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Hey everyone! I retook my DAT exam on May 20th and I’d like to share my experience and strategies. Two years ago when I took the DAT for the first time, I got the following scores: 22 AA, 21 Bio, 21 GC, 19 OC, 21 TS, 25 RC, 22 QR, 17 PAT. The first time I took the DAT, I studied for 3 weeks using only the Kaplan book and their 2 practice tests. It was a decent score, but the PAT really held me back the past 2 cycles, and I knew I didn’t do as well as I could have.
This year, after applying twice, I decided to retake my DAT. I wanted to leave no stone unturned in my application. I got the following scores: 26 AA, 30 Bio, 30 GC, 26 OC, 30 TS, 23 RC, 23 QR, 25 PAT. I took 11 weeks to prep and mainly used DAT Booster and Chad’s Videos along with Anki (I also used Bootcamp’s question banks and DAT Destroyer – more on that later). I will go into how I approached the exam (this will be a long read).
To start off, I began my prep by watching all of the DAT Booster subject videos. This took me a few weeks and built the foundation I needed for each section. While I highly recommend everyone do this, I believe most of my learning came from the full length exams and question banks on booster. After the content review phase, I took 2 practice tests per week, using the days in between to review each exam. I put every question I got wrong into an Anki deck divided by section, and reviewed these once a week, then twice a week as I got close to my exam. I flagged every problem I continued to have issues with. Once I finished all 10 Booster full length exams, I started with the Question banks. This was ~1-2 weeks out from my exam. Again, I put all the questions I got wrong in Anki decks, and flagged the problems I repeatedly missed. In the week leading up to my exam, I put all of my flagged cards into their own deck and reviewed them throughout the week. Now, I will break down each section. To supplement the Booster practice exam and question banks, I also used the question banks on Bootcamp (although not as extensively as the Booster ones). This was good for extra practice and I mainly used this to verify that I had mastered the content.
Bio: I started off using Feralis’ study guide. I was using DAT Destroyer, but after 1 or 2 weeks, I felt I was wasting too much time trying to understand things I did not need to know for the DAT. It was extremely slow yield (this applies for Math Destroyer as well) so I never opened the Destroyer books again for the rest of my prep. Instead, I started by reading Feralis’ old notes all the way through one time. Then, I went through his updated notes. Once I finished this second pass, I started using a modified Feralis Bio Anki deck to make sure I had everything I needed to know memorized. I think Anki was the key to my Bio score. Spaced repetition is amazing and is a phenomenal supplement. I did 400 notecards per day, then lowered this number to 200 in the last month of my prep when I had already seen all the cards at least once. I used the strategy described above for the concepts I was struggling with.
Gen Chem: Started off with Chad’s videos (the ones listed in the study guide). Basically only did the Booster exams and question bank for this section. This section came easy to me and was very straight-forward. The only Anki deck I used for this was for missed gen chem questions on the question bank and practice exams.
Ochem: I was not good at organic chemistry in undergrad, so this section did not come naturally or easily to me. After watching the Professor Dave Booster videos, my bread and butter for this section was the Booster Anki deck. Memorizing those reactions gave me a solid foundation of Ochem, and when supplemented with the full length exams and question bank, gave me decent mastery of the subject. I did 20 flashcards on anki per day, so I had memorized most of the reactions by week 3 of prep. Once I had them memorized, I did 40 cards per day every single day of prep until the day of my exam. Nothing took me by surprise on exam day using this strategy.
PAT: When I started my prep, I did 15 of each PAT section using the generators. For TFE, I used the free bootcamp app’s generator. Other than this, I only used the practice exams on Booster. I regularly reviewed them (mainly the TFE, Keyholes, and Pattern Folding sections), training my eyes to see why each answer choice was wrong, and why exactly the correct answer was correct. I was scoring 19-20 consistently on these practice exams.
QR and RC: My studying for these 2 sections were similar so I will group them together. Other than the Booster videos, I only did the practice exams for these sections. I was not able to get to the question banks before my exam, but I felt prepared through the practice exams so I didn’t bother pushing my exam for them.
My biggest advice to people studying for their DAT is to focus on missed questions. Don’t stress about practice exams scores throughout your prep. As long as you are reviewing shaky concepts as you go, nothing will take you off guard on test day. While studying, quality is always better than quantity. If you are beginning to feel burnt out and feel like your studying is becoming ineffective, take the rest of the day off and recharge. Studying doesn’t have to be the only thing you do during your prep. Work out, go out with friends, and enjoy life when you can. Good luck everyone!!
