- Joined
- Nov 12, 2015
- Messages
- 46
- Reaction score
- 35
I recently took the DAT. First off I want to thank SDN forum for all the previous breakdown. They really did help me figure out what study materials I needed. Without further delay...
PAT: 22
QR: 19
RC: 21
BIO: 20
GC: 24
OC: 23
TS: 22
AA: 21
Background:
I took about 12 weeks to study. I have a heavy background in Biology and had previously taken advanced physiology and embryology. I was also taking OChem II while I was studying also so I had to dedicate time to ace that one class I had. I spent my mornings studying for my chem class and from noon to 8pm. I followed Ari's 10-week program with some of my own adjustments.
Materials:
Chad's Videos - 10/10 - Highly recommend to anyone. Absolutely necessary to learn to do the math and general chemistry sections in a timely manner. I woke up and went to bed watching these video. I would watch them any free second I got. First time around I took really good reference notes and the second time I watched them was purely for review.
DAT Bootcamp - 9/10 - Highly recommended to familiarize yourself with the format of the test. The only reason I gave it a 9 was the full-length test used questions from the single practice tests. So by the time I was ready to do full-length test a lot of the material was familiar and I was pulling 24-26AA on the full-length tests. Also, the organic chemistry was way easier on DAT Bootcamp but I blame the fact I was currently and freshly taken organic chemistry in class.
DAT Destroyer - 10/10 - Great Book I was able to go through it twice the first time I just plowed through each section. The second time around I gave myself 90 minutes and did 40 questions BIO 30 questions GC 30 questions OC and I was able to finish all the questions a week before my test day.
Math Destroyer - 10/10 - Essential to doing great on the Math section. I will explain my fatal flaw later.
Organic Chemistry Odessy - 10/10 - Awsome at covering all of the cracks tons of practice questions separated into sections so you can easily focus on what you are struggling with. (unlike destroyer).
General Chemistry Destroyer - 10/10 - Dauntingly huge book. These are Orgoman's personal notes on General Chemistry. I started with reading this in phase 1 of Ari's 10-week program. The book is very thorough and at times I felt as if it was too much and it lost my attention just didn't have enough time in the schedule to devote to it.
Cliffs AP Bio - 8/10 - Started out strong taking notes and making flash cards but then the material started boring me so I breezed through a lot of it and focused in on reviewing the physiology sections and embryology.
Feralis' Biology notes - 10/10 - Great outline I read and reviewed it twice while studying and highlighted things I was needing to review in more detail.
Kaplan Blue book/online practice test - 1/10 - Absolute trash.
Practice tests
DAT Bootcamp - Great test and they cover a ton of material and gets you familiar to the actual test i logged all of my results and kept track of it to see my progress. Again
2007 DAT - I forgot my exact subject results (my books are in storage while I'm on break from school). I got a 22AA and I felt like it was a ton easier than the real thing.
2009 DAT - I got a 20AA. Ochem and Math are insanely difficult and you'll know what I mean when you take it
Kaplan Online full-length tests - Took it 4 days before the actual DAT and I got a 15AA. Freaked me out a bit but I felt they were just trying to con me into buying more supplies from them.
Math Destroyer - Awesome test but my fatal flaw was that I felt confident from Chads' Videos and aced the first couple tests so I set it aside and focused more on my other subjects. When it came down to the wire and I had taken the 2007 and 2009 test, I was freaking out and I was struggling but I was out of time.
Test Day
My test started at 11:30am and It was an hours drive away. I woke up not feeling too well (I think it was a bit of a stress/anxiety induced flu symptoms).I pushed myself to skim all of feralis notes while my wife drove me to the test.
I'm so glad that it is done and over with it was a great journey and I had a blast. Let me know if you have any questions or I left something out.
PAT: 22
QR: 19
RC: 21
BIO: 20
GC: 24
OC: 23
TS: 22
AA: 21
Background:
I took about 12 weeks to study. I have a heavy background in Biology and had previously taken advanced physiology and embryology. I was also taking OChem II while I was studying also so I had to dedicate time to ace that one class I had. I spent my mornings studying for my chem class and from noon to 8pm. I followed Ari's 10-week program with some of my own adjustments.
Materials:
Chad's Videos - 10/10 - Highly recommend to anyone. Absolutely necessary to learn to do the math and general chemistry sections in a timely manner. I woke up and went to bed watching these video. I would watch them any free second I got. First time around I took really good reference notes and the second time I watched them was purely for review.
DAT Bootcamp - 9/10 - Highly recommended to familiarize yourself with the format of the test. The only reason I gave it a 9 was the full-length test used questions from the single practice tests. So by the time I was ready to do full-length test a lot of the material was familiar and I was pulling 24-26AA on the full-length tests. Also, the organic chemistry was way easier on DAT Bootcamp but I blame the fact I was currently and freshly taken organic chemistry in class.
DAT Destroyer - 10/10 - Great Book I was able to go through it twice the first time I just plowed through each section. The second time around I gave myself 90 minutes and did 40 questions BIO 30 questions GC 30 questions OC and I was able to finish all the questions a week before my test day.
Math Destroyer - 10/10 - Essential to doing great on the Math section. I will explain my fatal flaw later.
Organic Chemistry Odessy - 10/10 - Awsome at covering all of the cracks tons of practice questions separated into sections so you can easily focus on what you are struggling with. (unlike destroyer).
General Chemistry Destroyer - 10/10 - Dauntingly huge book. These are Orgoman's personal notes on General Chemistry. I started with reading this in phase 1 of Ari's 10-week program. The book is very thorough and at times I felt as if it was too much and it lost my attention just didn't have enough time in the schedule to devote to it.
Cliffs AP Bio - 8/10 - Started out strong taking notes and making flash cards but then the material started boring me so I breezed through a lot of it and focused in on reviewing the physiology sections and embryology.
Feralis' Biology notes - 10/10 - Great outline I read and reviewed it twice while studying and highlighted things I was needing to review in more detail.
Kaplan Blue book/online practice test - 1/10 - Absolute trash.
Practice tests
DAT Bootcamp - Great test and they cover a ton of material and gets you familiar to the actual test i logged all of my results and kept track of it to see my progress. Again
2007 DAT - I forgot my exact subject results (my books are in storage while I'm on break from school). I got a 22AA and I felt like it was a ton easier than the real thing.
2009 DAT - I got a 20AA. Ochem and Math are insanely difficult and you'll know what I mean when you take it
Kaplan Online full-length tests - Took it 4 days before the actual DAT and I got a 15AA. Freaked me out a bit but I felt they were just trying to con me into buying more supplies from them.
Math Destroyer - Awesome test but my fatal flaw was that I felt confident from Chads' Videos and aced the first couple tests so I set it aside and focused more on my other subjects. When it came down to the wire and I had taken the 2007 and 2009 test, I was freaking out and I was struggling but I was out of time.
Test Day
My test started at 11:30am and It was an hours drive away. I woke up not feeling too well (I think it was a bit of a stress/anxiety induced flu symptoms).I pushed myself to skim all of feralis notes while my wife drove me to the test.
I'm so glad that it is done and over with it was a great journey and I had a blast. Let me know if you have any questions or I left something out.
