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- Apr 22, 2017
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Study Timeline:
I scheduled my exam 6 weeks out. A week before my exam, I felt like I could either get lucky and score well or botch it. I chose to postpone by two weeks. I think the beauty of postponing is that you get to cram twice (ha). Not ideal, but let's be real we all do it. Trick yourself into studying that hard all the time, and you will be more than fine.
The Exam:
BIO (21): This section was harder than I expected. After my first pass, I marked 10 or so questions and ultimately made my best guess on those questions. I prepared for bio by first highlighting Feralis' notes as review (@FeralisExtremum thanks dawg; you and other high scorers set my standard), then going through questions (Bootcamp and Destroyer) and referring back to Feralis' notes with the "ctrl-F" function" for a refresher on a missed question or something like that. I'd go on google, too, from time to time. The solutions in Bootcamp were very helpful as were those in DAT Destroyer. Nancy from DAT Destroyer frequents these forums, but what you don't see is the genuine effort she puts into her work behind the scenes even reaching out to me through private message. Thank you for your concern @orgoman22! You're awesome.
CHEM (23): I think I marked only a few questions here. In reality, you have to mark anything you want a second look at because if you don't you will not see that question again. You won't remember where it was and you won't have time to find it after your first pass. Most of the questions were very straightforward, and I used what I learned from Destroyer and Bootcamp to tackle them with ease. I have nothing new to add other than repeating that you should build a foundation (with Chad, Mike, or both), then tackle Destroyer and Bootcamp. For destroyer, I never timed myself but tried to be efficient with my time. For example, I'd answer 100 questions; go through with a red pen like in grade school to mark wrong answers; and make flashcards to review later. I took bootcamp exams to check myself, practice time management (this can't be emphasized enough), and make more flashcards. I did separate my flashcards by problem type. I've heard it helps in dental school to stay organized, and I think it makes sense to target your most difficult topics successively as opposed to in random order. What better way to do this than with your missed questions all in one place by question type! Keep in mind that even on the DAT, you can see things you've never seen. So study with that mindset because you NEED to understand concepts and HOW to solve problems rather than memorize certain steps that worked in a practice problem. I think I could have scored higher if I put more effort into this. One note on study materials. Chad is a great teacher and he offers in depth perspectives, but I couldn't get the videos to go any faster than 1x speed [I opted out of his videos this time around, but took some quizzes on harder topics]. On the other hand, I don't even know the sound of Mike's normal voice. 2x speed all day. Whatever floats your boat, though! I kept tabs on my bootcamp scores for fun, knowing they mean nothing and can actually hurt me if I lowered my guard after a high score. Don't fall for this trap! Use bootcamp the way @Ari Rezaei recommends after each practice exam.
OCHEM (26): I felt most ready for this section. On the exam, difficult questions I missed in destroyer and bootcamp were not so difficult because I made flashcards and reviewed them repeatedly. You should have 30 minutes for 30 questions here, and answering a question in 10 seconds allows you to spend more time on the harder questions. Just mark and move on if you're not getting it. This is the approach I used for every section of the DAT. It's basically getting the most bang for your buck (how much you studied).
PAT (23): Honestly, just think of this section as a game. The more you practice, the better you will be. I did not use my marker/board on this section. If you do, don't forget to cap after each use because your pen will dry out and no longer work. Both my pens dried out. On the Keyholes, many answer choices were tricky but by eliminating wrong answers I must have done okay. You know those Top Front End problems you see on bootcamp and go WTF, skip. Yeah, there were a few of those too. Don't underestimate. The angles were like deja vu of bootcamp's angles. I'd use a different approach based on what they gave me. If angles were obviously different in size, I'd go with it. If they were acute like a closing lap top, I'd visualize that. If they were barely over 90 degrees, I'd imagine how comfortable I could be leaning back in a chair. If oriented more like a helicopter or a hill, I'd go with that. The key for me when analyzing an angle was to start at one end of a line segment, follow it to the intersection, and really focus on the direction of the second line segment. After angles, I was VERY pressed for time. I no longer had time to second guess myself. For Hole Punching, I just visualized where the line of symmetry was for each fold and worked backwards. Before this, I made sure that no holes "disappeared" anywhere along the folds. This happens be careful. With cube counting, I visualized each cube one by one. With practice, you can develop shortcuts like knowing that 5-sided cubes are only on the top. The folding section is last and tricky. I simultaneously looked for key pieces or colors and oriented them around in the answer choices until I could get one that matched. My study approach was:
I scheduled my exam 6 weeks out. A week before my exam, I felt like I could either get lucky and score well or botch it. I chose to postpone by two weeks. I think the beauty of postponing is that you get to cram twice (ha). Not ideal, but let's be real we all do it. Trick yourself into studying that hard all the time, and you will be more than fine.
The Exam:
BIO (21): This section was harder than I expected. After my first pass, I marked 10 or so questions and ultimately made my best guess on those questions. I prepared for bio by first highlighting Feralis' notes as review (@FeralisExtremum thanks dawg; you and other high scorers set my standard), then going through questions (Bootcamp and Destroyer) and referring back to Feralis' notes with the "ctrl-F" function" for a refresher on a missed question or something like that. I'd go on google, too, from time to time. The solutions in Bootcamp were very helpful as were those in DAT Destroyer. Nancy from DAT Destroyer frequents these forums, but what you don't see is the genuine effort she puts into her work behind the scenes even reaching out to me through private message. Thank you for your concern @orgoman22! You're awesome.
CHEM (23): I think I marked only a few questions here. In reality, you have to mark anything you want a second look at because if you don't you will not see that question again. You won't remember where it was and you won't have time to find it after your first pass. Most of the questions were very straightforward, and I used what I learned from Destroyer and Bootcamp to tackle them with ease. I have nothing new to add other than repeating that you should build a foundation (with Chad, Mike, or both), then tackle Destroyer and Bootcamp. For destroyer, I never timed myself but tried to be efficient with my time. For example, I'd answer 100 questions; go through with a red pen like in grade school to mark wrong answers; and make flashcards to review later. I took bootcamp exams to check myself, practice time management (this can't be emphasized enough), and make more flashcards. I did separate my flashcards by problem type. I've heard it helps in dental school to stay organized, and I think it makes sense to target your most difficult topics successively as opposed to in random order. What better way to do this than with your missed questions all in one place by question type! Keep in mind that even on the DAT, you can see things you've never seen. So study with that mindset because you NEED to understand concepts and HOW to solve problems rather than memorize certain steps that worked in a practice problem. I think I could have scored higher if I put more effort into this. One note on study materials. Chad is a great teacher and he offers in depth perspectives, but I couldn't get the videos to go any faster than 1x speed [I opted out of his videos this time around, but took some quizzes on harder topics]. On the other hand, I don't even know the sound of Mike's normal voice. 2x speed all day. Whatever floats your boat, though! I kept tabs on my bootcamp scores for fun, knowing they mean nothing and can actually hurt me if I lowered my guard after a high score. Don't fall for this trap! Use bootcamp the way @Ari Rezaei recommends after each practice exam.
OCHEM (26): I felt most ready for this section. On the exam, difficult questions I missed in destroyer and bootcamp were not so difficult because I made flashcards and reviewed them repeatedly. You should have 30 minutes for 30 questions here, and answering a question in 10 seconds allows you to spend more time on the harder questions. Just mark and move on if you're not getting it. This is the approach I used for every section of the DAT. It's basically getting the most bang for your buck (how much you studied).
PAT (23): Honestly, just think of this section as a game. The more you practice, the better you will be. I did not use my marker/board on this section. If you do, don't forget to cap after each use because your pen will dry out and no longer work. Both my pens dried out. On the Keyholes, many answer choices were tricky but by eliminating wrong answers I must have done okay. You know those Top Front End problems you see on bootcamp and go WTF, skip. Yeah, there were a few of those too. Don't underestimate. The angles were like deja vu of bootcamp's angles. I'd use a different approach based on what they gave me. If angles were obviously different in size, I'd go with it. If they were acute like a closing lap top, I'd visualize that. If they were barely over 90 degrees, I'd imagine how comfortable I could be leaning back in a chair. If oriented more like a helicopter or a hill, I'd go with that. The key for me when analyzing an angle was to start at one end of a line segment, follow it to the intersection, and really focus on the direction of the second line segment. After angles, I was VERY pressed for time. I no longer had time to second guess myself. For Hole Punching, I just visualized where the line of symmetry was for each fold and worked backwards. Before this, I made sure that no holes "disappeared" anywhere along the folds. This happens be careful. With cube counting, I visualized each cube one by one. With practice, you can develop shortcuts like knowing that 5-sided cubes are only on the top. The folding section is last and tricky. I simultaneously looked for key pieces or colors and oriented them around in the answer choices until I could get one that matched. My study approach was:
- PAT Trainer Game | DAT Bootcamp most days
- A few bootcamp exams
- Targeted practice of keyholes, TFE, and pattern folding [aka anything not in the above PAT game] for a few hours two days before my exam. Bootcamp has a VERY helpful feature that gives you the 3D solution to each of these problems where you can move it around and practice visualizing the correct answer. I had never seen this before a few days ago, and I would have jumped on it earlier had I known.
RC (20): I'm pretty sure I nailed my first two passages. I would first skim the reading for like a minute, skim the questions for keywords, then search and destroy with these keywords fresh in my mind (not wasting time writing); answering on the spot as I read the passage OR highlighting a key term that came up before its place in the questions. It actually takes a lot of time to filter between questions, especially when you're spending time looking for the question as opposed to actually answering it. This method worked well until the last passage. With 17 minutes left, I thought RC would be my highest score. Sike. I confidently answered less than half of the third passage. The keywords in my mind after skimming the questions were all somewhat familiar terms from biology but also so close to one another that I could not find ANYTHING looking up and down the 18ish paragraphs. If I could do this again, I'd recognize that my method (inspired by @Vicviper's) requires adjusting for these very similar keywords to maybe jot them down or map out the passage real quick first because whatever I did could definitely be improved.
QR (24): I was able to fit in four MATH Destroyer exams and five bootcamp QR exams in my studies with notes on how to solve the ones I missed. I was more go-with-the-flow and focused most on the sciences. On the exam, I recall using an approach straight from destroyer on one problem, and saved so much time because I knew how to approach the new stuff in QR (specifically, knowing what my answer choices were for each problem type before even reading them). Within my latter two weeks of studying, I watched Chad's QR videos and took all his QR quizzes. My mental math got significantly better from this. Stuff like multiplying fractions, using sig figs, logs, exponents, etc., should be second nature come test day because speed is everything here. I did use the calculator for quick one step calculations whenever I was unsure of my mental math, but using the calculator any more than that will for sure drop your score. Thinking too hard on any one problem would probably also drop your score.
Bootcamp Averages: BIO (21.3), CHEM (20.8), OCHEM (20.8), PAT (21), RC (20), QR (18.5)
Closing Thoughts: The DAT is a difficult exam no doubt. I also believe that anyone can do very well if they want it enough. If you are reading this in preparation for your exam, best of luck! Feel free to message me with any questions you may have.
QR (24): I was able to fit in four MATH Destroyer exams and five bootcamp QR exams in my studies with notes on how to solve the ones I missed. I was more go-with-the-flow and focused most on the sciences. On the exam, I recall using an approach straight from destroyer on one problem, and saved so much time because I knew how to approach the new stuff in QR (specifically, knowing what my answer choices were for each problem type before even reading them). Within my latter two weeks of studying, I watched Chad's QR videos and took all his QR quizzes. My mental math got significantly better from this. Stuff like multiplying fractions, using sig figs, logs, exponents, etc., should be second nature come test day because speed is everything here. I did use the calculator for quick one step calculations whenever I was unsure of my mental math, but using the calculator any more than that will for sure drop your score. Thinking too hard on any one problem would probably also drop your score.
Bootcamp Averages: BIO (21.3), CHEM (20.8), OCHEM (20.8), PAT (21), RC (20), QR (18.5)
Closing Thoughts: The DAT is a difficult exam no doubt. I also believe that anyone can do very well if they want it enough. If you are reading this in preparation for your exam, best of luck! Feel free to message me with any questions you may have.
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