DAT Breakdown 23AA/21TS/23PAT

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kobesteak

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Gents, Ladies finished the DAT 10 June 17. PAT 23/QR24/RC25/Bio23/GC/24/OC18/TS21/AA23.

Currently a servicemen and had a degree in Biochemistry while back. I have a mediocre GPA 3.5 and am not an academic person at all. I took the DAT once in 2011ish. I was on an armoured vehicle for 6 years and only picked up the DAT material again since December 2016. Realistically I had about 3 month to study with 3 month away due to work. For those fresh from your biology schoolings, cherish the most up to date information you have about science topics and not having the need to go through forced change in knowledge application from two completely unrelated fields. My message is that a competitive DAT scoring is achievable by all who are willing to commit. I am absolutely confident there is enough study tips on this forum to help everyone navigate through DAT preps and the next bound is simply to pick one study method and stick your guns to it. I wish everyone good luck in their interviews and a good turn out for DAT scores.

Books:
- Kaplan Blue Book/Gold Standard/Ferralis Note (50%)/Google search on weak areas.
Test Bank
- Written tests on back of Kaplan and Gold Standard;
- Crack the DAT Exam 1-5; and
- DAT BootCamp 1-9. (I am superstitious and purposely didn't take the last exam).

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Congratulations. Awesome scores!
By the way, I noticed you mentioned that you used Crack the DAT tests. I have it but I heard the science part is not recommended what do you think about their Science part. Also compared to the real thing, what do you think about all of the sections in Crack and Bootcamp, gold standard, and Kaplan, which one was the most representative of the test and which ones were harder than the real deal?
 
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Congratulations. Awesome scores!
By the way, I noticed you mentioned that you used Crack the DAT tests. I have it but I heard the science part is not recommended what do you think about their Science part. Also compared to the real thing, what do you think about all of the sections in Crack and Bootcamp, gold standard, and Kaplan, which one was the most representative of the test and which ones were harder than the real deal?

Bootcamp has the best explanations compared to the other test banks. But the goal of using these test banks is to ensure coverage of question types. Heavily relying on one source of test bank meant you are hoping it will match the real DAT. But really, we all know that is prob not the case, even though some maybe closer than others. I would recommend 5 exams on bootcamp, 3 exam on crack the dat/dat destroyer, 1 exam each on two other test bank of choice, for a total of 10 tests to ensure coverage of the total possible question types.
 
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Bootcamp has the best explanations compared to the other test banks. But the goal of using these test banks is to ensure coverage of question types. Heavily relying on one source of test bank meant you are hoping it will match the real DAT. But really, we all know that is prob not the case, even though some maybe closer than others. I would recommend 5 exams on bootcamp, 3 exam on crack the dat/dat destroyer, 1 exam each on two other test bank of choice, for a total of 10 tests to ensure coverage of the total possible question types.

Thank you for this great advice. Best of luck :)
 
Good work! Did you find Gold Standard useful? I haven't heard of too many people using it.

XD. Solid question. I rate Gold Standard a solid B. The book I find lacked both breadth and depth. But I had to use it since my starting point was way too low compared to everybody else. I find it MCAT reviews for science are good place to start for science for someone that is out of the loop for science awhile. They typically have the details and breadth for sciences, with the only downfall of not particularly tailored towards dental exams.
 
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Congrats! What were you scoring for each section on bootcamp?

Hey bud, averaging for total 9 Bootcamp exam: PAT 21/Bio 19/Chem 21/OChem19/RC 20/QR19. However, after exam reviews give consistently +5 questions I knew the answer, did not get it due to performance, i.e misreading the question, not taking the next bound in analysis etc. Best of luck!
 
One last question, what was your method for RC?
Here is what I recommend/what I did:

- I will read the first and second paragraph of the article to know what the article is talking about in order to prime my mind, ie engage it in a way as to let the brain search for related backgrounds/knowledge I already knew. This benefits me in increasing my interest, helping me focus, speeds up my reading and calms myself a bit.
- Then I will scan the questions and try to commit the key words to my short term memory, followed by reading a 2-3 more paragraphs. I find at this point I could've answer 3-4 questions out of 10-12 questions read. I repeat reading 2-3 paragraphs and scan 4-6 questions until I read the end of the article.
- Once I finish reading, I will go back and answer all those left blank in the article. I generally find at this point, my short term memory may not tell me all the answers, but they will tell me where in the article I can find the answer.

Hope this helps mate.
 
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Gents, Ladies finished the DAT 10 June 17. PAT 23/QR24/RC25/Bio23/GC/24/OC18/TS21/AA23.

Currently a servicemen and had a degree in Biochemistry while back. I have a mediocre GPA 3.5 and am not an academic person at all. I took the DAT once in 2011ish. I was on an armoured vehicle for 6 years and only picked up the DAT material again since December 2016. Realistically I had about 3 month to study with 3 month away due to work. For those fresh from your biology schoolings, cherish the most up to date information you have about science topics and not having the need to go through forced change in knowledge application from two completely unrelated fields. My message is that a competitive DAT scoring is achievable by all who are willing to commit. I am absolutely confident there is enough study tips on this forum to help everyone navigate through DAT preps and the next bound is simply to pick one study method and stick your guns to it. I wish everyone good luck in their interviews and a good turn out for DAT scores.

Books:
- Kaplan Blue Book/Gold Standard/Ferralis Note (50%)/Google search on weak areas.
Test Bank
- Written tests on back of Kaplan and Gold Standard;
- Crack the DAT Exam 1-5; and
- DAT BootCamp 1-9. (I am superstitious and purposely didn't take the last exam).

congrats on the great scores!!!!!
 
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