- Joined
- May 5, 2011
- Messages
- 62
- Reaction score
- 0
First of all I would like to thank everyone in DAT forum for extra inspirations and distractions I often browsed forum when I wanted some sort of distraction. 
I say it was more of a self motivating/educating distraction.
So I studied about 2 months and a half with full time tutoring w/ middle school/high school students with math/AP bio/SAT II chem. I was able to review my gen chem material over and over again while I was tutoring 3 SAT II chem/AP chem students with confidence so I was pretty much expecting perfect score in gen chem at least but it did not happen
Resources that I used: KBB, Barrons, DatQvault, Achiever, Topscore, DAT Destroyer, Cliffs AP, Campbell, Voldhardt's Organic chem textbook, Zumdahl AP chem textbook,
Here are my scores
PAT: 23
Quantitative Reasoning: 30
Reading Comprehension: 19 ( )
Biology: 21
General Chemistry: 24
Organic Chemistry: 27
Total Science: 23
Academic Average: 24 (99.6%)
PAT
I only practiced some degrees with Kaplan blue book, achiever and topscore. Real DAT was much harder than topscore in terms of pattern folding, aperture, and angle ranking. Maybe I should have bought CDP and practiced it everyday but instead I invested 80% of my studying time on biology section.
Keyhole: They emphasized more on depths and size rather than distinguishing shapes and details of aperture. I am pretty sure I missed couple on those few undistinguishable keyholes.
TFE: Little bit harder than topscore but easier than achiever
Angle Ranking: Some problems were difficult (2-3 degree difference)
Pattern Folding: They definitely were making some sort of paper airplanes with weird folds. I have seen at least 4-5 questions that were folded in ugly UGLY UGLY shape. Try to practice with CDP material and try couple weird folds by yourself.
Cube Counting: Same as always
3D folding (I don't even know what this is called): Some were pretty difficult to fold them up properly on my head. I thought it was harder than topscore.
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Quantitative Reasoning
All I prepared for this section was memorizing unit conversions. Pounds to ounce, miles to feet, ounce to quart quart to gallon etc.
I didn't really buy math destroyer I just practiced with destroyer book once. I didn't miss a single problem on there so I thought I would be fine w/ quantitative reasoning.
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Reading Comprehension
I got passages about antibiotics, herbs, and bone injury. There were so many inference/tone questions for antibiotics and bone passage. I wasted so much time on antibiotics passage trying to find answers for couple inference question that I only had 18minutes with my 3rd paragraph. I guess time management is important factor here for poor readers like me
I only did practice test with kaplan/barrons/topscore/achiever
I was getting 21/22s in KBB and topscore so I thought I would be fine but folks don't use search and destroy. It is no longer a valid method.
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Biology
I went through whole campbell book twice. Destroyer, Cliffs, DatQvault, and I made every single flash cards in campbell appendix that seemed unfamiliar to me. 10 benchmark exams on datQvault didn't really help much in real test. Well I have been constantly getting 20,21s in benchmark, achiever, and topscore but some of the questions were totally random. One detailed questions from destroyer came out (not word by word but related) and some random questions about immunoglobins, estrogen receptors, some random weird ecology questions were ticking me off. I say 85% of them are straightforward but you'll see 15% of random questions. I regret trying to memorize details for bone structures, receptors, every single details from campbell. It just didn't work out for me for the bio section that I took
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Chemistry
Zumdahl's chemistry book, Destroyer, Achiever, Topscore, SAT II chemistry book.
There were many conceptual questions and lab questions with couple hendersen hasselbach Eq, equilibrium calculations. I don't know what I missed.
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Organic Chemistry
Volhardt Organic Chem book, Chad, Destroyer, Achiever, Topscore, KBB, Barrons
There were numbers of NMR/IR/Lab questions. I think I got like 6-7 of them so make sure to study them!
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I am so glad that I'm done with my two and a half months journey of studying. I really enjoyed it and it will definitely one of my unforgettable event in my life.
I say it was more of a self motivating/educating distraction.So I studied about 2 months and a half with full time tutoring w/ middle school/high school students with math/AP bio/SAT II chem. I was able to review my gen chem material over and over again while I was tutoring 3 SAT II chem/AP chem students with confidence so I was pretty much expecting perfect score in gen chem at least but it did not happen
Resources that I used: KBB, Barrons, DatQvault, Achiever, Topscore, DAT Destroyer, Cliffs AP, Campbell, Voldhardt's Organic chem textbook, Zumdahl AP chem textbook,
Here are my scores
PAT: 23
Quantitative Reasoning: 30
Reading Comprehension: 19 (
)Biology: 21
General Chemistry: 24
Organic Chemistry: 27
Total Science: 23
Academic Average: 24 (99.6%)
PAT
I only practiced some degrees with Kaplan blue book, achiever and topscore. Real DAT was much harder than topscore in terms of pattern folding, aperture, and angle ranking. Maybe I should have bought CDP and practiced it everyday but instead I invested 80% of my studying time on biology section.
Keyhole: They emphasized more on depths and size rather than distinguishing shapes and details of aperture. I am pretty sure I missed couple on those few undistinguishable keyholes.
TFE: Little bit harder than topscore but easier than achiever
Angle Ranking: Some problems were difficult (2-3 degree difference)
Pattern Folding: They definitely were making some sort of paper airplanes with weird folds. I have seen at least 4-5 questions that were folded in ugly UGLY UGLY shape. Try to practice with CDP material and try couple weird folds by yourself.
Cube Counting: Same as always
3D folding (I don't even know what this is called): Some were pretty difficult to fold them up properly on my head. I thought it was harder than topscore.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quantitative Reasoning
All I prepared for this section was memorizing unit conversions. Pounds to ounce, miles to feet, ounce to quart quart to gallon etc.
I didn't really buy math destroyer I just practiced with destroyer book once. I didn't miss a single problem on there so I thought I would be fine w/ quantitative reasoning.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reading Comprehension
I got passages about antibiotics, herbs, and bone injury. There were so many inference/tone questions for antibiotics and bone passage. I wasted so much time on antibiotics passage trying to find answers for couple inference question that I only had 18minutes with my 3rd paragraph. I guess time management is important factor here for poor readers like me
I only did practice test with kaplan/barrons/topscore/achiever
I was getting 21/22s in KBB and topscore so I thought I would be fine but folks don't use search and destroy. It is no longer a valid method.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Biology
I went through whole campbell book twice. Destroyer, Cliffs, DatQvault, and I made every single flash cards in campbell appendix that seemed unfamiliar to me. 10 benchmark exams on datQvault didn't really help much in real test. Well I have been constantly getting 20,21s in benchmark, achiever, and topscore but some of the questions were totally random. One detailed questions from destroyer came out (not word by word but related) and some random questions about immunoglobins, estrogen receptors, some random weird ecology questions were ticking me off. I say 85% of them are straightforward but you'll see 15% of random questions. I regret trying to memorize details for bone structures, receptors, every single details from campbell. It just didn't work out for me for the bio section that I took
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chemistry
Zumdahl's chemistry book, Destroyer, Achiever, Topscore, SAT II chemistry book.
There were many conceptual questions and lab questions with couple hendersen hasselbach Eq, equilibrium calculations. I don't know what I missed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Organic Chemistry
Volhardt Organic Chem book, Chad, Destroyer, Achiever, Topscore, KBB, Barrons
There were numbers of NMR/IR/Lab questions. I think I got like 6-7 of them so make sure to study them!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am so glad that I'm done with my two and a half months journey of studying. I really enjoyed it and it will definitely one of my unforgettable event in my life.
