hours i would only study about 5 or 6, the rest was spent on facebook, eating, going to the bathroom or just staring off.

I started with KBB, read the whole thing and did an outline, twice. I realized that was not enough, and after reading here about the wonders of Cliff AP bio, I bought it. I should've done a outline of cliff but i didnt have enough time. So i just read it over once.

Destroyer 2009 version, did it 3 times

Math Destroyer, only did about 7 exams. I barely practiced for the math, Ive always liked math, so I didnt bother re-learning any trig or anything else I needed to get a decent score in QR, as is obvious from my score.

DatQvault: I thought it was ok, some weird questions, some good ones. I only did the free questions the have.

Chad: If i ever see Chad I will kiss he bald head, no homo. That guy is awesome, mainly for Gen Chem, i recommend going over Chem once before watching his lectures, but he is definitely a must. I only used him for certain things in Organic, because I have a pretty good base. I actually enjoy Organic and I mainly used my undergrad book to study.

Achiever: Crazy hard, my scores were 17,16,16,16,15. I liked a much more than TopScore. The actual test looks very much like Achiever. I used Achiever to get used to the pace of the test, and mainly for the RC part.

TopScore: I am going to start by saying that I utterly despise TopScore. I had planned to take 1 test Sat, Sun and Mon, but i couldnt because they sent me the product key on Monday, so eff me right! I bought the software on Friday, and it is supposed to take only 12 hours to get the key, which is B...S... to begin with, you should get it right away, just like Achiever. I called, emailed, sent "problem report" messages in their website, and nothing.
Once i got the key, i was very disappointed with the interphase, in 2 words, it SUCKS. The test kept on closing on me, I had to restart every test at least 5 times. Every time the test restarted, so did the clock. So it was pretty useless to practice the "real" test experience.
Another thing is, all the bio questions come from Campbell's 4th Ed, which is almost 10 years old. Take that as you please, but i didnt like it.
Now, I do have to give the TopScore some credit because the Bio sections sort of similar, I think i had 1 question that was exactly the same.
Not very good for Chem and Org. Too hard for Chem and too easy for Org.

The real thing:
I thought i had failed the exam after the Science part. I am usually very confident while taking exams, but I really thought i had gotten a 16.
The exam seemed a little more difficult than what everyone says, specially organic. I got 20,19,19,19,18 in Organic for Achiever, which is supposed to be the hardest. Perhaps it was just the exam version that i got.
PAT: I wasnt too worried about this section. The lowest score I ever got was an 18, in the 1st test i ever did. I was actually surprised i got a 19 because i thought it was the easiest test i had done. I had 20 min to do Pattern Folding, and Finished with 10 min to spare. For CDP i never had extra time.
RC: I thought it was very simple, I liked the passages I got. Definitely not as bad/hard as i thought. I am very happy with the score
QR: Eff math.

If anyone has an Idea why my TS is a 20 please let me know. I think it shouldve been a little higher.
I am very happy with my score, I had set the bar very high for myself and i didnt quite reach it, but oh well. After feeling I had failed the exam after the science I was very happy to see a 20 there.

 

[Dental2000]

Good work...Im sure ull get interviews with ur score coupled with ur GPA

 

[LetsGo2DSchool]

The TS score is a scaled score based on the total number of questions you got correct in the entire TS section and not an average of the three scores in the Bio/GC/OC sections as is the case with AA, which is an average of the five scores in the Bio/GC/OC/QR/RC sections.

 

[AlbinoPolarBear]

Lol, an explanation of how they calculated your TS score is on your report sheet. It's not the average of the 3 sciences.

Congrats on your score. I wouldn't worry too much about QR, some schools are willing to forgive that section. Good luck.

 

[Potatochips]

TS is a scale for 100 total questions not an average of 3 science scores

 

[FXTTH]

If anyone has an Idea why my TS is a 20 please let me know. I think it shouldve been a little higher

-If you read the DAT score sheet it tells you that the TS is not an average of the 3 sections, but rather your total correct out of 100 and how it scales out. You may have had the lowest RAW score possible for Organic to receive a 22, or vice versa with the other sections. This could also sway the final TS score you recieved. In all honesty too, a 19 in Bio means you probably answered between 27-32 correct (leaving you with say 29 plus your other 2 raw scores), so having your lowest score in Bio compared to one of your chemistry sections would drag your TS score down more comparatively, since it has 10 more questions.

Hope this helps, and I may be wrong. Standardized tests are bizarre in a scoring sense. I never understood why they send the scaled scores to schools and not the percentile scores, although I'll take it. For instance, my first DAT I received an 18 RC and was (82%) (piano), but my second DAT I recieved a 20 RC and was (68%). So, I answered fewer correct the first time, but had obviously harder passages based on my percentile. But, oh well haha.

 

[addis4ever]

good job! I want these scores! 😀
Question, how hard was the bio section? was it doable?

 

[11LB11]

good job! I want these scores! 😀
Question, how hard was the bio section? was it doable?

It is very doable. But, like everyone here says, it is very random. It goes from the super easy to the WTF. I think good knowledge will get you 20. To get more than that you need to be great at it, or just get lucky with an easy section. I got a B in Bio, I have never really liked it, so I am happy with the 19.

 

[crew09]

Studied for 2 months. Usually about 8 hours a day. Of those 8 hours i would only study about 5 or 6, the rest was spent on facebook, eating, going to the bathroom or just staring off.

HA!
Great scores, gl with interviews.

 

[Clancyp]

"Studied for 2 months. Usually about 8 hours a day. Of those 8 hours i would only study about 5 or 6, the rest was spent on facebook, eating, going to the bathroom or just staring off."

Haha im glad you admitted that. Thats what tends to happen to me, one month to go! CONGRATS SIR or MADAM.