Hi! I’m not one to post anything on here but thought that maybe it could benefit someone. Posts on sdn really helped me ease my stress so I thought I’d pay it forward.
Background: I’m a junior majoring in bio and math. This is my first time taking the DAT and am not yet sure if I should retake it. Exam date was the 4th of August and I began studying on/off starting from mid May. When I scheduled my exam date (somewhere in the beginning of July), that's when I started grinding. In the three weeks that I had left, I would wake up early (9-10ish) and study until the late night and took no days off.
I’m an incredibly bad test taker with horrendous testing anxiety (I took my SAT 3-4 times) and I was terrified I was going to have to retake the DAT. But knowing that I had another year to take it (since I’m taking a gap year), I was slightly less nervous. Overall, all I can say is, allow yourself ample time, but not too much time where you fall into a burn out.
Materials:
DATBooster + 1 bio Crash course
Scores:
AA: 22
Bio: 24
GC: 22
OC: 21
QR: 24
PAT: 21
RC: 19
Bio: Much easier than expected. I was honestly performing so bad in this section everytime I took the non-times exams. I would score somewhere in the late teens and never scored higher than a 20. That being said, the questions on the exam were super straightforward and basic. Nothing too in depth. I will say that the bio crash course taught by Feralis was incredibly helpful. He went over all of the high yield questions and I would say 4-5 of the questions he had mentioned came up word for word on the actual exam. In terms of studying, I spent around one week reading all of Feralis’ Bio notes and making my own Anki card based on them. Then, for the rest of the three weeks, I studied off of those. I personally, couldn’t study off of Feralis’ premade Anki notes simply because there was too much info on one card and I guess it's just too much info for me to process at once. Which is why I liked studying from my own. I bet they are a great resource for other students though.
GC: For this portion, I watched all of the Booster videos and completed all of the practice problems from the question bank as I went through each section. After taking the non-timed exams, I would review all the problems I got wrong and study those like crazy. I used Khan academy and Chad’s video if I needed any more clarification.
OC: Not too happy with this score but the content was practically identical to that of the questions on booster. I studied the same way I studied for GC.
QR: Questions on Booster are significantly harder than that on the actual exam, so it prepares you nicely. Here, I didn’t watch all of the videos because they were concepts I was already familiar with so I thought I would waste my time. Once again, I would go through all the problems I missed in the practice exams and make sure I understood my mistake. I was contemplating purchasing the QR destroyer simply because I perform horribly on probability and thought it would help me boost my score, but I’m happy with my results.
PAT: Booster was once again super beneficial here. Their generators were amazing. The only issue is they don’t yet have a TFE generator which was my biggest concern. But, after many practice tests, my confidence grew and I was a lot more comfortable with the TFE. Every other section prepared me well for the real exam. Everyday, I would do around 30min of practice from the generators and go over all of my mistakes from the practice exams.
RC: My results here were expected. I really didn’t study too much for this section. I think I did around 3-4 practice exams and I scored somewhere in this range. I just used search and destroy methods I read from other sdn posts. I had really funky passages, with one having 16 paragraphs, so be warned.
Overall: Don’t let the scores you get on the Booster exams discourage you. You will get that score, if not better. DATBooster is an amazing resource and their team is incredible. They have an intercom system, so if you ever need help with anything or even clarification, they pair you up with an expert and help answer your questions in a matter of a couple hours. They really want you to succeed, so I highly recommend it.
Background: I’m a junior majoring in bio and math. This is my first time taking the DAT and am not yet sure if I should retake it. Exam date was the 4th of August and I began studying on/off starting from mid May. When I scheduled my exam date (somewhere in the beginning of July), that's when I started grinding. In the three weeks that I had left, I would wake up early (9-10ish) and study until the late night and took no days off.
I’m an incredibly bad test taker with horrendous testing anxiety (I took my SAT 3-4 times) and I was terrified I was going to have to retake the DAT. But knowing that I had another year to take it (since I’m taking a gap year), I was slightly less nervous. Overall, all I can say is, allow yourself ample time, but not too much time where you fall into a burn out.
Materials:
DATBooster + 1 bio Crash course
Scores:
AA: 22
Bio: 24
GC: 22
OC: 21
QR: 24
PAT: 21
RC: 19
Bio: Much easier than expected. I was honestly performing so bad in this section everytime I took the non-times exams. I would score somewhere in the late teens and never scored higher than a 20. That being said, the questions on the exam were super straightforward and basic. Nothing too in depth. I will say that the bio crash course taught by Feralis was incredibly helpful. He went over all of the high yield questions and I would say 4-5 of the questions he had mentioned came up word for word on the actual exam. In terms of studying, I spent around one week reading all of Feralis’ Bio notes and making my own Anki card based on them. Then, for the rest of the three weeks, I studied off of those. I personally, couldn’t study off of Feralis’ premade Anki notes simply because there was too much info on one card and I guess it's just too much info for me to process at once. Which is why I liked studying from my own. I bet they are a great resource for other students though.
GC: For this portion, I watched all of the Booster videos and completed all of the practice problems from the question bank as I went through each section. After taking the non-timed exams, I would review all the problems I got wrong and study those like crazy. I used Khan academy and Chad’s video if I needed any more clarification.
OC: Not too happy with this score but the content was practically identical to that of the questions on booster. I studied the same way I studied for GC.
QR: Questions on Booster are significantly harder than that on the actual exam, so it prepares you nicely. Here, I didn’t watch all of the videos because they were concepts I was already familiar with so I thought I would waste my time. Once again, I would go through all the problems I missed in the practice exams and make sure I understood my mistake. I was contemplating purchasing the QR destroyer simply because I perform horribly on probability and thought it would help me boost my score, but I’m happy with my results.
PAT: Booster was once again super beneficial here. Their generators were amazing. The only issue is they don’t yet have a TFE generator which was my biggest concern. But, after many practice tests, my confidence grew and I was a lot more comfortable with the TFE. Every other section prepared me well for the real exam. Everyday, I would do around 30min of practice from the generators and go over all of my mistakes from the practice exams.
RC: My results here were expected. I really didn’t study too much for this section. I think I did around 3-4 practice exams and I scored somewhere in this range. I just used search and destroy methods I read from other sdn posts. I had really funky passages, with one having 16 paragraphs, so be warned.
Overall: Don’t let the scores you get on the Booster exams discourage you. You will get that score, if not better. DATBooster is an amazing resource and their team is incredible. They have an intercom system, so if you ever need help with anything or even clarification, they pair you up with an expert and help answer your questions in a matter of a couple hours. They really want you to succeed, so I highly recommend it.
