DAT Breakdown 24AA/25TS/24PAT

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DallasCowboys

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Hey everyone, I have read a lot breakdowns over the last couple of months that I thought were very beneficial to me and now I feel like it is my time to give back a little bit. First I'd like to thank @FeralisExtremum @orgoman22 and @Ari Rezaei for all of the resources that I used. I'll also include some extra information about the position I am in following the breakdown, and I would like to get some advice on how competitive my application will be.

I am very happy overall with these scores, I needed to make some big plays here and I ended up doing well.

Scores:

Biology: 23
Gchem:
24
Ochem:
30
Reading:
23
QR:
22
PAT:
24

AA: 24
TS: 25

FullSizeRender (1).jpg


Backround:
I'll be a junior Biomedical Science major at a well-known university in Texas this fall, so I won't be applying until next June. At the end of my freshman year I had a horrible GPA, partly due to not knowing how to study, partly because I was unsure of what I wanted to do for a career which made it a little more difficult to motivate myself. There was a big bounce-back my sophomore year which I will discuss after, but the point I am trying to make is that anyone can do well on this test as long as you put in the work.

Over the course of this summer, I worked 2 part-time jobs (Dropped down to 1 after June 25th) and took two semesters of physics, so time was a little bit tight. I was planning on keeping up with my workouts but I realized pretty early that there just wasn't enough time.

Overall, over the course of 90 days I put in about 620 hours of studying which comes out to around 7 hours a day. People have gotten way higher scores than me studying in far less time so the amount of time you spend is up to you.

Materials Used:

DAT Bootcamp- All subjects (15/10)
This program is absolutely amazing, the questions have great explanations including videos for Gchem and Ochem. They also have a chat system where you can ask the team questions and usually they will get back to you within hours with an explanation. The PAT and reading practice were very helpful as well.

DATQVault- All subjects (6/10)
I used DATQVault to get some more SNS questions to practice, however the reason I give it a 6/10 is that the explanations for a lot of questions were very clearly lacking. I would still recommend this material, especially for bio, purely for exposure to different types of questions. There were many times when I didn't fully understand a question here and just asked one of the guys at DAT bootcamp about it, and they would get back to me with a detailed explanation. The PAT tests here are severely lacking and therefore would not recommend using this source as a main resource (or really at all) for that.

Feralis Notes- (9/10)
Very detailed biology notes that can be found for free. If you can manage to memorize everything from this source you should be set up to do well on the bio section, however that is a very difficult task. Only reason that I did not give a 10/10 is just the fact that it may be a little too in depth.

Dat Destroyer- (10/10)
This book is absolutely amazing. I bought the DAT destroyer along with the math destroyer books and I found them to be extremely helpful. The exposure you get from going through all of the problems and their explanations was invaluable to me (although I did not finish two of the sections) so I very highly recommend this as well. Some people say it is overkill to go through the books several times for all of the subjects, but it is definitely not, try to get through the problems as many times as possible.



Study Strategy:


It's important to note that I took one of many different versions of this test, some are easier and some are harder, but it is best to be prepared for anything they might throw at you.

Biology (23)- This was by far the hardest subject for me to study for, I got C's in my freshman level biology classes so I didn't have a strong foundation whatsoever to start this.
My best advice for this section would be to find a way to study and stick to it. For example, I started right off the bat trying to read through Feralis' notes and take my own condensed notes with it. This didn't work, I couldn't keep myself focused through the dense material so I tried several different methods before finding something that worked for me. That process did waste a lot of time, but in the end I found something that I liked.

My advice (and what I ended up doing) would be to buy destroyer and go through all of the bio questions, including the explanations and looking up terms you don't understand to get a good foundation for the material, then use bootcamp and DATQvault as tools to strengthen whatever you might've missed and follow it up with Feralis' notes to build up any weak areas you have.

There are many different ways to approach this section, so find a way that works for you and stick to it.

General Chemistry (24)- I got a C and a B in my gen chem classes freshman year, so I didn't have the best foundation for this subject either.
For Gchem, Organic chem and QR I made a ton of note-cards with problems on the front and detailed explanations on the back into small stacks so that I could keep track of where I was. I would put a little dot in the top corner each time I went through the stack, and I would do all of the problems in spiral notebooks that I had for each subject. I found this method to be very easy to keep up with and it helped me so much. Destroyer, and bootcamp are very key here. I probably went through all of the destroyer and bootcamp problems that I had trouble with two or three times and that set me up fairly well for the real thing. I didn't use chad's or mike's videos just because I didn't think it it matched up with the way I wanted to study.

Organic Chemistry (30)- I just took both semesters if this class last year and got an A in both so my background was pretty hefty. I did all of the bootcamp tests and DATQVault tests and made note-cards with explanations like I said above, however I barely touched the Organic part of DAT destroyer simply because I thought my time would be better used in other areas. It all worked out for me, but I would still strongly recommend going through all of the DAT destroyer for every subject, even if you feel comfortable with it. I also went back through some of my notes from class if I needed a review for something.

PAT (24)- Pretty much only used DAT Bootcamp here. They have video tutorials for every section I believe, which show you the basics, along with supplemental problems and question generators outside of the 10 practice tests. One of the other things that I loved most about practicing the PAT through bootcamp was the detailed explanations and walkthrough of the problems, very valuable. DATQVault's PAT tests are not very good in my opinion (very little explanation, some of the Keyhole and TFE problems had answers that didn't make any sense) so honestly I would avoid practicing the PAT with that resource. If you just stick to DAT Bootcamp PAT materials, you should be set up to do very well on the real test.

Reading Comprehension (23)- I went through the first 5 reading tests of Bootcamp and the first 3 tests of DATQvault and that was about it. I didn't do any extra reading like is recommended and I specifically only used the search and destroy method. The reason I didn't do any extra reading is because I thought I would be able to do fine without it (due to my practice test scores), and I ended up doing well but if you have time I think it would be better to follow the recommendations people give of reading a few articles every now and then. This really just comes a long with practice.

Quantitative Reasoning (22)- DAT Bootcamp was by far the most valuable resource here, especially considering the addition of the new "Quantitative Comparison" questions, which I received between 10-12 on my test. For the other questions, the math destroyer tests were very helpful. I did not touch very much of the QR inside of the full DAT destroyer book because of time constraints, but looking back I definitely wish I had gone through it a little more.

Practice Test Scores:
I took all of the tests for each program in order (1-10)

Bootcamp:
(Test #: Bio/Gchem/Ochem/RC/QR/PAT)
1: <15/16/20/17/16/16 (Taken at the beginning of studying)
2: <14/<14/22/18/17/<15 (Taken a week after the first one)
3: <15/30/27/22/26/19 (Taken a month and a half after the first one)
4: 17/20/22/25/19/21
5: 20/19/23/22/20/20

I started off with terrible scores, and while it was very discouraging to me, this should serve as proof that you can literally almost start from knowing nothing and get to the scores you want. So after doing almost even worse a week later on the second full length test, I took a step back and started going over questions in destroyer which helped a lot. I then took all of the DATQvault tests before coming back to finish tests 6-10 for bootcamp. I scored consistently between 20-26 in all of the sections for these tests (excluding the reading tests which I didn't take). If you have any further questions about these let me know.

2007 DAT (2 weeks before the real DAT):
Bio/Gchem/Ochem/RC/QR/PAT
17/25/30/18/26/22

Personally, I think the 2007 is on the easier side of tests. I still recommend people to take it a few weeks before the real test, just for more practice. At the very least it can be a confidence booster (hopefully). I was not very happy at all with my biology score here and it motivated me to really hammer the biology section before I took the 2009 DAT.


2009 DAT (3 days before the real DAT):
Bio/Gchem/Ochem
23/24/24

I think the 2009 is pretty close, difficulty-wise, to what you'll encounter on the test. There are many errors in the sections, but I would recommend just taking the test and then looking up all of the errors after and correcting your score. I only took the SNS because I had heard some not-so-good things about the rest of the test, and I didn't think 3 days before my DAT would be a good time to start worrying myself over lower than normal scores. My recommendation is to only take the SNS portion of the 2009 and take it as close as possible to your test date. As you can tell from the scores above, I got the exact same bio and gchem scores as the 2009 DAT.

Prometric "Test Run":
Two weeks before the test, I did the Prometric "Test run", which I found to be very helpful in the sense that I wasn't as nervous about what was going to happen when I got there. I definitely recommend it. When I went in, they told me no one had ever scheduled one of them before, so they didn't actually know what was going to happen (it was a light-hearted, funny moment) and everything went smoothly! I actually left having some sort of friendly relationship with the staff, and that made it a lot less stressful when I went in for the real DAT because they remembered who I was.
Day of the Test:
The test center is about an hour away from where I live, so I ended up waking up at 6. I got dressed, left immediately and ate some breakfast in the car
(although more than likely you won't be very hungry, I guarantee you'll be starving by the time you get to the first break if you don't eat anything and that can be distracting) The test center was very quick when I went for the test run, however once I got called back for my real DAT they kept telling me that something was wrong with my appointment in their computer so I had to wait a little while. I signed in at 7:30 for my 8:00 appointment and didn't get into the testing room until 8:45. Overall this was not a big deal to me and the workers were very nice. Just goes to show, don't expect everything to go as planned and be prepared for things to change.
SNS- Everything went smoothly here. I really can't tell you enough how important it is that you remain calm during the test, it is very possible to psyche yourself out and forget material. I finished the SNS with about 30 minutes left and had marked around 12 questions. I went quickly back over the test to make sure I had put in the right answers and spent some extra time trying to hammer out my marked questions. I got the marked questions down to 7 at the end, 5 in bio and 2 in gchem. The resources I listed above prepared me very well for this section.

Bio- Very straightforward, I was really worried about this section going in since it was usually my lowest score of any section (usually <19), but it was not as bad as I thought it would be (with all of the preparation I did of course). There were maybe 3 that I had no clue about, but the rest had topics that I had seen somewhere before. This section is extremely broad, but did not go very in depth, so prepare as such. DAT Bootcamp, Destryer and DATqvault are amazing for this section. If I had a stronger backround (which I assume most other people do, I think that with those resources, this score could have been way higher).

Chem- I had no actual "calculation" problems. I had a couple where you had to set up the equation but they were pretty straightforward here. The questions I marked were conceptual and I could not remember them for the life of me... I'm assuming by my score here that I ended up missing them both. DAT destroyer and Bootcamp were also amazing here. I had seen everything on the test before, just comes down to what you can remember during the test.

Organic- To be honest, this section was a little more difficult than I thought it would be. I was lucky enough to be coming off a year where I had just covered all of the material in depth, but I would say using DAT destroyer/Odyssey/Bootcamp would have prepared me similarly even if I had not just taken the class. Several NMR questions, maybe 6 reactions, lots of conceptual stuff. Felt really confident after finishing this section, nothing too difficult, but not easy either.

PAT- To be completely honest, I am really surprised I got a 24 here. There were 4-5 keyhole questions that I didn't even know where to begin, I tried not to spend too much time on them so I didn't ruin my whole test. The rest of the keyholes were about on par or slightly more difficult than the ones on Bootcamp. I expected TFE to be a little easier but there were about 4 questions that I just couldn't wrap my mind around, like the shapes were crazy. I probably had to guess on 2-3. The rest of the questions in the TFE section were harder than the average Bootcamp question. Angle ranking, Hole punching, Cube counting and Pattern folding were all fairly easy compared to the the Bootcamp practice tests and I must've knocked them out of the park to get my score up...Don't let this worry you, there are many different versions of the test
I finished about 20 seconds before time expired, so no time to go back and look at ones I marked which stressed me out. If you don't feel like you did well in a section, don't let that ruin the test for you! Nothing matters until you see that score report.

RC- About what I was expecting here, there were a couple of easier passages and one harder one. I am pretty sure one of them was in chronological order but the others were not. Don't bank on any passage being in chronological order, but if you see an obvious pattern you should run with it. Used only search and destroy here and it worked just fine. I read a lot of breakdowns about different "variations" of S&D and different methods that involved writing down keywords, but to be honest, I could never do well using them. Just plain old S&D worked well enough to get a good score. Although, if for whatever reason you are aiming for a 25+ in your reading section, I'm not sure search and destroy will be the best method for that (it is possible though). Just find a method you like!

QR- Honestly I was hoping for a slightly higher score here, but I was getting really stretched for time at the end. The quantitative comparison questions were very similar to the ones found in the Bootcamp practice tests, and there were about 10-12 of them, so definitely be ready. I had no trig which was a nice surprise, but there were a few tricky algebra problems that were time-suckers. Just be aware of your timing on this section because it can really creep up on you. Had about 90 seconds to go back and review my marked questions, didn't end up changing any answers... Once I saw I had a minute left until the whole test that I had spent the last 3 months stressing over I was just kind of in a shock.

End of test:
Once I finished the QR section I felt completely drained... I was expecting a 21-22 AA maybe a 19 PAT if I was lucky, so I'm sure you can imagine the surprise when I saw the report. Fairly emotional moment, but all worth it!

Overall:
I did read one or two breakdowns when I was studying, where it was mentioned that this test is "easy". If you are just starting to study for your DAT, you can't go in thinking it's going to be "easy". It isn't easy, if it was easy then everyone would be getting a 27AA, but it is doable if you put in the work. There were definitely ups and downs in the time I spent prepping for this test, there were some days when I didn't think it was going to be possible which were hard, and and there were some days where I felt like I could get any score I wanted on this test. Stick through it, all the studying and work is worth it in the end. If y'all have any questions about the DAT, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

Another thing to note, I was given two dry-erase sheets to work with but when I asked for tissues to erase with, they told me that the board did not erase. This was weird to me since they gave me tissues during my test-drive and the boards erased fine. Found out pretty quickly that if you leave work on the board for more than 5 minutes it would become very difficult to get off, just something to note.

General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Quantitative Reasoing Study Strategy:

So I detailed this lightly in the general chemistry section but I thought I would include a more in-depth breakdown of it.
I had never done it before, but it seemed to work out right towards the beginning so I kept with it.

Basics:

  • This takes a lot of note-cards, probably 700-1000 just based on how many questions you end up doing
  • After every bootcamp/DATQvault/Math Destroyer Test/Destroyer test, I would go over all of the questions and any question that I wasn't 100% on, I would make a note-card for it
  • Front- On the front I would write the full question and all of the answer choices
  • Back- On the back, I would write out the full explanation, detail why the answers are correct/incorrect, and extra information. May have to write small but I included everything.
  • Of course separated based on subject, and in stacks of like 30-35 note-cards. Found it easier to make smaller note-card stacks because when you have a huge stack it is harder to motivate yourself to get through it all
  • When I wanted to review the note-cards I had done, I had a notebook for each section, and I would write out the full question, the explanation, and why answers are right and wrong
  • When I finished a stack, I would put a dot in the top right corner of the top note-card so that I knew how many times I had gone over an individual stack
This strategy helped me keep track of which questions I needed the most help on, without having to go through old tests and find the explanations etc... I know it's rather simple, but it was really effective. Let me know if y'all have any questions over this.


My Position:
I'll be 19 when I finish my application next summer, but I'll turn 20 before any interview invites are sent out (I'm not sure how this affects my application but I'm hoping someone can give me some insight). As I mentioned earlier, my freshman year was pretty terrible (1st Sem: oGPA 2.5, sGPA 2.0) (2nd Sem: oGPA 3.0, sGPA 2.2). My studying methods were ineffective and lazy and I was confused about what I wanted to do for my career path. I had been Pre-Vet and had several hundred hours of shadowing under my belt from high-school and into college, however I really lost my passion for it along the way and was not very motivated to get the grades. That summer I fell in love with the dental field, and did way better the following year (3rd Sem: oGPA 3.8, sGPA 3.6) (4th Sem: oGPA and sGPA 4.0). After this summer with the two physics classes (which I received A's in), my oGPA is a 3.34 and sGPA is a 3.1. These should rise since I have my junior left to finish before I apply, and I believe that I will finish with oGPA 3.5-3.6 and sGPA 3.3-3.4.
I am a Texas resident and plan to apply to around 10 schools including the three in Texas. I haven't done my research on OOS friendly schools so I am not sure where else to apply just yet. With this DAT score and GPA, am I in a good position? Let me know, and once again I am more than happy to answer anyone's questions.



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Congrats on your scores! If you are able to get your GPAs up to where you project, then I think they will pair very well with your DAT scores and you have a very good chance at the Texas schools. Best of luck!
 
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Those scores are very impressive. I think the older you get, the more you'll realize how crazy it is to expect a 17 year old to really know what they're going to do until they start looking like their grandparents. I'm sure admissions will see it that way too, and personally, the way your grades are improving tells an interesting story about yourself and character. Congrats and don't let those grades slip!
 
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Those scores are very impressive. I think the older you get, the more you'll realize how crazy it is to expect a 17 year old to really know what they're going to do until they start looking like their grandparents. I'm sure admissions will see it that way too, and personally, the way your grades are improving tells an interesting story about yourself and character. Congrats and don't let those grades slip!
Thank you for the feedback!
 
Congrats on the insane scores! When you were mentioning your study strategy for Bio you said that you found a method that worked for you in the end, could you please elaborate on that?
 
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Congrats on the insane scores! When you were mentioning your study strategy for Bio you said that you found a method that worked for you in the end, could you please elaborate on that?
I should've made the connection better in my post, sorry for not making that more clear. I went through DAT destroyer, making my own notes while being sure to look up terms I didn't understand. I did this for the Dat bootcamp and DATQvault tests as well and after I had this solid set of notes, I just kept going over it with a highlighter or underlining important things with a pen until the information stuck. Hopefully that answers your question!
 
I should've made the connection better in my post, sorry for not making that more clear. I went through DAT destroyer, making my own notes while being sure to look up terms I didn't understand. I did this for the Dat bootcamp and DATQvault tests as well and after I had this solid set of notes, I just kept going over it with a highlighter or underlining important things with a pen until the information stuck. Hopefully that answers your question!
Yes that makes a lot of sense. I have considered taking that route for studying for bio but I was worried that things would feel too scattered because you would be learning little tid bits from each chapter as you went along. Im about half way through my bio review and have not attempted destroyer yet because I was told its best to lay the foundation before going into destroyer. What are your thoughts about beginning destroyer before completing my bio review? The reason I ask is because I would like to go through it a few times and the sooner I get started the more likely I will be able to do that.
 
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Hey everyone, I have read a lot breakdowns over the last couple of months that I thought were very beneficial to me and now I feel like it is my time to give back a little bit. First I'd like to thank @FeralisExtremum @orgoman22 and @Ari Rezaei for all of the resources that I used. I'll also include some extra information about the position I am in following the breakdown, and I would like to get some advice on how competitive my application will be.

I am very happy overall with these scores, I needed to make some big plays here and I ended up doing well.

Scores:

Biology: 23
Gchem:
24
Ochem:
30
Reading:
23
QR:
22
PAT:
24

AA: 24
TS: 25

View attachment 222574


Backround:
I'll be a junior Biomedical Science major at a well-known university in Texas this fall, so I won't be applying until next June. At the end of my freshman year I had a horrible GPA, partly due to not knowing how to study, partly because I was unsure of what I wanted to do for a career which made it a little more difficult to motivate myself. There was a big bounce-back my sophomore year which I will discuss after, but the point I am trying to make is that anyone can do well on this test as long as you put in the work.

Over the course of this summer, I worked a part-time job and took two semesters of physics, so time was a little bit tight. I was planning on keeping up with my workouts but I realized pretty early that there just wasn't enough time.

Overall, over the course of 90 days I put in about 620 hours of studying which comes out to around 7 hours a day. People have gotten way higher scores than me studying in far less time so the amount of time you spend is up to you.

Materials Used:

DAT Bootcamp- All subjects (15/10)
This program is absolutely amazing, the questions have amazing explanations including videos for Gchem and Ochem, and they also have a chat system where you can ask the team questions and usually they will get back to you within hours with an explanation. The PAT and reading practice were very helpful as well.

DATQVault- All subjects (6/10)
I used DATQVault to get some more SNS questions to practice, however the reason I give it a 6/10 is that the explanations for a lot of questions were very clearly lacking. I would still recommend this material, especially for bio, purely for exposure to different types of questions. There were many times when I didn't fully understand a question here and just asked one of the people working for DAT bootcamp about it, which I think worked out perfectly. The PAT tests here are severely lacking and I would not recommend using this as a main resource.

Feralis Notes- (9/10)
Very detailed biology notes that can be found for free. If you can manage to memorize everything from this source you should be set up to do well on the bio section, however that is a very difficult task. Only reason that I did not give a 10/10 is just the fact that it may be a little too in depth.

Dat Destroyer- (10/10)
This book is absolutely amazing. I bought the DAT destroyer along with the math destroyer books and I found them to be extremely helpful. The exposure you get from going through all of the problems and their explanations was invaluable to me (although I did not finish two of the sections) so I very highly recommend this as well.



Study Strategy:


It's important to not that I took one of many different versions of this test, some are easier and some are harder, but it is best to be prepared for anything they might throw at you.

Biology (23)- This was by far the hardest subject for me to study for, I got C's in my freshman level biology classes so I didn't have a strong foundation whatsoever to start this.
My best advice for this section would be to find a way to study and stick to it. For example, I started right off the bat trying to read through Feralis' notes and take my own condensed notes with it. This didn't work, I couldn't keep myself focused through the dense material so I tried several different methods before finding something that worked for me. That process did waste a lot of time, but in the end I found something that I liked.

My advice would be to buy destroyer and go through all of the bio questions, including the explanations and looking up terms you don't understand to get a good foundation for the material, then use bootcamp and DATQvault as tools to strengthen whatever you might've missed and follow it up with Feralis' notes to strengthen any weak areas you have.

There are many different ways to approach this section, so find a way that works for you and stick to it.

General Chemistry (24)- I got a C and a B in my gen chem classes freshman year, so I didn't have the best foundation for this subject either. For Gchem, Organic chem and QR I made a ton of notecards with problems on the front and detailed explanations on the back into small stacks so that I could keep track of where I was. I would put a little dot in the top corner each time I went through the stack, and I would do all of the problems in spiral notebooks that I had for each subject. I found this method to be very easy to keep up with. Destroyer, and bootcamp are very key here. I probably went through all of the destroyer and bootcamp problems that I had trouble with two or three times and that set me up fairly well for the real thing. I didn't use chad's or mike's videos just because I didn't think it it matched up with the way I wanted to study.

Organic Chemistry (30)- I just took both semesters if this class last year and got an A in both so my background was pretty hefty. I did all of the bootcamp tests and DATQVault tests and made notecards, however I barely touched the Organic part of DAT destroyer simply because I thought my time would be better used in other areas. It all worked out for me, but I would still strongly recommend going through all of the DAT destroyer for every subject, even if you feel comfortable with it. I also went back through some of my notes from class if I needed a review for something.

PAT (24)- Pretty much only used DAT Bootcamp here. They have video tutorials for every section I believe, which show you the basics, along with supplemental problems and question generators outside of the 10 practice tests. One of the other things that I loved most about practicing the PAT through bootcamp was the detailed explanations and walkthrough of the problems, very valuable. DATQVault's PAT tests are not very good in my opinion (very little explanation, some of the Keyhole and TFE problems had answers that didn't make any sense) so honestly I would avoid practicing the PAT with that resource.

Reading Comprehension (23)- I went through the first 5 reading tests of Bootcamp and the first 3 tests of DATQvault and that was about it. I didn't do any extra reading like is recommended and I specifically only used the search and destroy method. The reason I didn't do any extra reading is because I thought I would be able to do fine without it, and I ended up doing well but if you have time I think it would be better to follow the recommendations people give of reading a few articles every now and then. This really just comes a long with practice.

Quantitative Reasoning (22)- DAT Bootcamp was by far the most valuable resource here, especially considering the addition of the new "Quantitative Comparison" questions, which I received between 10-12 on my test. For the other questions, the math destroyer tests were very helpful, and so was DATQvault. I did not touch very much of the QR inside of the full DAT destroyer book, but looking back I definitely wish I had gone through it a little more.

Practice Test Scores:
I took all of the tests for each program in order (1-10)

Bootcamp:
(Test #: Bio/Gchem/Ochem/RC/QR/PAT)
1: <15/16/20/17/16/16 (Taken at the beginning before any studying to see where I stood)
2: <14/<14/22/18/17/<15
3: <15/30/27/22/26/19
4: 17/20/22/25/19/21
5: 20/19/23/22/20/20

I started off with terrible scores, and it was very discouraging. So after doing almost even worse a week later on the second full length test, I took a step back and started going over questions in destroyer which helped so much. I then took all of the DATQvault tests before coming back to finish tests 6-10 for bootcamp. I scored consistently between 20-26 in all of the sections for these tests (excluding the reading tests which I didn't take). If you have any further questions about these let me know.

2007 DAT (2 weeks before the real DAT):
Bio/Gchem/Ochem/RC/QR/PAT
17/25/30/18/26/22

Personally, I think the 2007 is on the easier side of tests. I still recommend people to take it a few weeks before the real test, just for more practice. At the very least it can be a confidence booster (hopefully). I was not very happy at all with my biology score here and it motivated me to really hammer the biology section before I took the 2009 DAT.


2009 DAT (3 days before the real DAT):
Bio/Gchem/Ochem
23/24/24

I think the 2009 is pretty close, difficulty-wise, to what you'll encounter on the test. There are many errors in these sections, but I would recommend just taking the test and then looking up all of the errors after and correcting your score. I only took the SNS because I had heard some not-so-good things about the rest of the test, and I didn't think 3 days before my DAT would be a good time to start worrying myself over lower than normal scores.

Day of the Exam:
Two weeks before the test, I did the Prometric "Test run", which I found to be very helpful in the sense that I wasn't as nervous about what was going to happen when I got there. The test center was very quick when I went for the test run, however once I got called back for my real DAT they kept telling me that something was wrong with my appointment in their computer so I had to wait a little while. I signed in at 7:30 for my 8:00 appointment and didn't get into the testing room until 8:45. Overall this was not a big deal to me and the workers were very nice.

SNS- Everything went smoothly here. I really can't tell you enough how important it is that you remain calm during the test, it is very possible to psyche yourself out and forget material. I finished the SNS with about 30 minutes left and had marked around 12 questions. I went quickly back over the test to make sure I had put in the right answers and spent some extra time trying to hammer out my marked questions. I got the marked questions down to 7 at the end, 5 in bio and 2 in gchem. The resources I listed above prepared me very well for this section.
PAT- To be completely honest, I am really surprised I got a 24 here. There were 4-5 keyhole questions that I didn't even know where to begin, I tried not to spend too much time on them so I didn't ruin my whole test though. The rest of the keyholes were about on par or slightly more difficult than the ones on Bootcamp. I expected TFE to be a little easier so it was a shock to me when I saw these crazy shapes pop up. I had never seen any shapes like the ones they showed me here and I probably had to guess on 3-4. The rest of the questions in the TFE section were harder than the average Bootcamp question. Angle ranking, Hole punching, Cube counting and Pattern folding were all fairly easy compared to the the Bootcamp practice tests and I must've knocked them out of the park to get my score up...Don't let this worry you, there are many different versions of the test
RC- About what I was expecting here, there were a couple of easier passages and one harder one. I am pretty sure on of them was in chronological order but the others were not. Don't bank on any passage being in chronological order, but if you see am obvious pattern you should run with it. Used only search and destroy here and it worked just fine.
QR- Honestly I was hoping for a slightly higher score here, but I was getting really stretched for time at the end. The quantitative comparison questions were very similar to the ones found in the Bootcamp practice tests. I had no trig which was a nice surprise, but there were a few tricky algebra problems that were time-suckers. Just be aware of your timing on this section because it can really creep up on you.

Overall:
I did read one or two breakdowns when I was studying, where it was mentioned that this test is "easy". If you are just starting to study for your DAT, you can't go in thinking it's going to be easy. It isn't easy, if it was easy then everyone would be getting a 27AA, but it is doable if you put in the work. There were definitely ups and downs in the time I spent prepping for this test, there were some days when I didn't think it was going to be possible and there were some days where I felt like I could get any score I wanted on this test. Stick through it, all the studying and work is worth it in the end. If y'all have any questions about my DAT experience, I'd be more than happy to answer them.


My Position:
I'll be 19 when I finish my application next summer, but I'll turn 20 before any interview invites are sent out (I'm not sure how this affects my application but I'm hoping someone can give me some insight). As I mentioned earlier, my freshman year was pretty terrible (1st Sem: oGPA 2.5, sGPA 2.0) (2nd Sem: oGPA 3.0, sGPA 2.2). My studying methods were ineffective and lazy and I was confused about what I wanted to do for my career path. I had been Pre-Vet and had several hundred hours of shadowing under my belt from high-school and into college, however I really lost my passion for it along the way and was not very motivated to get the grades. That summer I fell in love with the dental field, and did way better the following year (3rd Sem: oGPA 3.8, sGPA 3.6) (4th Sem: oGPA and sGPA 4.0). After this summer with the two physics classes (which I received A's in), my oGPA is a 3.34 and sGPA is a 3.1. These should rise since I have my junior left to finish before I apply, and I believe that I will finish with oGPA 3.5-3.6 and sGPA 3.3-3.4.
I am a Texas resident and plan to apply to around 10 schools including the three in Texas. I haven't done my research on OOS friendly schools so I am not sure where else to apply just yet. With this DAT score and GPA, am I in a good position? Let me know, and once again I am more than happy to answer anyone's questions.


Congratulations, DAT Beast Destroyed! Not much to ad to this very detailed breakdown. Thanks for the shout out!

Dr. Jim Romano and Nancy Steen
 
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Yes that makes a lot of sense. I have considered taking that route for studying for bio but I was worried that things would feel too scattered because you would be learning little tid bits from each chapter as you went along. Im about half way through my bio review and have not attempted destroyer yet because I was told its best to lay the foundation before going into destroyer. What are your thoughts about beginning destroyer before completing my bio review? The reason I ask is because I would like to go through it a few times and the sooner I get started the more likely I will be able to do that.
I mean I guess it depends on how much time you have? I thought just going through bio destroyer gave me a good foundation (and honestly just going through the detailed explanations in bootcamp was amazing as well), but obviously the more material the better.
 
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Hello, just want to say congrats!!!!

I take my test next week. Pretty darn nervous. Would you say that DAT bootcamp QR was well represented compared to the real thing?
 
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Hello, just want to say congrats!!!!

I take my test next week. Pretty darn nervous. Would you say that DAT bootcamp QR was well represented compared to the real thing?
I would say that bootcamp was pretty close to the real thing yes. Thank you, and good luck on your test, you will do great!
 
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