Hey everyone! I recently took my DAT exam. I always read breakdowns so I thought I’d write one myself.
Here are my scores:
BIO: 24
GC: 23
OC: 30
PAT: 19
RC: 22
QR: 16
TS: 25
AA: 23
Background: Took the exam the summer after my junior year when I finished all my prerequisites! I did not take microbiology or genetics. I am a kinesiology major!
Resources:
DAT BOOSTER DAT BOOSTER!
I solely used DAT booster for studying purposes. The Feralis notes, videos, cheat sheets, built in AI and question banks were all so so helpful. The built in AI was one of my favorite things! It was so easy to get clarification on the question right then and there without having to flag for later and possibly forget about it. DAT Booster’s cheat sheets have everything you need to be well prepared for the exam. I would advise to not worry about small details because the exam really is breath over depth. They want to know that you know information broadly not test you on minor details of specific topics. As for general chemistry, know the formula sheet but most importantly how to apply them to problems and recognize which one is needed. For organic chemistry, I highly recommend going over the reaction cheat sheets EVERY NIGHT! Also, the question banks are extremely helpful. DAT Booster has amazing pat generators that I think are a bit more challenging than what you would see on the exam but overall, it does a good job in teaching different strategies. The QR section was the hardest for me. I wish I put more effort into this section but off the rip I knew I was bad at math and dreaded studying this section especially. Everything I needed to succeed in this section was for sure on DAT Booster such as great video explanations, question banks and equation sheets but really it came down to the fact that I did not study this section like I should have. For reading comprehension, they have different strategies that are helpful. Find the one you like and stick to it! I found early on that I really enjoyed search and destroy when I thought it would be better to read the entire passage and then answer the questions. Turns out that search and destroy saved me so much time on the real exam!
YOUTUBE:
I did branch out to YouTube when I needed extra clarification or topics explained in a different way.
ANKI:
I wasn’t the biggest fan of ANKI! I would say I used it for about 2 weeks really trying to stay consistent but it was not my ideal way of studying the material. Ideally, the purpose of Anki is spaced repetition which means you actively recall information and visit it in later days. I would say this is only effective If you start the decks early so you’re not too overwhelmed!
Study timeline:
I studied for 3 months. I used a pause token to pause my membership and this was during spring semester final exams. I was taking physics 2, biochemistry, and 3 other kinesiology courses. When I tell you it’s doable to study on top of a course load, it really is! Of course, depending on time management skills.
I followed the DAT booster 12 week schedule exactly until I finished all the content review, about a month in. I then started taking practice exams. On the days I took practice exams, I immediately looked over them. I would review by jotting down things I forgot on a white board, using my iPad and goodnotes, plain paper and pencil and even post-it notes. I did this for all 10 practice exams and when I was not taking or reviewing practice exams I was doing question banks and hitting shuffle to see if I really knew the material.
Something that I also want to note helped my studying was making my own cheat sheets! The general chemistry notes were sometimes 5 pages sometimes 25 pages so for each chapter I made sure to make 1 page of condensed notes. I did this for organic chemistry also and wrote notes on the side for me to help me remember things.
About 2 weeks before my exam, I really started memorizing the cheat sheets for biology, organic chemistry, qr, and general chemistry. I tried to rewrite the biology cheat sheets but it was too time consuming and I was running out of time. I stuck with just reading them over and over again.
Day of the exam:
Woke up around 6 am, my testing center was 15 minutes away from my house. I had half of my oatmeal because I tend to not eat when I have final exams but I knew I needed to eat something for this one. As far as the testing center, I was given 2 dry erase sheets and 2 markers. During my exam I was erasing and then was told that I was not allowed to do that and to raise my hand if I needed another board.
BIO: The questions were very straightforward. At the most I believe I had 2 lines long questions but everything else was super short and straight to the point. There were at least 2 that I was so confused on and wasn’t even able to guess based off of the answer choices.
GEN CHEM: This was my strongest section for my last practice exam so I thought it would be a breeze but there were some conceptual questions that just caught me off guard. I knew I had all my equations down but even then, I was unable to come up with answers.
ORGO: I was so so shocked when I saw my score for this section! I definitely had at least 5 questions flagged and did not have time to go back and check them. For a lot of them I was definitely doubting myself so it is so so important that you go with your gut and do not change the answer you chose initially unless you can reasonably explain why another one is correct.
PAT: PAT was also one of those sections that I did not practice enough. I was left to guess for about 10 questions and marked a lot of hole punching questions. I think that if I would have practiced this daily I would have done so much better. Time was the biggest limiting factor for this section. Make sure you are not spending too much time on a specific PAT category. You could spend a lot of time on the really hard keyholes and miss out on answering the really easy cube counting.
RC: This section felt like a breeze. I thought that I would get a higher score on this one just because I thought my articles were fair except for the last one which I think is what messed me up. I was running low on time and had a lengthy article waiting for me.
QR: THIS SECTION SUCKED! I basically got a lot of questions that I would always miss on the practice exams. You would think I would’ve had them down and known how to solve them but nope! I would say the quantitative comparison questions specifically were the most challenging for me and I had a lot of questions like that.
TIPS OVERALL!
Here are my scores:
BIO: 24
GC: 23
OC: 30
PAT: 19
RC: 22
QR: 16
TS: 25
AA: 23
Background: Took the exam the summer after my junior year when I finished all my prerequisites! I did not take microbiology or genetics. I am a kinesiology major!
Resources:
DAT BOOSTER DAT BOOSTER!
I solely used DAT booster for studying purposes. The Feralis notes, videos, cheat sheets, built in AI and question banks were all so so helpful. The built in AI was one of my favorite things! It was so easy to get clarification on the question right then and there without having to flag for later and possibly forget about it. DAT Booster’s cheat sheets have everything you need to be well prepared for the exam. I would advise to not worry about small details because the exam really is breath over depth. They want to know that you know information broadly not test you on minor details of specific topics. As for general chemistry, know the formula sheet but most importantly how to apply them to problems and recognize which one is needed. For organic chemistry, I highly recommend going over the reaction cheat sheets EVERY NIGHT! Also, the question banks are extremely helpful. DAT Booster has amazing pat generators that I think are a bit more challenging than what you would see on the exam but overall, it does a good job in teaching different strategies. The QR section was the hardest for me. I wish I put more effort into this section but off the rip I knew I was bad at math and dreaded studying this section especially. Everything I needed to succeed in this section was for sure on DAT Booster such as great video explanations, question banks and equation sheets but really it came down to the fact that I did not study this section like I should have. For reading comprehension, they have different strategies that are helpful. Find the one you like and stick to it! I found early on that I really enjoyed search and destroy when I thought it would be better to read the entire passage and then answer the questions. Turns out that search and destroy saved me so much time on the real exam!
YOUTUBE:
I did branch out to YouTube when I needed extra clarification or topics explained in a different way.
ANKI:
I wasn’t the biggest fan of ANKI! I would say I used it for about 2 weeks really trying to stay consistent but it was not my ideal way of studying the material. Ideally, the purpose of Anki is spaced repetition which means you actively recall information and visit it in later days. I would say this is only effective If you start the decks early so you’re not too overwhelmed!
Study timeline:
I studied for 3 months. I used a pause token to pause my membership and this was during spring semester final exams. I was taking physics 2, biochemistry, and 3 other kinesiology courses. When I tell you it’s doable to study on top of a course load, it really is! Of course, depending on time management skills.
I followed the DAT booster 12 week schedule exactly until I finished all the content review, about a month in. I then started taking practice exams. On the days I took practice exams, I immediately looked over them. I would review by jotting down things I forgot on a white board, using my iPad and goodnotes, plain paper and pencil and even post-it notes. I did this for all 10 practice exams and when I was not taking or reviewing practice exams I was doing question banks and hitting shuffle to see if I really knew the material.
Something that I also want to note helped my studying was making my own cheat sheets! The general chemistry notes were sometimes 5 pages sometimes 25 pages so for each chapter I made sure to make 1 page of condensed notes. I did this for organic chemistry also and wrote notes on the side for me to help me remember things.
About 2 weeks before my exam, I really started memorizing the cheat sheets for biology, organic chemistry, qr, and general chemistry. I tried to rewrite the biology cheat sheets but it was too time consuming and I was running out of time. I stuck with just reading them over and over again.
Day of the exam:
Woke up around 6 am, my testing center was 15 minutes away from my house. I had half of my oatmeal because I tend to not eat when I have final exams but I knew I needed to eat something for this one. As far as the testing center, I was given 2 dry erase sheets and 2 markers. During my exam I was erasing and then was told that I was not allowed to do that and to raise my hand if I needed another board.
BIO: The questions were very straightforward. At the most I believe I had 2 lines long questions but everything else was super short and straight to the point. There were at least 2 that I was so confused on and wasn’t even able to guess based off of the answer choices.
GEN CHEM: This was my strongest section for my last practice exam so I thought it would be a breeze but there were some conceptual questions that just caught me off guard. I knew I had all my equations down but even then, I was unable to come up with answers.
ORGO: I was so so shocked when I saw my score for this section! I definitely had at least 5 questions flagged and did not have time to go back and check them. For a lot of them I was definitely doubting myself so it is so so important that you go with your gut and do not change the answer you chose initially unless you can reasonably explain why another one is correct.
PAT: PAT was also one of those sections that I did not practice enough. I was left to guess for about 10 questions and marked a lot of hole punching questions. I think that if I would have practiced this daily I would have done so much better. Time was the biggest limiting factor for this section. Make sure you are not spending too much time on a specific PAT category. You could spend a lot of time on the really hard keyholes and miss out on answering the really easy cube counting.
RC: This section felt like a breeze. I thought that I would get a higher score on this one just because I thought my articles were fair except for the last one which I think is what messed me up. I was running low on time and had a lengthy article waiting for me.
QR: THIS SECTION SUCKED! I basically got a lot of questions that I would always miss on the practice exams. You would think I would’ve had them down and known how to solve them but nope! I would say the quantitative comparison questions specifically were the most challenging for me and I had a lot of questions like that.
TIPS OVERALL!
- Be so confident on the day of the exam regardless of whether you studied 10+ hours a day, had a full time job, kids… you do not want to psyche yourself out and have that affect you.
- CHEAT SHEETS ARE A LIFESAVER! If you are someone that procrastinates or has a difficult time getting through all the bio content, AT LEAST! Know the material on the cheat sheets. This was hands down probably the best resource.
- Ask for help! Booster did a great job answering any of my lingering questions in a timely manner
- Give yourself breaks. I would get burnt out very easily and quickly realized I was doing it wrong by making the DAT my entire life. Once I began to take breaks, I saw a huge improvement in my performance
- Find a good study spot. I sometimes studied at home or at my school library.
- FUEL YOUR BODY AND GO OUTSIDE!!! I cannot emphasize this enough! I found that I was feeling unmotivated, always overwhelmed and tired and this was because I barely spent time out in the sun and would sometimes skip meals to study! This is super unhealthy especially because as we study, we need to fuel our mind and body to be the most efficient.
