cassidys28
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- Dec 22, 2022
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Hi all! I found these breakdowns really helpful when prepping for the DAT so I thought I would share my experience.
Materials Used:
Best of luck!!
Materials Used:
- DAT Booster --- by far the most helpful and comprehensive! Honestly, I think this is all you need to be successful on this test. I’ve seen people who have purchased memberships to multiple platforms, but in my opinion, that’s expensive and unnecessary. Booster almost always has some sort of sale going on and I found the price to be extremely reasonable for everything that it has to offer. I purchased a 3-month membership and activated it 3 months before I planned to take my exam. I ended up not even having enough time to fully utilize all the resources it has, but this is a good thing because it means there is so much stuff there if you need it. My favorite features were the videos for content review, along with the timed practice tests for each individual section, which were great for the many times I didn’t have a block of 4+ hours to set aside for taking a full-length test. The cheat sheets were also nice for quick refreshers, especially for biology but also for the organic reactions. I looked at the Feralis biology notes when I needed more in-depth explanations of concepts. Also, I loved the PAT generators (which generate unlimited PAT questions!) when I had a spare 15-20 minutes to just get some extra practice in.
- Kaplan 2022 Review Book --- I ordered this on Amazon for around $40 and read through a tiny section most days from June to August, so I started wrestling a bit with the content around 6 months out from the DAT. It had some decent diagrams for anatomy and practice questions after each section to check for understanding, but I would’ve been fine without it.
- Biology (23): There is so much content that could be tested over for biology that I just conceded to the fact that there was no way I could know everything. I didn’t feel like there were any major curveballs, my exam was just a little heavy on the anatomy stuff, which I am not well-versed in because I have not taken anatomy yet. The Booster cheat sheets and biology notes cover this information well, I just didn’t devote a ton of energy towards memorizing names of specific structures for the sake of time; I spent most of my time understanding how the different bodily systems function (like kidneys and endocrine glands). However, there were several questions in this section that were word-for-word identical to those in Booster!
- General Chemistry (30): This section was more conceptual questions than calculation questions, which I appreciated because I am not the greatest at math without a calculator. All the calculations were straightforward and were things I had seen before. Lots of questions were related to periodic trends and the energetics of phase changes. Understanding the reasons behind why things react the way that they do can be helpful in arriving at the correct answer.
- Organic Chemistry (27): This was very similar to the Booster practices, although I found it to be slightly easier. There were not any reactions or reagents that were super unfamiliar. Like general chemistry, this section was mostly conceptual, with a decent number of questions regarding stability and acidity. I finished the science portion with about 20 minutes left to review the 8-ish questions that I had marked.
- Perceptual Ability (21): I had always struggled with timing on the PAT, but what seemed to help was jumping to question 31 and trying to complete questions 31-90 in thirty minutes to leave the last thirty minutes for questions 1-30 (keyholes and TFE), which I had the most trouble with. I found the actual test to be easier and more straightforward than Booster, but I am glad that the Booster practices challenged me because it made me feel more confident on the real test. Although I almost always ran out of time on the Booster practice tests, I actually had 5 minutes of extra time at the end to double-check my marked questions.
- Reading Comprehension (30): Search-and-destroy was my strategy of choice here. I skimmed for words that matched the question without having to read the entire passage. Be very careful of the wording of the questions, because they can be tricky. Again, the Booster passages and questions were very similar to the real test. I finished this section with 15 minutes to go back and ensure I was happy with all my answers.
- Quantitative Reasoning (27): I found this section to be slightly easier than the Booster practices; again, I am glad that Booster challenged me because I felt so prepared. Most of the questions pertained to rates, probability, and quadratic equations. I was able to complete all the questions, but I was working right up until the time ended. Although, this was no surprise to me because I always had to rush on the Booster practices as well.
Best of luck!!
