Dat 8/24/2011

[TamHLe]

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I took it on my birthday not very good.

TS-16
Bio-16
Gchem-14
Ochem-17
PAT-16
Reading-19
QR-16

I was very upset considering my Gchem last year was a 17. I did all of Chad last year, but this year i went through Chad and all of his tests, and went through destroyer 4 times. The third time, i knew how to do all the problems. I dunno what to do.

Should I retake it in 3 months but this time spend more time studying?
I studied all summer, about 3 hours day.
I saw people studied 10 hours a day.
My material were AP BIO, Campbell, Chads, Crack A PAT, Destroyer, I even went through OCHEM Odyssey. please help!

 

[needzmoar]

I took it on my birthday not very good.

TS-16
Bio-16
Gchem-14
Ochem-17
PAT-16
Reading-19
QR-16

I was very upset considering my Gchem last year was a 17. I did all of Chad last year, but this year i went through Chad and all of his tests, and went through destroyer 4 times. The third time, i knew how to do all the problems. I dunno what to do.

Should I retake it in 3 months but this time spend more time studying?
I studied all summer, about 3 hours day.
I saw people studied 10 hours a day.
My material were AP BIO, Campbell, Chads, Crack A PAT, Destroyer, I even went through OCHEM Odyssey. please help!

When you're going through the destroyer's solution, do you skip the problems that you got right? Or do you look at the solution regardless of whether or not you got it correct? Something's wrong with the way you're studying if you've been through the destroyer that many time and not getting the score that you'd like. How do you study?

 

[tayloreve]

3 hours a day for what, about 3 months? That seems pretty spaced out.. Perhaps you'd remember more if you did 5-6 hrs for 2 months..

 

[TamHLe]

No, I did all of the problems 4 times in the past month, and the last week i just looked over the ones i did not fully understand. I was getting all of them right the 4th time.
First i looked at all of Chad's video then did his quizz, I did all of Achiever's science sections they were 15s and 14s. Then i took topscores. I read campbell three times, read Cliff Ap bio 2 times, took two of their practice test. Did OChem destroyer and Chad, made copies of the roadmap and studied them. I just did the 150 quetions on QR in DD and did a few prac test on CPD. I dunno what to do. Spend more time?


And Yes, it was about 3 hours a day for three months.

 

[TamHLe]

Oh and I did the 2007 Gchem pract test from ADA I only missed 5. My test had nothing I saw from Chad and only about 8 things I saw noticed that were similar from DD

 

[TwentyTwelve]

Take a look at the 21AA+ posting and check out the breakdowns. The common theme is studying for 6-10 hours a day for 6-8 weeks. It is hard to get into a rythym only studying 3 hours a day...and by three hours I mean around 1.5 because even though you spent 3 hours with an open book does not mean information was being absorbed the entire time. Take the bio section....it would take me around 6 hours just to go through one chapter of Cliffs AP Bio. If I had broken that up it would never have sunk in and I would not have been able to tie all the elements together in the text.

There was no mention of practice tests either...did you do Topscore or Achiever? ADA 2009/2007? These help gauge your progress and let you know whether you are on the right track or need to address certain sections. Whatever the case you need to stop and rethink your study habits to get your scores up. I am a firm believer that anyone can do well on the DAT with the right approach and enough PROPER study time.

What is your GPA? Do you get nervous for tests? These factors could have played a role too...

 

[TwentyTwelve]

Disregard some of my post haha...you must have posted while I was typing a response...

 

[TamHLe]

My overall is 3.2 and science is 3.01 its bad.
I took topscore 1 and did about the same as i did on the actual test, but that was a month ago. I took top score 2 and got a 17. The gchem sectionw as still bad, but i didnt understand why, it was suppose to be easy. Surly me doing Chad and DD should have helped? Maybe i studied the question and not the concept? I also did achievers for Total Science only average was 15s for all three.

 

[TamHLe]

What im really sad about is that this was the same score as last year. I felt like i was not making any progress, even though i did more studying then last year. Just very discouraged right now. Maybe i should do 6-8 hours in 2 months rather then 3. Should i retake it in november and study twice as much? And maybe they will see my determination?

 

[nboogie]

If it's any consolation, happy birthday.

What do you think went wrong? Was it nerves? Did you study enough? Think back to how you felt during the test, then address those issues.

If you felt like you knew the material going in, and you reviewed it several times, maybe you were just really nervous. Practice ways of soothing your test anxiety.

I highly recommend adding some sort of practice testing to your arsenal (Kaplan/ Topscore/ Achiever). This way, you'll be able to gauge where you are comprehension-wise in a test like environment, determine your strengths, and focus on your weaknesses. Other than that the materials you used look good.

I would definitely consider spending more time studying. You definitely won't cover as much material studying 3 hours/ day for 3 months as you will studying 6 hours/ day for 2 months, as tayloreve mentioned.

There are also a few really good breakdowns here on the forums. If you haven't looked at those yet, I highly recommend you do.

Good luck.

 

[AlbinoPolarBear]

What im really sad about is that this was the same score as last year. I felt like i was not making any progress, even though i did more studying then last year. Just very discouraged right now. Maybe i should do 6-8 hours in 2 months rather then 3. Should i retake it in november and study twice as much? And maybe they will see my determination?

They won't really care about your determination. Everyone who is pursuing dentistry has determination. They care more about your scores.

I would suggest you not just memorize how to do questions, but to understand them. Maybe the next couple of months you can really sit down and try to understand as many concepts as you can.

I studied 6-8 hours every day for 6 weeks. As TwentyTwelve stated, the first few hours you just get into the groove, it's the later hours that you can totally concentrate.

You have to really want this test to do well in it. The average matriculant has a DAT of 19, which is an 85 percentile, so you have to rise above a lot of people.

If you need help for scheduling, go by DentalWork's 8-week schedule. It's a lot of work, but it'll get you in shape for the DAT.

Good luck.

 

[Dusk]

All I can say is don't ever give up. And you can always retake and improve. As others have said i would try studying 6+ hrs a day in the timespan of 2 months.

It's incidents like these that make me freak out. Someone who uses all the materials the high scorers are using, but don't do as well.

Happy birthday man, just relax for now. Don't think about it for a few days.

 

[Clancyp]

It seems to me that your not really fully understanding what your getting wrong. Bio is a different matter, but for gc and ochem you should Be comfortable with almost all of the types of questions that could be presented with the materials you seemed to have. Doing destroyer so many times may have hurt you in that you subconsciously remembered the problems' answers that you weren't really learning but just regurgitating.

 

[flyingforever]

What im really sad about is that this was the same score as last year. I felt like i was not making any progress, even though i did more studying then last year. Just very discouraged right now. Maybe i should do 6-8 hours in 2 months rather then 3. Should i retake it in november and study twice as much? And maybe they will see my determination?

How are your grades in school? How are you studying? Something is not right. Change your study pattern.

 

[TamHLe]

Thank you so much guys for the encouragement.
So would you suggest me to retake it in 3 months or wait till next cycle? Im only taking 3 graduate classes this semester.
And I look at dental'swork I think Ill try that method as well as truly focusing more on understanding the basic knowledge. And you may be right, i did do gchem so many times. I went over ochem twice. I only did 20 questions in Gchem last year and got a 17.

 

[Hope30]

What im really sad about is that this was the same score as last year. I felt like i was not making any progress, even though i did more studying then last year. Just very discouraged right now. Maybe i should do 6-8 hours in 2 months rather then 3. Should i retake it in november and study twice as much? And maybe they will see my determination?

Anyone here really wants to help you out. I found out that I study faster by watching videos than to open a book and read. I would recommend you to do the similar thing like Chad's videos and watch videos. You should check out www.hipocampus.com for biology. Also, datQvault.com
Chad's videos and Destroyer in my opinion are good enough. Make sure you understand the concepts (that is what important). Understanding the concepts helps you encounter any calculations and conceptual questions.
http://predds.net/dat-preparatory-materials/
This site has all the materials you need. Check out each one and pick what you need the most. Most sites have super good materials for FREE (as hippocampus.com). I got to this site for the first time today and went through Reproductive system and some other plant sections. I have to say I learn more than reading chapters, which I already did and those things never stuck in my head.

Not to mention. My DAT is this Friday. I would not say whether I will do well or bad at this point but only study to the best of my ability.

PLEASE DO CHECK OUT THOSE SITES. I KNOW YOU CAN IMPROVE.

 

[TwentyTwelve]

My overall is 3.2 and science is 3.01 its bad.
I took topscore 1 and did about the same as i did on the actual test, but that was a month ago. I took top score 2 and got a 17. The gchem sectionw as still bad, but i didnt understand why, it was suppose to be easy. Surly me doing Chad and DD should have helped? Maybe i studied the question and not the concept? I also did achievers for Total Science only average was 15s for all three.

This is an issue I ran across while teaching/tutoring gen chem and seems to be the case here. Many students would come to me after failing a test and show me 12 pages of practice problems and homework sets fully completed and perfect. When I switched around the numbers and asked them to attempt the problem solving for a different variable they could not achieve success.

By doing Chad's you should have covered 90+% of the material on Ochem and Gen Chem on the DAT. Are the problems the same? Heck no...that would be too easy. The point of the videos is to teach you the concept...

Same with Destroyer...don't just answer the problem. Eventually you will have memorized the answer but not the "how" or "why" which are crucial to applying the sciences to other tests and applications.

Another issue I see is that you went through Campbell's three times??? 😱 It took me over 60 hours to go through 180 pages of Cliffs Bio alone!! And I consider myself a fast learner...seems like you may not be spending enough time to soak in the material and are just glazing over pages.

Use the practice test scores as notice that you are not ready!!! I cannot say this enough...why take the test when you are getting 15's? That is missing around half the problems and is VERY far away from a 19/20. Many of the previous breakdowns mentioned the varying degrees of difficulty of the practice test floating around. For example the 2007 is very easy yet you missed 5 gen chem....15's on Topscore correlates to around a 16/17 on the real test. 14/15 on Achiever should put you around a 17/18 according to some feedback.

Trust me I'm not ragging on you, I am frustrated that you did not do well when the passion and motivation seem to be there...please take this as constructive criticism 👍👍👍

 

[flyingforever]

Thank you so much guys for the encouragement.
So would you suggest me to retake it in 3 months or wait till next cycle? Im only taking 3 graduate classes this semester.
And I look at dental'swork I think Ill try that method as well as truly focusing more on understanding the basic knowledge. And you may be right, i did do gchem so many times. I went over ochem twice. I only did 20 questions in Gchem last year and got a 17.

When are you applying to dental school?

 

[TamHLe]

Thanks hope and twenty, I am deff feeling very encouraged by the help and time you guys are giving me. I dunno where to go from here. i took all the practice tests so i cant gauge myself anymore. The only thing I see myself doing is studying my Gchem and Ocehm book, spending more time on campbell and truly understand each sections and spending more time on Cliff. I did skim through a lot of it. And you are right about the practice tests, I saw that i wasn't ready, but i suppose i was in denial, believing all i had to do was destroyer and chad.

 

[TamHLe]

Ive already applied, this is my second time. Maybe im not motivated enough..

 

[flyingforever]

Ive already applied, this is my second time. Maybe im not motivated enough..

Did you apply with 17 AA before? You should sign up again for November, otherwise its too late. How is your sGPA?

 

[indigenoustw]

hmm...honestly 3 hours for 3 months aren't going to cut it. What you need is a block of time to just immerse yourself in the studying process. If you just study for 3 hours a day, that leaves you with a ton of time to distract and hinder memory consolidation (there's evidence for this). CONCENTRATION and DETERMINATION are definitely important for you. Also, if your studying material didn't work out for you, I suggest you to substitute your current materials with some others so that way you will feel more stimulated in the learning process. Since you have already applied, you should start studying again and try to improve your score!! Good luck!!

 

[UCSD1984]

The study materials you have available are more than enough to get you a 19AA. Study harder. I studied for about 6 weeks, 3 hours a day, then about 4 weeks ago I started studying about 5 hours a day, and now I'm doing 6-8 hours a day. Hopefully in a week I'll be doing 8-10 hours a day.

Most important part of what I just said: The first 6 weeks of my study time (when I only studied 3 hours a day)? Yea, I don't remember jack crap from any of it. 3 hours a day just isn't enough. 6-8 weeks of 6-10 hours a day is ideal.

You can do it, trust me. I'm already getting the hang of it and I'm probably the biggest idiot on the planet.