I just completed my DAT, and I am very happy with the result. Studying for this test really took over my life, so I am glad that it is finally over. My scores were:
AA: 27
TS: 30
Bio: 30
GC: 30
OC: 29
RC: 29
PAT: 22
QR: 18
I began studying after my spring semester ended. I took a break for roughly a week to ensure that I was mentally prepared to start my DAT journey. In total, it took roughly 2 months and 2 weeks to study for the exam, after starting in mid May, and I studied anywhere from 6 to 11 hours a day.
The materials that I used for studying were DAT Bootcamp, DAT Booster, DAT Destroyer, and Math Destroyer. I found all of these resources to be valuable in my studying, some more than others. DAT Bootcamp and Booster are very similar. However, Booster is more up to date and modern, and I have found that their material, while more difficult than the actual exam, is very representative in terms of the topics tested. Bootcamp is a great resource as well, but it is priced higher than Booster, which is another consideration to make. However, Bootcamp’s real strength is Dr. Mike’s OC and GC videos, in addition to all of the video solutions provided with the problems! I believe the DAT Destroyer books were also very useful, and contained lots of relevant info. I really liked the Bio and QR sections specifically, and found them very useful in identifying areas where I was weak and could still improve. Destroyer definitely over-trains you for things that will never appear on the real exam, but it is good because if you are able to tackle the problems in the Destroyer, then you definitely know the material well enough for the actual exam.
When designing my study schedule, I used a mixture of Ari’s schedule from Bootcamp and the Booster Study Schedule, but I adjusted it to fit my life. Often, the schedule would have breaks on Sundays, but even during the school year I’m not used to taking breaks from studying, so I decided to just study on Sundays as well. Overall, my schedule was broken into three parts: content review, practice exams, and final touch up.
My content review lasted for the first month of my preparation, my practice exams were the second month, and the final few weeks were spent on touching up my weak areas.
GC (30) and OC (29):
For these sections, I used mainly the material provided by DAT Bootcamp, including Dr. Mike’s videos. I have a pretty strong background to begin with in the sciences, so I generally knew the material that was going to be covered. However, I really did think that Dr. Mike does a great job of going over everything that you need to know in the GC and OC videos. For example, I haven’t taken Orgo II, yet, I was able to pick it up on my own using David Klein’s book, Organic Chemistry as a Second Language, and Dr. Mike’s videos. For me, it was important to memorize all of the Gen Chem formulas since at school we are provided an equation sheet, so I did spend time doing that as well. These videos were a great review for me overall, and I highly recommend them. For OC, I tried to memorize all of the reactions as best as I could. However, if you are struggling to memorize the reactions, it is more beneficial, in my opinion, to understand what reagents partake in which kinds of reactions, such as which are the oxidants, which are the reductants, how strong of an oxidant/reductant the reagent is, what centers are electrophilic and which are nucleophilic, etc, as you are then able to reason your way through essentially any of the problems that they could throw at you. I made sure to do all of the Qbank problems on both Booster and Bootcamp for these sections as well to solidify my understanding while I was initially reviewing the material.
During the practice exam phase, I did Bootcamp’s tests 1-5 individually over the first two weeks, and then tests 6-10 as full lengths over the last two weeks. I did all of the Booster exams in these sections as individual tests over this month long period as well. I found both Booster and Bootcamp to be more difficult than the actual exam, but I believe they prepared me well.
Bio (30):
For my biology content review, I really enjoyed the condensed notes from Bootcamp. However, I also read Dr. Romano’s Dynamite Biology Notes, and the revised Feralis notes from Booster. I believe it was the combination of these three resources that really made me successful. Biology is a struggle because of how broad the subject is, and you can be tested on pretty much anything. So, by covering these different resources, all of which focus on the subject in a slightly different way, you are able to cover a very broad base of the material. Again, as many people have stated in these breakdowns before, breadth over depth is essential. Personally, I tried to use Anki initially, and used it for the first month or so with the Feralis deck. However, I found it to hard to keep up with the number of reviews required per day (it got to be roughly 600 cards per day in bio alone), so I abandoned it and focused more on specifically looking at areas that I knew that I was weak in, rather than reviewing all of biology constantly. Anki is definitely a powerful learning tool, and if it works for you, go with it. I also specifically found the Taxonomy videos by Booster to be especially helpful, and I believe that they were crucial for my understanding of Taxonomy for the exam. If there were topics that I had a hard time remembering or understanding (especially lots of the developmental biology stuff) I highly recommend watching either YouTube videos on the subject, or using the Booster and Bootcamp videos that they provide.
Just like with the chems, I did tests 1-5 on Bootcamp over the first two weeks of the practice exam phase as individual tests, and then did tests 6-10 as full lengths. I also did all of the Booster exams as individual tests over the month. I found that all of the material is fair game for the exam, and especially in bio, I wanted to see all of the different kinds of questions that could be asked. By using both services, and taking so many exams, you really start to see trends in the kinds and number of questions being asked on certain topics, so that really helped me direct my studying, and to know what information I needed to just know stone cold. I also used Dr. Romano’s DAT Destroyer book during this phase. The book isn’t representative of the kinds of questions they ask on the DAT. However, it does touch on everything that you need to know, often in a more challenging way. Working this book really drove home many of the concepts for me, and the many tidbits of information I found by doing the problems and then reading through the solutions was really helpful.
PAT (22):
While learning the different strategies for PAT, I found the Booster videos to be very helpful. They are well done and explain all of the topics very clearly. I learned this section initially by using the Bootcamp question banks, and then the Booster generators. I liked the flexibility of Booster’s generators, especially angles and hole punching, as you can select the difficulty and kinds of problems you want to practice. I think the key to becoming competent at PAT is just practice, practice, practice! Any visual skill is either innate, or, it takes months to perfect, so definitely spend a good amount of time with this section right away if it doesn’t come naturally. During the practice test phase, I spent the first two weeks doing Bootcamp 1-5 as individual tests. Then, in the last two weeks of the month, I did a PAT test nearly everyday from Booster. Booster’s tests are more difficult than Bootcamp’s by far, and the real DAT is soooo much easier than both resources. If you do the practice exams, you will be more than prepared for any level of difficulty that the real DAT might provide. Then, in the final two weeks leading up to my exam, I redid a practice test from Booster every other day, and in between did generator work on my worst subsections, especially angles.
RC (29):
Personally, reading comprehension always came very naturally to me, so I didn’t really work on this section at all. I just watched the videos on Bootcamp, but didn’t find them very helpful or enlightening. I used seek and destroy on both the practice exams and the actual exam, and it was more than adequate. During the practice exam phase, I only took 3 of Bootcamp’s RC tests individually, then just did Bootcamp’s 6-10 as full lengths. I thought these passages were way more difficult (6-10) than the actual exam. Most crucial to doing well in this section is being able to read (and comprehend) quickly, which is a hard skill to learn if you aren’t naturally a fast reader. To get better, I would ideally actively focus on practicing this skill months before you start taking the DAT, and you can even work on it in during your normal school work.
QR (18):
Don’t have too much advice to give here because this was a weak area for me—not because I can’t do the math (I have a strong background in even upper level math, like Calculus), it is all very simple and is high-school level. It was the time factor. I always did my practice tests timed, but I just think it’s very difficult to get a “high” score in this section unless you’ve been doing math at lightning speed since you were 12. Math is a subject that everyone tackles in a different way—personally, I have to write out my work, and reason through a problem. I can’t just do it in my head. However, to prep for this section, I watched all of the QR videos on Booster, then did all of the question bank problems in both Booster and Bootcamp. Then, during the practice exam phase, I always did my tests timed to simulate the real time crunch of the exam. However, I could never really improve my timing, especially because of the many quantitative comparison and sufficiency questions found on the practice tests, which always ate my time.
During the practice exam phase, I took all of the Booster exams individually, Bootcamp 1-5 individually, and Bootcamp 6-10 as full lengths. I also used DAT destroyer, and the Math destroyer from Dr. Romano. Again, I thought all of these problems were representative of the real exam, and on their own are not that difficult. However, it is the time restraints of the actual exam that make it so difficult, and the fact that it is the very last section tested.
Overall, I am very happy with my score, and am thankful for everyone at DAT Booster, Bootcamp, and Destroyer for helping me prepare for this exam!! I truly believe anyone can do well on the DAT—the amount of time that it will take will vary from person to person, and you have to do what it takes for YOU to succeed. What works for one person doesn’t mean it will necessarily work for you. So find what works well for you and stick with it!! Believing in yourself goes a long way, and try not to stress yourself out too much over anything, because that will only lead to even more test anxiety, and will adversely affect your testing experience. Good luck to everyone!!!
AA: 27
TS: 30
Bio: 30
GC: 30
OC: 29
RC: 29
PAT: 22
QR: 18
I began studying after my spring semester ended. I took a break for roughly a week to ensure that I was mentally prepared to start my DAT journey. In total, it took roughly 2 months and 2 weeks to study for the exam, after starting in mid May, and I studied anywhere from 6 to 11 hours a day.
The materials that I used for studying were DAT Bootcamp, DAT Booster, DAT Destroyer, and Math Destroyer. I found all of these resources to be valuable in my studying, some more than others. DAT Bootcamp and Booster are very similar. However, Booster is more up to date and modern, and I have found that their material, while more difficult than the actual exam, is very representative in terms of the topics tested. Bootcamp is a great resource as well, but it is priced higher than Booster, which is another consideration to make. However, Bootcamp’s real strength is Dr. Mike’s OC and GC videos, in addition to all of the video solutions provided with the problems! I believe the DAT Destroyer books were also very useful, and contained lots of relevant info. I really liked the Bio and QR sections specifically, and found them very useful in identifying areas where I was weak and could still improve. Destroyer definitely over-trains you for things that will never appear on the real exam, but it is good because if you are able to tackle the problems in the Destroyer, then you definitely know the material well enough for the actual exam.
When designing my study schedule, I used a mixture of Ari’s schedule from Bootcamp and the Booster Study Schedule, but I adjusted it to fit my life. Often, the schedule would have breaks on Sundays, but even during the school year I’m not used to taking breaks from studying, so I decided to just study on Sundays as well. Overall, my schedule was broken into three parts: content review, practice exams, and final touch up.
My content review lasted for the first month of my preparation, my practice exams were the second month, and the final few weeks were spent on touching up my weak areas.
GC (30) and OC (29):
For these sections, I used mainly the material provided by DAT Bootcamp, including Dr. Mike’s videos. I have a pretty strong background to begin with in the sciences, so I generally knew the material that was going to be covered. However, I really did think that Dr. Mike does a great job of going over everything that you need to know in the GC and OC videos. For example, I haven’t taken Orgo II, yet, I was able to pick it up on my own using David Klein’s book, Organic Chemistry as a Second Language, and Dr. Mike’s videos. For me, it was important to memorize all of the Gen Chem formulas since at school we are provided an equation sheet, so I did spend time doing that as well. These videos were a great review for me overall, and I highly recommend them. For OC, I tried to memorize all of the reactions as best as I could. However, if you are struggling to memorize the reactions, it is more beneficial, in my opinion, to understand what reagents partake in which kinds of reactions, such as which are the oxidants, which are the reductants, how strong of an oxidant/reductant the reagent is, what centers are electrophilic and which are nucleophilic, etc, as you are then able to reason your way through essentially any of the problems that they could throw at you. I made sure to do all of the Qbank problems on both Booster and Bootcamp for these sections as well to solidify my understanding while I was initially reviewing the material.
During the practice exam phase, I did Bootcamp’s tests 1-5 individually over the first two weeks, and then tests 6-10 as full lengths over the last two weeks. I did all of the Booster exams in these sections as individual tests over this month long period as well. I found both Booster and Bootcamp to be more difficult than the actual exam, but I believe they prepared me well.
Bio (30):
For my biology content review, I really enjoyed the condensed notes from Bootcamp. However, I also read Dr. Romano’s Dynamite Biology Notes, and the revised Feralis notes from Booster. I believe it was the combination of these three resources that really made me successful. Biology is a struggle because of how broad the subject is, and you can be tested on pretty much anything. So, by covering these different resources, all of which focus on the subject in a slightly different way, you are able to cover a very broad base of the material. Again, as many people have stated in these breakdowns before, breadth over depth is essential. Personally, I tried to use Anki initially, and used it for the first month or so with the Feralis deck. However, I found it to hard to keep up with the number of reviews required per day (it got to be roughly 600 cards per day in bio alone), so I abandoned it and focused more on specifically looking at areas that I knew that I was weak in, rather than reviewing all of biology constantly. Anki is definitely a powerful learning tool, and if it works for you, go with it. I also specifically found the Taxonomy videos by Booster to be especially helpful, and I believe that they were crucial for my understanding of Taxonomy for the exam. If there were topics that I had a hard time remembering or understanding (especially lots of the developmental biology stuff) I highly recommend watching either YouTube videos on the subject, or using the Booster and Bootcamp videos that they provide.
Just like with the chems, I did tests 1-5 on Bootcamp over the first two weeks of the practice exam phase as individual tests, and then did tests 6-10 as full lengths. I also did all of the Booster exams as individual tests over the month. I found that all of the material is fair game for the exam, and especially in bio, I wanted to see all of the different kinds of questions that could be asked. By using both services, and taking so many exams, you really start to see trends in the kinds and number of questions being asked on certain topics, so that really helped me direct my studying, and to know what information I needed to just know stone cold. I also used Dr. Romano’s DAT Destroyer book during this phase. The book isn’t representative of the kinds of questions they ask on the DAT. However, it does touch on everything that you need to know, often in a more challenging way. Working this book really drove home many of the concepts for me, and the many tidbits of information I found by doing the problems and then reading through the solutions was really helpful.
PAT (22):
While learning the different strategies for PAT, I found the Booster videos to be very helpful. They are well done and explain all of the topics very clearly. I learned this section initially by using the Bootcamp question banks, and then the Booster generators. I liked the flexibility of Booster’s generators, especially angles and hole punching, as you can select the difficulty and kinds of problems you want to practice. I think the key to becoming competent at PAT is just practice, practice, practice! Any visual skill is either innate, or, it takes months to perfect, so definitely spend a good amount of time with this section right away if it doesn’t come naturally. During the practice test phase, I spent the first two weeks doing Bootcamp 1-5 as individual tests. Then, in the last two weeks of the month, I did a PAT test nearly everyday from Booster. Booster’s tests are more difficult than Bootcamp’s by far, and the real DAT is soooo much easier than both resources. If you do the practice exams, you will be more than prepared for any level of difficulty that the real DAT might provide. Then, in the final two weeks leading up to my exam, I redid a practice test from Booster every other day, and in between did generator work on my worst subsections, especially angles.
RC (29):
Personally, reading comprehension always came very naturally to me, so I didn’t really work on this section at all. I just watched the videos on Bootcamp, but didn’t find them very helpful or enlightening. I used seek and destroy on both the practice exams and the actual exam, and it was more than adequate. During the practice exam phase, I only took 3 of Bootcamp’s RC tests individually, then just did Bootcamp’s 6-10 as full lengths. I thought these passages were way more difficult (6-10) than the actual exam. Most crucial to doing well in this section is being able to read (and comprehend) quickly, which is a hard skill to learn if you aren’t naturally a fast reader. To get better, I would ideally actively focus on practicing this skill months before you start taking the DAT, and you can even work on it in during your normal school work.
QR (18):
Don’t have too much advice to give here because this was a weak area for me—not because I can’t do the math (I have a strong background in even upper level math, like Calculus), it is all very simple and is high-school level. It was the time factor. I always did my practice tests timed, but I just think it’s very difficult to get a “high” score in this section unless you’ve been doing math at lightning speed since you were 12. Math is a subject that everyone tackles in a different way—personally, I have to write out my work, and reason through a problem. I can’t just do it in my head. However, to prep for this section, I watched all of the QR videos on Booster, then did all of the question bank problems in both Booster and Bootcamp. Then, during the practice exam phase, I always did my tests timed to simulate the real time crunch of the exam. However, I could never really improve my timing, especially because of the many quantitative comparison and sufficiency questions found on the practice tests, which always ate my time.
During the practice exam phase, I took all of the Booster exams individually, Bootcamp 1-5 individually, and Bootcamp 6-10 as full lengths. I also used DAT destroyer, and the Math destroyer from Dr. Romano. Again, I thought all of these problems were representative of the real exam, and on their own are not that difficult. However, it is the time restraints of the actual exam that make it so difficult, and the fact that it is the very last section tested.
Overall, I am very happy with my score, and am thankful for everyone at DAT Booster, Bootcamp, and Destroyer for helping me prepare for this exam!! I truly believe anyone can do well on the DAT—the amount of time that it will take will vary from person to person, and you have to do what it takes for YOU to succeed. What works for one person doesn’t mean it will necessarily work for you. So find what works well for you and stick with it!! Believing in yourself goes a long way, and try not to stress yourself out too much over anything, because that will only lead to even more test anxiety, and will adversely affect your testing experience. Good luck to everyone!!!
