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- Sep 3, 2012
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Let me first say, I am not a smart man. I just want to share some ideas with you guys out there studying. I want to thank all of the people that post on this forum cuz you guys helped me out so much! I've read a million breakdowns like the rest of you and it's finally my turn. Let me apologize ahead of time if my breakdown sucks, or the format isn't to your liking. I am probably going to forget a lot, and I'm venting a lot too so sorry if it's way too long. I'll try to set it up like all the others. Here goes:
PAT-23 96.2%
QR- 24 99.4%
RC- 18 52.2% (yeah i suck at reading, this was expected)
Bio- 24 99.6%
GC- 21 91.6%
OC-26 99.2%
TS- 23 99.3%
AA- 23 99.7%
My GPA is about 3.6 and my sGPA is about 3.6 too, if you were curious.
Materials Used:
Chad's videos/quizzes (Chad is the man!)
KBB
CDP
CDR
DAT Destroyer 2013
Math Destroyer 2013
DATqVault
DAT Bootcamp (Ari is the man!...also)
Khan Academy
Anki
Campbells Bio
Cliffs AP Bio
Barrons
Achiever 7 test version.
TTC Biology of Life audio lectures (I think that's what it is called)
I probably forgot some other stuff
I started studying a while ago off and on so this could be a really loooong breakdown, but didn't really go hardcore until about 2 months ago, so I'll only include the last few bits. I did about 10 hours a day for the first month and about 14 hours a day for the second month. I basically broke studying up into 2-3 hour increments everyday for those last 2 months. I would set a timer and study Bio for 2 hours, then GC, then OC, etc. until I was back
Bio(24)- I was really worried about this section because of all the people that say it is super random, and the breadth is huge. There is a lot to know but I think it is not as bad as everyone says. Like others have said, I'm pretty sure every question I had was in either Barrons or Cliffs. I even got lucky and had a question that someone had posted on the forums (I won't say which one, but it does involve the *blank* of something). The questions weren't as heavy on anatomy and physiology like qvault or DATbootcamp, but maybe that was just my test. Maybe one plant question.
I started Bio by reading Cliffs, taking a few qVault tests and doing practice questions so I could get an idea of what questions are like. I used Anki, made my own flashcards (like 1000ish) while going through Cliffs and Barrons and DAT destroyer. I gave up on anki and destroyer after a few weeks though because I didn't understand the concepts and was just memorizing word associations. The last month was much better. I had a binder of printed out graphs and charts for every section of biology like Cell bio, Diversity, Physiology etc. and went through those every day. The last week or so I read through Cliffs and Barrons entirely each day and drilled everything in my head. I had a pdf version of Barrons so I just highlighted topics I was weak in and went through those. I think this helped the most, just reading the entire book, 7 times in a row really drilled everything in my head, and going through my little review sheets with graphs and charts (like the phylum chart, or monocots dicots chart). I wanted to make sure and hit every part of biology every day. After each study session, I would take a qvault test, or some other test, and make note of my weakpoints and work on those the next day. Oh, and Dat destroyer bio sucks. I'm sorry, but don't even bother with this unless you already feel pretty comfortable with bio and want to find some weak points. I would always suggest reading a few chapters in Cliffs, over doing practice questions. Sorry, just my opinion
Bio practice scores:
DATBootcamp- 19/27/23/26/27
qVault- 19/21/20/25/22/22/21/27/23/22
Achiever-18/17...then i gave up. Too random,way harder than the DAT
GC(21): I suck at GC. Chad is the man. I watched his vids, took notes, did his quizzes. went through all his notes every day before I would work on something like DAT destroyer GC. Man, that destroyer kicked my a** the first time through. I went through it like 4 times though and by the last time I kicked the destroyer's a**. The day before the test I went through all of Chads quizzes and only missed like 3 I think. I thought I'd do better on this section, I had a few funky questions I wasn't sure on. All the calculations were set up though, so that was nice cuz I always messed up adding up Hess' Law stuff by hand. Anyway, dont listen to me, I didn't do that great in GC, I'm sure most of you out there are better than I am at it.
Practice scores:
Datbootcamp: 24
ADA 2007 28 (much easier)
OC(26)- Same as above. Chad, notes, quizzes, destroyer. I also made flashcards of the roadmaps in destroyer, anki flashcards of some of chads quiz questions I got wrong and destroyer problems and went through those every day. I had everything down cold, so I'm not sure what I messed up. As I went through destroyer I would circle all the ones I got wrong or wasnt sure about, then went through those a million times. I think this section is doable for everyone.
Practice scores:
Datbootcamp: 25
ADA 2007: 28 too easy
PAT(23)- I studied my butt off for this one. did all CDP tests, did pretty well. Nothing pisses me off like doing angle ranking practice at 3 degrees. Oh wait, you know what pissed me off more? doing achiever practice tests. Those keyholes, man. I would look at them and be like, okay A looks good, so does B, and C, awww crap. Just do those practice tests and get your system down for each section. I skipped the keyholes on the DAT and did them last cuz they always take me the longest. Achiever is the best at training you to look at small details in keyholes. I would say go over those keyholes in achiever as many times as you can. I think all the other sections are pretty easy with the exception of angles. there were a couple angles on the DAT where I had to straight up guess between two answers. I find it best to first look at the angles instead of the answers and see if you can find the smallest and biggest on your own. then go to the answers and narrow it down from there. For hole punching I used a new method I started doing a few days ago that I think is the line of symmetry method but I never read about that one, so if its the same as that I don't wanna take the credit. I flew through this section cuz I just used the answers as the guide. It's hard to explain but just look at the first hole punches and do the first unfolding, then say ok theres a hole here and here and Id use one of the answers as a template, and if it didn't match I would move to the next unfolding and look at where the symmetry is. That's a terrible explanation, sorry. I'm not sure how to explain it but its probably that line of symmetry method. Ill tell more detail if ya'll want.
Practice Scores:
CDP- 22/25/22/23/28/24/26/28/28/28
Achiever: 21/22/22/21/22/21/23 ----- second round- 25/25 (probably cuz I had seen them before)
RC(18)- i suck at reading. Always have, always will. I will say that the questions were nowhere near as tricky as CDR questions. I used a horrible strategy of panic combined with SnD. I should have read through the passages and then tackled the questions. However, in that high-stress environment I have zero retention.
practice tests:
CDR- 17/19/17/19/20/21/20/19/23/20
QR(24)- I don't know how this happened. I guessed (educated guess) on like 6 questions cuz I ran out of time even though I trained so hard to not run out of time! I'd say this section is really similar to Math destroyer. I don't even remember what Destroyer QR was like, I did it so long ago. I watched some of chads videos too on QR, and put some of his quiz questions in Anki to practice. I also put a lot of Math destroyer problems in Anki and went through those. Towards the end, I did 2 math destroyer tests everyday, timed. in the beginning, the first few kicked my a** hardcore. especially tests 12 and 13. or maybe it was 11,12. If you've taken them, you know what I'm talking about. I think the best practice is doing timed tests. It sucks at first, but you get used to it. It also sucks going through all of the ones you got wrong. And make sure to go through all the ones you weren't sure about too. I would always put a tick mark next to the ones I was shaky on while I was testing so I could go back and review them. I went thru math destroyer a second time and did a lot better, which boosts your confidence. The calculator is fine btw. A little laggy, but nothing too bad. just make sure it registered your numbers. sometimes i'd click a number and it wouldn't register.
Practice Scores:
Math Destroyer(all timed): 19/18/22/14/19/16/18/21/21/23/19/15/15/20
Math Destroyer 2nd run: 24/22/30/26/22/29/30/25/26
By the way, for all of those practice scores I graded myself, I used that conversion chart from 2007 or whatever.
I think that's it for now, I know I forgot a lot. Oh yeah, I also listened to that TTC Biology of Life audiobooks while driving to school or walking around campus. Sorry if that was too long. On test day I would say make sure to keep your nerves calm. I had to keep telling myself that this was no big deal during the test cuz if I started to think about the importance of the test I would freak out. Just keep pushin that to the back of your mind and focus on the questions. If you guys have any questions let me know! I'm gonna go play some video games
PAT-23 96.2%
QR- 24 99.4%
RC- 18 52.2% (yeah i suck at reading, this was expected)
Bio- 24 99.6%
GC- 21 91.6%
OC-26 99.2%
TS- 23 99.3%
AA- 23 99.7%
My GPA is about 3.6 and my sGPA is about 3.6 too, if you were curious.
Materials Used:
Chad's videos/quizzes (Chad is the man!)
KBB
CDP
CDR
DAT Destroyer 2013
Math Destroyer 2013
DATqVault
DAT Bootcamp (Ari is the man!...also)
Khan Academy
Anki
Campbells Bio
Cliffs AP Bio
Barrons
Achiever 7 test version.
TTC Biology of Life audio lectures (I think that's what it is called)
I probably forgot some other stuff
I started studying a while ago off and on so this could be a really loooong breakdown, but didn't really go hardcore until about 2 months ago, so I'll only include the last few bits. I did about 10 hours a day for the first month and about 14 hours a day for the second month. I basically broke studying up into 2-3 hour increments everyday for those last 2 months. I would set a timer and study Bio for 2 hours, then GC, then OC, etc. until I was back
Bio(24)- I was really worried about this section because of all the people that say it is super random, and the breadth is huge. There is a lot to know but I think it is not as bad as everyone says. Like others have said, I'm pretty sure every question I had was in either Barrons or Cliffs. I even got lucky and had a question that someone had posted on the forums (I won't say which one, but it does involve the *blank* of something). The questions weren't as heavy on anatomy and physiology like qvault or DATbootcamp, but maybe that was just my test. Maybe one plant question.
I started Bio by reading Cliffs, taking a few qVault tests and doing practice questions so I could get an idea of what questions are like. I used Anki, made my own flashcards (like 1000ish) while going through Cliffs and Barrons and DAT destroyer. I gave up on anki and destroyer after a few weeks though because I didn't understand the concepts and was just memorizing word associations. The last month was much better. I had a binder of printed out graphs and charts for every section of biology like Cell bio, Diversity, Physiology etc. and went through those every day. The last week or so I read through Cliffs and Barrons entirely each day and drilled everything in my head. I had a pdf version of Barrons so I just highlighted topics I was weak in and went through those. I think this helped the most, just reading the entire book, 7 times in a row really drilled everything in my head, and going through my little review sheets with graphs and charts (like the phylum chart, or monocots dicots chart). I wanted to make sure and hit every part of biology every day. After each study session, I would take a qvault test, or some other test, and make note of my weakpoints and work on those the next day. Oh, and Dat destroyer bio sucks. I'm sorry, but don't even bother with this unless you already feel pretty comfortable with bio and want to find some weak points. I would always suggest reading a few chapters in Cliffs, over doing practice questions. Sorry, just my opinion
Bio practice scores:
DATBootcamp- 19/27/23/26/27
qVault- 19/21/20/25/22/22/21/27/23/22
Achiever-18/17...then i gave up. Too random,way harder than the DAT
GC(21): I suck at GC. Chad is the man. I watched his vids, took notes, did his quizzes. went through all his notes every day before I would work on something like DAT destroyer GC. Man, that destroyer kicked my a** the first time through. I went through it like 4 times though and by the last time I kicked the destroyer's a**. The day before the test I went through all of Chads quizzes and only missed like 3 I think. I thought I'd do better on this section, I had a few funky questions I wasn't sure on. All the calculations were set up though, so that was nice cuz I always messed up adding up Hess' Law stuff by hand. Anyway, dont listen to me, I didn't do that great in GC, I'm sure most of you out there are better than I am at it.
Practice scores:
Datbootcamp: 24
ADA 2007 28 (much easier)
OC(26)- Same as above. Chad, notes, quizzes, destroyer. I also made flashcards of the roadmaps in destroyer, anki flashcards of some of chads quiz questions I got wrong and destroyer problems and went through those every day. I had everything down cold, so I'm not sure what I messed up. As I went through destroyer I would circle all the ones I got wrong or wasnt sure about, then went through those a million times. I think this section is doable for everyone.
Practice scores:
Datbootcamp: 25
ADA 2007: 28 too easy
PAT(23)- I studied my butt off for this one. did all CDP tests, did pretty well. Nothing pisses me off like doing angle ranking practice at 3 degrees. Oh wait, you know what pissed me off more? doing achiever practice tests. Those keyholes, man. I would look at them and be like, okay A looks good, so does B, and C, awww crap. Just do those practice tests and get your system down for each section. I skipped the keyholes on the DAT and did them last cuz they always take me the longest. Achiever is the best at training you to look at small details in keyholes. I would say go over those keyholes in achiever as many times as you can. I think all the other sections are pretty easy with the exception of angles. there were a couple angles on the DAT where I had to straight up guess between two answers. I find it best to first look at the angles instead of the answers and see if you can find the smallest and biggest on your own. then go to the answers and narrow it down from there. For hole punching I used a new method I started doing a few days ago that I think is the line of symmetry method but I never read about that one, so if its the same as that I don't wanna take the credit. I flew through this section cuz I just used the answers as the guide. It's hard to explain but just look at the first hole punches and do the first unfolding, then say ok theres a hole here and here and Id use one of the answers as a template, and if it didn't match I would move to the next unfolding and look at where the symmetry is. That's a terrible explanation, sorry. I'm not sure how to explain it but its probably that line of symmetry method. Ill tell more detail if ya'll want.
Practice Scores:
CDP- 22/25/22/23/28/24/26/28/28/28
Achiever: 21/22/22/21/22/21/23 ----- second round- 25/25 (probably cuz I had seen them before)
RC(18)- i suck at reading. Always have, always will. I will say that the questions were nowhere near as tricky as CDR questions. I used a horrible strategy of panic combined with SnD. I should have read through the passages and then tackled the questions. However, in that high-stress environment I have zero retention.
practice tests:
CDR- 17/19/17/19/20/21/20/19/23/20
QR(24)- I don't know how this happened. I guessed (educated guess) on like 6 questions cuz I ran out of time even though I trained so hard to not run out of time! I'd say this section is really similar to Math destroyer. I don't even remember what Destroyer QR was like, I did it so long ago. I watched some of chads videos too on QR, and put some of his quiz questions in Anki to practice. I also put a lot of Math destroyer problems in Anki and went through those. Towards the end, I did 2 math destroyer tests everyday, timed. in the beginning, the first few kicked my a** hardcore. especially tests 12 and 13. or maybe it was 11,12. If you've taken them, you know what I'm talking about. I think the best practice is doing timed tests. It sucks at first, but you get used to it. It also sucks going through all of the ones you got wrong. And make sure to go through all the ones you weren't sure about too. I would always put a tick mark next to the ones I was shaky on while I was testing so I could go back and review them. I went thru math destroyer a second time and did a lot better, which boosts your confidence. The calculator is fine btw. A little laggy, but nothing too bad. just make sure it registered your numbers. sometimes i'd click a number and it wouldn't register.
Practice Scores:
Math Destroyer(all timed): 19/18/22/14/19/16/18/21/21/23/19/15/15/20
Math Destroyer 2nd run: 24/22/30/26/22/29/30/25/26
By the way, for all of those practice scores I graded myself, I used that conversion chart from 2007 or whatever.
I think that's it for now, I know I forgot a lot. Oh yeah, I also listened to that TTC Biology of Life audiobooks while driving to school or walking around campus. Sorry if that was too long. On test day I would say make sure to keep your nerves calm. I had to keep telling myself that this was no big deal during the test cuz if I started to think about the importance of the test I would freak out. Just keep pushin that to the back of your mind and focus on the questions. If you guys have any questions let me know! I'm gonna go play some video games
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