- Joined
- Jul 29, 2014
- Messages
- 15
- Reaction score
- 11
So.....can I finally burn my bio notes now?
Without much ado, here are my scores:
PAT: 23
QR: 22
RC: 24
Bio: 24
GenChem: 23
Orgo: 23
TS: 24
AA: 23
A little bit about my background. I have a 3.74 science and a 3.76 non-science GPA (miss consistency, apparently) and I go to a top 20 LAC. I am applying this cycle (going into my senior year).
I didn't follow a schedule at all. I mostly opened the Destroyer (because I had no idea what I was doing, I didn't read the forums or anything) and immediately tried to start doing problems. This was 10 weeks before the exam. I realized that I needed to actually study first (
), so I went over my old orgo notes. Gen chem was the same process, except I didn't do the studying until after I completed all of the gen chem problems. This was a terrible method. I do not advocate. I didn't start watching Chad for general chemistry until 2 weeks before DAT when I went "hmm, these conceptual questions are kind of hard, let's learn this." Yeah. They are hard.
Study Materials:
DAT Destroyer (10/10, my bible)
Bootcamp (9.5/10)
Chad's Videos (9/10)
Crash Course Biology/Ecology (7/10)
Kaplan Blue Book (7/10, got this out of the library, would not have paid for it)
I read about 30 pages of the Feralis notes (7.5/10, because I am not a bio person and I can't just memorize, I need to make things into a story, and these made my brain cry)
Bootcamp Scores
Bio: 18/20/20/20/22
GC: 21/20/30/19/23
OC: 18/20/20/26/20
PAT: 20/19/18/18/18/20/20
RC: 22/20/25
QR: 20/22/24/23/22
Orgo
I am doing my thesis in organic chemistry, so I'm actually disappointed with how I did here. Our school has a very intensive orgo program, so I knew I would do well here and didn't do much other than reading my notes once and doing all of the destroyer problems twice. I love orgo. The bootcamp tests were frustrating for me because I would get a few wrong, but would read the answers and completely understand why I was incorrect. I don't know why I kept messing up. But, anyway. I suppose I can't complain too much. I have little advice here, except that Destroyer is great practice! I watched a few of Chad's videos, and even though I was mostly set, he helped me with some little things. Great teacher!
Gen Chem
Most of GC is instinctual for me except for silly things like the Nernst equation. I did the destroyer for practice, and then watched Chad's at 1.8x speed to relearn concepts that I only knew based on faulty memory. Destroyer is great for teaching you things you don't know. I also watched some Kahn Academy vids at 2x speed. On my third bootcamp test I got a 30, but on my fourth I got a 19. Truly goes to show you how variable your test experience can be. (It also taught me that accidentally simulating an adrenaline filled test environment by hyping yourself on caffeine and sugar was not a good idea. I made 5 math errors on test 4.)
Bio
I am not a biologist. I am a chemistry major, and the last time I touched biology was freshman year. When I started studying biology (it was the last science I got to, because I am an idiot and couldn't help myself from the candy that was orgo), I knew very little besides the cell organelles. I tried reading Cambell's text and got nowhere because it is dense and dull. Instead, I watched Chad's free biology videos (for the MCAT) and took notes, which I then put into an outline. I see very few people talking about his bio vids, but I loved them. They forced me to learn a subject that I was less enthused about, and in the end, I found myself doing far less memorization than I thought I would have to. Why is that? It's because Chad helped drill things into my head by helping me to understand them and make connections. Yes, this took me forever, but was more thorough for me than reading Barron's or whatever people use. The bio is what I was the most concerned about before starting the study process, and I did better than on the chemistries. (So yay? mixed feelings about that). I downloaded an mp3 of some of the Crash Course videos (~2 1/2 hrs worth) and listened to them as I drove to college last week. Great move! It was mostly review at that point, but it was relaxing and I relearned a handful of things. (Plus, Hank Green is hilarious).
At the end of the science section I had 15 minutes left so I took a bathroom break. (Water is great for the brain, less awesome for your bladder when you are taking a test.)
PAT
When I started studying, the only portion of the PAT that I was instinctively good at was hole punching (and that's only because I could grid it out). Angles were blergh, cube counting was strangely erratic (it was supposed to be easy!), and pattern folding, keyhole, and TFE were very hard. I eventually nailed down CC and developed a strange love for TFE. I got better at patterns, and kind of just threw a shrug at the keyholes. Bootcamp and Kaplan were the only materials I used here, and it looks like it was enough! I'm seriously thrilled. On the real DAT I skipped over keyholes and started at question 16. Everything was easier than I was used to, except angles (blerghhhhhh). I finished with about 3 minutes to spare. I never finished a bootcamp exam on time. Ever. My advice? Just do more. Tried and true. Kaplan BB was good for low pressure practice (since Bootcamp tests always made me squirm).
RC
I did 3 BC practice tests, plus the one in Kaplan. I love to read, so I was surprised when I found these difficult. Reading on the computer screen was hard for me. I'm used to reading dense scientific material, but I always print out the literature and underline and annotate. Originally I figured I'd just read the passage and answer it, but since my short term memory isn't awesome, I realized by BC test 2 that that was a bad idea. Search and Destroy is basically what I did. I finished with ~2 mins to spare. This was the most stressful portion though. I had 2 passages with 14 paragraphs and one with 21 and was worried I run out of time.
QR
I did all of the Destroyer QR in the main book untimed and didn't have many problems. BC QR kicked my butt, as it does everyone's, and was good for me. There was one problem here that stumped me, but other than that it was mostly smooth sailing. I finished with ~10 mins to spare. Here I began to go "omg, wow, I'm getting my scores in less than half an hour..whaaaaat"
Taking the DAT was anti-climatic. Finishing it was a moment that I'd envisioned for months, and I feel like that's typical of most people here. I'd played and replayed this happy ending, so when it actually happened it was more of an "oh, okay" than a celebration. I wasn't nervous going into my test. I had reached a point of emotional and informational saturation where I recognized that I had studied hard and was ready to move onto the next chapter of my life (by which I mean, classes have started and I'm already on the grind again, ew). I had a 12:30 test and the morning of I woke up at 9:30, went for a walk in the woods, and ate an early lunch before driving over. The day before I forbade myself from looking at anything.
I studied for about 1-3 hours a night for 4 weeks (and took plenty of days off, trust me), then studied 2-6 hours a day for 6 weeks (but had tons of family stuff so I probably only studied for 4 1/2 of those 6 weeks). I only took one test (BC test 5) with all the sections back to back, except I still cheated because I took an hour break instead of 15 minutes.
tl;dr : I am a huge proponent of the destroyer. Also, Chad's bio videos.
Any questions, just ask!
Without much ado, here are my scores:
PAT: 23
QR: 22
RC: 24
Bio: 24
GenChem: 23
Orgo: 23
TS: 24
AA: 23
A little bit about my background. I have a 3.74 science and a 3.76 non-science GPA (miss consistency, apparently) and I go to a top 20 LAC. I am applying this cycle (going into my senior year).
I didn't follow a schedule at all. I mostly opened the Destroyer (because I had no idea what I was doing, I didn't read the forums or anything) and immediately tried to start doing problems. This was 10 weeks before the exam. I realized that I needed to actually study first (
), so I went over my old orgo notes. Gen chem was the same process, except I didn't do the studying until after I completed all of the gen chem problems. This was a terrible method. I do not advocate. I didn't start watching Chad for general chemistry until 2 weeks before DAT when I went "hmm, these conceptual questions are kind of hard, let's learn this." Yeah. They are hard.Study Materials:
DAT Destroyer (10/10, my bible)
Bootcamp (9.5/10)
Chad's Videos (9/10)
Crash Course Biology/Ecology (7/10)
Kaplan Blue Book (7/10, got this out of the library, would not have paid for it)
I read about 30 pages of the Feralis notes (7.5/10, because I am not a bio person and I can't just memorize, I need to make things into a story, and these made my brain cry)
Bootcamp Scores
Bio: 18/20/20/20/22
GC: 21/20/30/19/23
OC: 18/20/20/26/20
PAT: 20/19/18/18/18/20/20
RC: 22/20/25
QR: 20/22/24/23/22
Orgo
I am doing my thesis in organic chemistry, so I'm actually disappointed with how I did here. Our school has a very intensive orgo program, so I knew I would do well here and didn't do much other than reading my notes once and doing all of the destroyer problems twice. I love orgo. The bootcamp tests were frustrating for me because I would get a few wrong, but would read the answers and completely understand why I was incorrect. I don't know why I kept messing up. But, anyway. I suppose I can't complain too much. I have little advice here, except that Destroyer is great practice! I watched a few of Chad's videos, and even though I was mostly set, he helped me with some little things. Great teacher!
Gen Chem
Most of GC is instinctual for me except for silly things like the Nernst equation. I did the destroyer for practice, and then watched Chad's at 1.8x speed to relearn concepts that I only knew based on faulty memory. Destroyer is great for teaching you things you don't know. I also watched some Kahn Academy vids at 2x speed. On my third bootcamp test I got a 30, but on my fourth I got a 19. Truly goes to show you how variable your test experience can be. (It also taught me that accidentally simulating an adrenaline filled test environment by hyping yourself on caffeine and sugar was not a good idea. I made 5 math errors on test 4.)
Bio
I am not a biologist. I am a chemistry major, and the last time I touched biology was freshman year. When I started studying biology (it was the last science I got to, because I am an idiot and couldn't help myself from the candy that was orgo), I knew very little besides the cell organelles. I tried reading Cambell's text and got nowhere because it is dense and dull. Instead, I watched Chad's free biology videos (for the MCAT) and took notes, which I then put into an outline. I see very few people talking about his bio vids, but I loved them. They forced me to learn a subject that I was less enthused about, and in the end, I found myself doing far less memorization than I thought I would have to. Why is that? It's because Chad helped drill things into my head by helping me to understand them and make connections. Yes, this took me forever, but was more thorough for me than reading Barron's or whatever people use. The bio is what I was the most concerned about before starting the study process, and I did better than on the chemistries. (So yay? mixed feelings about that). I downloaded an mp3 of some of the Crash Course videos (~2 1/2 hrs worth) and listened to them as I drove to college last week. Great move! It was mostly review at that point, but it was relaxing and I relearned a handful of things. (Plus, Hank Green is hilarious).
At the end of the science section I had 15 minutes left so I took a bathroom break. (Water is great for the brain, less awesome for your bladder when you are taking a test.)
PAT
When I started studying, the only portion of the PAT that I was instinctively good at was hole punching (and that's only because I could grid it out). Angles were blergh, cube counting was strangely erratic (it was supposed to be easy!), and pattern folding, keyhole, and TFE were very hard. I eventually nailed down CC and developed a strange love for TFE. I got better at patterns, and kind of just threw a shrug at the keyholes. Bootcamp and Kaplan were the only materials I used here, and it looks like it was enough! I'm seriously thrilled. On the real DAT I skipped over keyholes and started at question 16. Everything was easier than I was used to, except angles (blerghhhhhh). I finished with about 3 minutes to spare. I never finished a bootcamp exam on time. Ever. My advice? Just do more. Tried and true. Kaplan BB was good for low pressure practice (since Bootcamp tests always made me squirm).
RC
I did 3 BC practice tests, plus the one in Kaplan. I love to read, so I was surprised when I found these difficult. Reading on the computer screen was hard for me. I'm used to reading dense scientific material, but I always print out the literature and underline and annotate. Originally I figured I'd just read the passage and answer it, but since my short term memory isn't awesome, I realized by BC test 2 that that was a bad idea. Search and Destroy is basically what I did. I finished with ~2 mins to spare. This was the most stressful portion though. I had 2 passages with 14 paragraphs and one with 21 and was worried I run out of time.
QR
I did all of the Destroyer QR in the main book untimed and didn't have many problems. BC QR kicked my butt, as it does everyone's, and was good for me. There was one problem here that stumped me, but other than that it was mostly smooth sailing. I finished with ~10 mins to spare. Here I began to go "omg, wow, I'm getting my scores in less than half an hour..whaaaaat"
Taking the DAT was anti-climatic. Finishing it was a moment that I'd envisioned for months, and I feel like that's typical of most people here. I'd played and replayed this happy ending, so when it actually happened it was more of an "oh, okay" than a celebration. I wasn't nervous going into my test. I had reached a point of emotional and informational saturation where I recognized that I had studied hard and was ready to move onto the next chapter of my life (by which I mean, classes have started and I'm already on the grind again, ew). I had a 12:30 test and the morning of I woke up at 9:30, went for a walk in the woods, and ate an early lunch before driving over. The day before I forbade myself from looking at anything.
I studied for about 1-3 hours a night for 4 weeks (and took plenty of days off, trust me), then studied 2-6 hours a day for 6 weeks (but had tons of family stuff so I probably only studied for 4 1/2 of those 6 weeks). I only took one test (BC test 5) with all the sections back to back, except I still cheated because I took an hour break instead of 15 minutes.
tl;dr : I am a huge proponent of the destroyer. Also, Chad's bio videos.
Any questions, just ask!
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