Hello Everyone! I took my DAT on July 2nd and I've been neglecting writing this breakdown, but here we go. (This ended up being very long so if there are typos I'm sorry 😭)
Background
I graduated this June with a general science major (3.95 GPA if you care -shrug-) and spent the last quarter finishing up classes and studying for the DAT. I ended up preparing for about 14 weeks which was way too long, and I think 11 or 12 weeks would have been perfect. If you're reading this and haven't signed up for a test date yet, I highly encourage you to do so because the soonest test date I could get was 14 weeks out, which is why I studied for so long, and it kind of sucked. I studied 4-8 hours per day, 6 days a week with one day off, and would recommend you do the same. I was able to maintain my balance of school work, studying, volunteering, filling out primaries and secondaries, and going out. I did not stay cooped up in my room; I was able to go on a short trip with my roommates before graduating, and I still partied a few times. I hung out with friends a few times a week. You do NOT need to study 12+ hours a day to do well, and I would in fact highly advise against that. If you are truly studying efficiently (no phone distractions or whatever) 8 hours a day max should be plenty. Balance is key! Work hard, play hard, and just maintain your usual school habits and you should be fine if you've been doing well in school. Make sure you get some exercise- I tried to go on a walk for about an hour every other day and that definitely helped keep the stress down.
Materials (briefly)
Section Breakdown
Final Advice
Flashcards are great. It sucks going over them repeatedly, but unfortunately that's how you retain a lot of info. Everyone on here raves about Anki, but I don't know how to use the program, so I just used good old Quizlet.
Also, I can't stress this enough, but only take the DAT when you feel like you're ready! For me, that ended up being right after I graduated, and I think that's why I did so well. I had already taken gen chem, O chem, biochem, anatomy, physiology, cell bio, microbio, etc, so I didn't really have to learn very much for the DAT except for taxonomy, plant stuff, and ecology. I had forgotten all the reactions from O chem, but it didn't take me too long to relearn them- you really just have to review them until you get them down and then you'll be good.
I originally tried to take the DAT after my sophomore year. I thought I would just learn all the stuff I didn't know on my own. I shut myself in my room and studied like 10 hours a day. That lasted for like a week before I started to lose it and become super anxious and depressed. I realized I was not going to be able to take the test and do well, so I decided to postpone my test indefinitely. While I don't regret that mistake because I have learned from it, that did cost me $500 😭. Do not be like me! Take it when you feel ready, not when you feel like you should. The DAT guide lists all the topics you need to know for the test so look at it and see what is familiar and what you'll need to learn. If you're someone who's super motivated and you think you can learn a bunch of new material on your own, then go for it, but that was not for me.
Finally, now that you've read this breakdown, read like one or two others and then get off this website. People on here are super nervous and I find that reading other people's posts on here makes ME nervous. Trust yourself and the process. Work hard, take it seriously, and you will be fine!
Background
I graduated this June with a general science major (3.95 GPA if you care -shrug-) and spent the last quarter finishing up classes and studying for the DAT. I ended up preparing for about 14 weeks which was way too long, and I think 11 or 12 weeks would have been perfect. If you're reading this and haven't signed up for a test date yet, I highly encourage you to do so because the soonest test date I could get was 14 weeks out, which is why I studied for so long, and it kind of sucked. I studied 4-8 hours per day, 6 days a week with one day off, and would recommend you do the same. I was able to maintain my balance of school work, studying, volunteering, filling out primaries and secondaries, and going out. I did not stay cooped up in my room; I was able to go on a short trip with my roommates before graduating, and I still partied a few times. I hung out with friends a few times a week. You do NOT need to study 12+ hours a day to do well, and I would in fact highly advise against that. If you are truly studying efficiently (no phone distractions or whatever) 8 hours a day max should be plenty. Balance is key! Work hard, play hard, and just maintain your usual school habits and you should be fine if you've been doing well in school. Make sure you get some exercise- I tried to go on a walk for about an hour every other day and that definitely helped keep the stress down.
Materials (briefly)
- Bootcamp- can't complain, there's a reason almost everyone uses it. I really liked that the sections had practice questions you could do during your review so you could get up to speed before moving on to the practice tests. If you have questions they have a chat system you can use to get help which was nice. I know people like to worry that it's out of date, but I didn't think so. I even had a couple questions on my DAT that I had seen in the practice tests, so that was dope. I thought that overall the practice tests were harder than the real thing, but that's what you want for practice! All in all I think it was worth every penny.
- Destroyer- I had a copy from 2018 or 2019 I think and did every single problem in GC, OC, and BIO. Like everyone says, the questions were much harder than the real DAT so if you can do them you will be in good shape. Everyone talks about how you'll want to throw the book against the wall, but to be honest I didn't think it was that bad. Just know the reaction pathways for OC and formulas for GC and it's fine. I think some of the difficulty in the BIO section is due to the fact that there's a ton of anatomy questions, but having taken anatomy it wasn't too bad 😓 I would highly recommend this resource after you've done your general reviewing; you just can't beat having an extra ~1500 practice questions. I know some people go through the whole thing like 3x, but I just did it once and thought that was sufficient. (I also tend to remember the answers to problems after doing them once).
Section Breakdown
- Bio (30)- I used bootcamp's high yield notes. They literally have exactly what you need to know, so even if you don't use BC I would still recommend using their high yield notes. I read through them and pretty much rewrote the whole thing while taking notes. However, I didn't actually end up using my notes and almost never looked back at them. I did the practice questions for each section the day after I took notes. I made flashcards with any topic/vocabulary I didn't know off the top of my head and reviewed them every day. After I did the BC section practice questions I started Destroyer and did ~30 questions a day until done. All throughout I kept adding to my flashcard set and by the time I was done I had about 600 cards, so I tried to review 100 every day (and it SUCKED but it helped a ton, this is how I studied for anatomy during college and it'll make sure you retain all that info). If there was something I didn't know or understand, I would google it or watched a YouTube video. The whole internet is out there bursting with information and there are tons of talented teachers out there who have made resources for literally every topic ever.
- GC (30)- I watched the videos on BC and did the practice questions. After I did all the BC practice I started on destroyer and did ~25 questions a day until done. I made a flashcard set with all the formulas, vocabulary (lab techniques) and other weird stuff I didn't know automatically. The set only ended up being ~100 cards so I only went through it about once a week.
- OC (30): I watched all the videos on BC and did the practice questions. I made handwritten flashcards with all the reactions and reviewed them every few days. I supplemented the BC reactions with a few funky ones that destroyer had. I also made a flashcard set with vocabulary, lab techniques I didn't already know, and naming stuff and reviewed it about once a week. After I did all the BC practice questions I started destroyer and did ~25 questions a day until completion.
- PAT (22)- I was so bad at this section when I started and my goal was literally just to get above a 17 so I wouldn't have my application automatically tossed out. I did about 5 questions of each type per day using the BC generators and practice questions. I think the practice questions were pretty on par with the real thing. Like everyone says, practice is key and you should see yourself improving after a few weeks. I did feel like my skill kind of plateaued, though, by week 8 of studying and I wasn't improving anymore. For each style of problem just practice with the strategies that are out there: make your grids for hole punching, tables for cube counting, and whatever else. I sucked at angle ranking and I think I actually got worse after a certain point. I felt like the more effort I put in the more likely I was to get it wrong, so I ended up just going through these as fast as possible and trying not to worry about it. Just practice and know that it'll pay off! My test strategy was angle ranking first as fast as possible, then hole punching, cubes, and pattern folding. I then tried to have like 30 mins left for key holes and TFE but I struggled a lot with time.
- QR (27)- BC has a ton of practice questions; I did about 20 a day like they suggest and that's really it. I made a flashcard set with formulas I didn't already have memorized and reviewed it about once a week. I was not expecting to get this high of a score because I think I scored a 20 on every single practice test except one, but the math on the real DAT was waaaay easier. IDK, just know how to do algebra and how to set up each type of problem. After you practice a lot you'll recognize question styles and how to set them up. I will say, though, that the quantitative comparison and sufficiency problems suck. It was really a toss-up as to whether I could do them or not, and it got to a point where I was no longer improving with practice and it started coming down to luck. However, these problems on the real DAT were super easy, WAY easier than the ones on BC but obviously practice like you're gonna get hard ones
- RC (30)- Sorry folks, no strategy here. I just skimmed the passages and then answered the questions. I liked to highlight the answers in the passage because then you know 100% that you got it right, but that's about it. I read a ton in my spare time and I usually go through a book (~400 pages) every 3 or 4 days even during the height of the school year. 😅
Final Advice
Flashcards are great. It sucks going over them repeatedly, but unfortunately that's how you retain a lot of info. Everyone on here raves about Anki, but I don't know how to use the program, so I just used good old Quizlet.
Also, I can't stress this enough, but only take the DAT when you feel like you're ready! For me, that ended up being right after I graduated, and I think that's why I did so well. I had already taken gen chem, O chem, biochem, anatomy, physiology, cell bio, microbio, etc, so I didn't really have to learn very much for the DAT except for taxonomy, plant stuff, and ecology. I had forgotten all the reactions from O chem, but it didn't take me too long to relearn them- you really just have to review them until you get them down and then you'll be good.
I originally tried to take the DAT after my sophomore year. I thought I would just learn all the stuff I didn't know on my own. I shut myself in my room and studied like 10 hours a day. That lasted for like a week before I started to lose it and become super anxious and depressed. I realized I was not going to be able to take the test and do well, so I decided to postpone my test indefinitely. While I don't regret that mistake because I have learned from it, that did cost me $500 😭. Do not be like me! Take it when you feel ready, not when you feel like you should. The DAT guide lists all the topics you need to know for the test so look at it and see what is familiar and what you'll need to learn. If you're someone who's super motivated and you think you can learn a bunch of new material on your own, then go for it, but that was not for me.
Finally, now that you've read this breakdown, read like one or two others and then get off this website. People on here are super nervous and I find that reading other people's posts on here makes ME nervous. Trust yourself and the process. Work hard, take it seriously, and you will be fine!
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