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Hey guys, my first post here, usually just sat around and read stuff while prepping for the DAT. A lot of posts made me feel confident and a lot of posts made me feel nervous so I figured I'd write my own breakdown for those taking the 2017 DAT.
BIOlOGY-22- Biology was shockingly simple. When they say breadth over depth they absolutely mean it. For biology I used destroyer and cliffs AP biology and with the exception of maybe two questions everything was pretty straightforward. I think destroyer knows something because I had a few questions verbatim from destroyer. While studying, it's easy to get lost in the details. For those of you feeling overwhelmed I highly recommend Alan's notes as they were a quick read and a great resource! Don't bog down your memory with specific numbers from cellular respiration or photosynthesis just make sure to know processes. That's important. My exam was pretty well dispersed but if you know all of Alan's notes, read cliffs ap bio, and do destroyer your set for 20+. Just make sure not to study biology passively because that's where you can get in trouble. Attack biology with the mindset of knowing everything, concept wise, and try and distinguish through some of the unnecessary details. Don't take a weird question you saw for granted there are a few random questions so for those of you going for crazy BIO scores, know them!
GC-22- General chemistry was straight up easy, how I made a 22 I'm astonished, I think it must have been nerves. For this section I would highly recommend chad's videos and taking all of the associated quizzes. I also did destroyer religiously, 75 problems a day, for probably about a month and it was super overkill. This doesn't mean neglect destroyer, it was a wonderful resource and extremely helpful. If you do destroyer you'll find the DAT GC to be cake.
OC-27- Once again Chad's and destroyer, I had a bunch of condensation reactions and a few name the reaction questions. If you know destroyer you're set once again. I would compare the difficulty of the exam to that of DAT bootcamps exams. Very straightforward and not very many tricks. If you just had organic 2 you have a very good opportunity to dominate this section. Brush up of you stretches for HNMR and CNMR (hint hint) and know your IR peaks. Make sure to look at the road maps in destroyer they are wonderful!
PAT- 19- Not my best considering I was scoring 21-22 on bootcamp but I kind of panicked during this section. Keyhole was pretty intense, I'd say slightly harder than bootcamp. For TFE this was also harder than bootcamp. However cube counting, angle ranking, and pattern folding, were cake because of bootcamp. Practice, practice, practice! For PAT I would suggest mastering cube counting, pattern folding, and hole punch. Then spend some time getting good at the hard stuff! Remember for pattern folding, shapes with colors fold into the computer! Not out, this is a very important concept for that portion of the DAT. Just be aware! Overall bootcamp would definitely suffice for this section just make sure to practice daily, and destroy the PAT. I think one reason I scored lower on this section was because I never took a full length practice test and after the science section I was a little tired.
RC-22- Search and destroy, enough said. I didn't study for this section. I had articles on Mesenchyme cells, dental ethics, and physics. Very straightforward section. Probably 95% of my questions were directly from the text.
QR-18-The new quantitative comparison section was heavily emphasized on my dat. For me it was a good thing because I felt those questions were way easier than the more complexed algebra questions you'll see. However none of the resources I used were even closely representative of the exam. Math destroyer heavily emphasized trig and geometry, had 1 trig question and 1 geometry question. I also used bootcamp which was slightly better. 18 isn't good but I've seen way worse QR scores so I was kind of relieved. However I'm not exactly sure what too use to study for this section. I would suggest doing math destroyer tests, looking up youtube videos of concepts you don't know, and then taking timed, BC questions. I think for this section above 17 is just what you need to get to not be hindered with this section. QR is the least important, in my opinion, and as long as you take the test smart (not spending to long on hard questions and not panicking) above 17 is perfectly feasible, even for those that don't excel in math.
Summary
Bio- Cliffs AP, Destroyer, BC
GC- Chads, Destroyer
OC- Chads, Destroyer, BC
RC- whatever works for you
QR- Math destroyer, BC
PAT- BC
My scores
Bio:22 GC:22 OC:27 RC:22 QR:18 PAT:19 AA:22 TS:23
I really want to thank Ari from BC and the DAT destroyer staff because without them this would not have been possible. I would also enjoy a few suggestions of where to apply. I have decent EC, around 200 hours of shadowing 3 different specialties and good letters of recommendation. My GPA is 4.0. Also I'm and economics major and have held financial health care related internships as well as kept a job my entire college career. This is a big reason why I don't have large amounts of dental related volunteer experience.
BIOlOGY-22- Biology was shockingly simple. When they say breadth over depth they absolutely mean it. For biology I used destroyer and cliffs AP biology and with the exception of maybe two questions everything was pretty straightforward. I think destroyer knows something because I had a few questions verbatim from destroyer. While studying, it's easy to get lost in the details. For those of you feeling overwhelmed I highly recommend Alan's notes as they were a quick read and a great resource! Don't bog down your memory with specific numbers from cellular respiration or photosynthesis just make sure to know processes. That's important. My exam was pretty well dispersed but if you know all of Alan's notes, read cliffs ap bio, and do destroyer your set for 20+. Just make sure not to study biology passively because that's where you can get in trouble. Attack biology with the mindset of knowing everything, concept wise, and try and distinguish through some of the unnecessary details. Don't take a weird question you saw for granted there are a few random questions so for those of you going for crazy BIO scores, know them!
GC-22- General chemistry was straight up easy, how I made a 22 I'm astonished, I think it must have been nerves. For this section I would highly recommend chad's videos and taking all of the associated quizzes. I also did destroyer religiously, 75 problems a day, for probably about a month and it was super overkill. This doesn't mean neglect destroyer, it was a wonderful resource and extremely helpful. If you do destroyer you'll find the DAT GC to be cake.
OC-27- Once again Chad's and destroyer, I had a bunch of condensation reactions and a few name the reaction questions. If you know destroyer you're set once again. I would compare the difficulty of the exam to that of DAT bootcamps exams. Very straightforward and not very many tricks. If you just had organic 2 you have a very good opportunity to dominate this section. Brush up of you stretches for HNMR and CNMR (hint hint) and know your IR peaks. Make sure to look at the road maps in destroyer they are wonderful!
PAT- 19- Not my best considering I was scoring 21-22 on bootcamp but I kind of panicked during this section. Keyhole was pretty intense, I'd say slightly harder than bootcamp. For TFE this was also harder than bootcamp. However cube counting, angle ranking, and pattern folding, were cake because of bootcamp. Practice, practice, practice! For PAT I would suggest mastering cube counting, pattern folding, and hole punch. Then spend some time getting good at the hard stuff! Remember for pattern folding, shapes with colors fold into the computer! Not out, this is a very important concept for that portion of the DAT. Just be aware! Overall bootcamp would definitely suffice for this section just make sure to practice daily, and destroy the PAT. I think one reason I scored lower on this section was because I never took a full length practice test and after the science section I was a little tired.
RC-22- Search and destroy, enough said. I didn't study for this section. I had articles on Mesenchyme cells, dental ethics, and physics. Very straightforward section. Probably 95% of my questions were directly from the text.
QR-18-The new quantitative comparison section was heavily emphasized on my dat. For me it was a good thing because I felt those questions were way easier than the more complexed algebra questions you'll see. However none of the resources I used were even closely representative of the exam. Math destroyer heavily emphasized trig and geometry, had 1 trig question and 1 geometry question. I also used bootcamp which was slightly better. 18 isn't good but I've seen way worse QR scores so I was kind of relieved. However I'm not exactly sure what too use to study for this section. I would suggest doing math destroyer tests, looking up youtube videos of concepts you don't know, and then taking timed, BC questions. I think for this section above 17 is just what you need to get to not be hindered with this section. QR is the least important, in my opinion, and as long as you take the test smart (not spending to long on hard questions and not panicking) above 17 is perfectly feasible, even for those that don't excel in math.
Summary
Bio- Cliffs AP, Destroyer, BC
GC- Chads, Destroyer
OC- Chads, Destroyer, BC
RC- whatever works for you
QR- Math destroyer, BC
PAT- BC
My scores
Bio:22 GC:22 OC:27 RC:22 QR:18 PAT:19 AA:22 TS:23
I really want to thank Ari from BC and the DAT destroyer staff because without them this would not have been possible. I would also enjoy a few suggestions of where to apply. I have decent EC, around 200 hours of shadowing 3 different specialties and good letters of recommendation. My GPA is 4.0. Also I'm and economics major and have held financial health care related internships as well as kept a job my entire college career. This is a big reason why I don't have large amounts of dental related volunteer experience.
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