Hey everyone, I've been around for a couple months and I don't post much but I've read so many breakdowns and other conversations on here and those have helped me so much. I wouldn't have known what to study and what materials to get without everyone's help, so thank you guys! So I took my DAT earlier today and I'm really happy with my scores. I don't want it to seem like I'm bragging, I just want to help everyone as much as I was helped by the posts on here.
I studied for a little under 3 months (2.5ish if you don't count the time wasted on Barron's.. see below), did only 4-5 hours/day of studying at the beginning but starting mid July I did about 8-9 hours/day. Starting in early June until the first week of August I was learning and doing practice problems. Then I did DAT Bootcamp and the ADA practice tests about every other day leading up to my test.
Bio - 25
GC - 27
Orgo - 20
PAT - 23
QR - 27
RC - 26
TS - 23
AA - 25
General materials I used:
Barron's DAT - DO NOT USE THIS. IT WILL BE A WASTE OF YOUR TIME. I WASTED THREE WEEKS ON THIS because I thought that it would give me a good foundation, but Cliffs AP Bio has everything in Barron's + 200% more, and every other section in it was ridiculously simplified
DAT Destroyer - Went through each section once, took notes on every answer choice of every question and made study guides of the random facts/stuff I didn't know. My bio destroyer notes ended up being 10 pages single spaced, and GC and orgo were about 2-3 pages each.
DAT Bootcamp - Everyone talks about how DAT Bootcamp is the best investment of your money and IT'S TRUE. The sections are all AT LEAST on par with the actual DAT, but most of them are a little harder. Using bootcamp to take timed practice tests honestly was the best thing that I did. During my practice tests I would get so tired by the end, but on the actual test I was completely fine. Compared to my practice tests when I used to use the full time for every section, I finished 15 minutes early for SNS, 10 minutes early for PAT, 10 minutes early for RC, and used the full time for QR (and I took my time in each section, I didn't just fly through them). In addition to helping with my stamina, their questions and explanations were extremely helpful.
Chad's Videos - Again, everyone talks about how Chad's videos are the best for GC and orgo and it's true. He teaches everything in such an easy to learn way and simplifies everything so that even if a topic is brand new (like orgo lab concepts for me), it's easy to learn. The quiz questions were pretty on par with the difficulty level. Definitely worth the time and money I spent on this.
Bio - 25
I'm going into my junior year and I'm a bio major, but I haven't taken a gen bio class since my junior year of high school, so bio was the section that I studied for the most. Honestly, I didn't feel completely ready going into the test, I think it just happened that I didn't get any "random" questions so my studying covered pretty much all of it. First I used the Barron's DAT book (see above), then Cliffs AP Bio and DAT Destroyer together, then qVault for practice questions and lastly bootcamp
Cliff's AP Bio - yeah its hard to read it, but I took notes on almost everything in the book and ended up with a 37 page word document, my own little version of Feralis' notes. The notes I made ended up being my primary study material for bio. This book has almost everything you'd need to know for bio
DAT qVault Bio - I learned SOO much from the 10 tests in qVault and it really helped add to my bio knowledge. Their explanations are great and go beyond just why the answer is right, it explains why the other choices are wrong and also adds other relevant info.
Practice test scores were: 20/21/18/20/19/20/19/20/20/20
GC - 27
All I used for GC was Chad's videos and Destroyer. There weren't really any surprises on the actual DAT, most just standard chem questions. I don't think you'd need anything else, destroyer doesn't add a ton of new info but it helps with practicing concepts
Orgo - 20
I'm actually REALLY disappointed with this score. My school's organic chemistry course is really difficult and I did well (I'm going to be an undergrad version of a TA this year for it) so I figured that I wouldn't really need to study much. There weren't really any tricky questions so I guess I just messed up on some things, I guess that's what I get for being overconfident about it. I don't think anything other than Chad's and Destroyer are really necessary for learning/practicing for this section
PAT - 23
DAT BOOTCAMP. LEARN IT. PRACTICE IT. MASTER IT. I started off using Crack DAT PAT and I thought it was pretty hard but I got good at it. Then I started using Bootcamp and I thought I was going to get a 15. I used the generators a lot before I actually took the practice tests because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. Bootcamp is such great preparation for the PAT section because all of the sections are harder than the real thing (but are GREAT practice) so timing became a non-issue. Tests 6-10 are harder than 1-5, but definitely helped solidify everything for me. I'd say the real DAT was a little easier than tests 1-5 though
CDP scores: 22/22/22/22/26/23/21/22/21/23
QR - 27
I honestly have no idea where this came from, I didn't study for this section much even though I'd heard that it's pretty hard. IT IS. For some of the questions all I could think was WTF IS THIS. I think I just guessed correctly on the ones that I didn't know (there were like 5-7 of them). I used Chad's videos, which were pretty helpful for the probability and permutation/combination things, and the QR section of the Destroyer (not Math Destroyer), which was good for practice problems.
RC - 26
After doing the Bootcamp reading sections, I was expecting so much worse. I didn't do badly on bootcamp, but I guessed correctly on a lot of the questions so I was worried if that would carry over. The articles I had were actually pretty interesting and unlike bootcamp, so many of the questions were straight factual (but again, the harder questions helped with timing and such). I had my own method of doing RC, I would try and find the answer to the question but also read the article at the same time so that by the time I did 4-6 questions, I would have basically read the entire article. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but the questions on the DAT seemed to be in order of the article so that was convenient
Practice test scores
Bio - Chem - Orgo - PAT - RC - QR
DAT Bootcamp (taken as timed practice tests with the 15 minute break):
23 - 23 - 19 - 22 - 20 - 23
25 - 24 - 24 - 20 - 20 - 22 (using PAT 8)
22 - 26 - 21 - 20 - 23 - 22 (using PAT 9)
23 - 22 - 26 - 22 - 25 - 20
20 - 21 - 23 - 20 - 22 - 18 (using PAT 10)
-Note: Since I knew that PAT 6-10 were harder, I tried to used those in my timed practice tests.
Bootcamp PAT 2 - 21, PAT 3 - 22, PAT 5 - 20, PAT 6 - 20, PAT 7 - 20
ADA 2007
20 - 25 - 30 - 22 - 19 - 24
ADA 2009
21 - 23 - 23 - 23 - 21 - 22
DAT 8/22/14
25 - 27 - 20 - 23 - 26 - 27 || TS 23, AA 25
Well, that's pretty much it. Sorry this is so long! I just wanted to say everything I could think of that might help others. Thanks again for all of the advice that I've gotten from reading other people's posts! Feel free to ask any questions!
I studied for a little under 3 months (2.5ish if you don't count the time wasted on Barron's.. see below), did only 4-5 hours/day of studying at the beginning but starting mid July I did about 8-9 hours/day. Starting in early June until the first week of August I was learning and doing practice problems. Then I did DAT Bootcamp and the ADA practice tests about every other day leading up to my test.
Bio - 25
GC - 27
Orgo - 20
PAT - 23
QR - 27
RC - 26
TS - 23
AA - 25
General materials I used:
Barron's DAT - DO NOT USE THIS. IT WILL BE A WASTE OF YOUR TIME. I WASTED THREE WEEKS ON THIS because I thought that it would give me a good foundation, but Cliffs AP Bio has everything in Barron's + 200% more, and every other section in it was ridiculously simplified
DAT Destroyer - Went through each section once, took notes on every answer choice of every question and made study guides of the random facts/stuff I didn't know. My bio destroyer notes ended up being 10 pages single spaced, and GC and orgo were about 2-3 pages each.
DAT Bootcamp - Everyone talks about how DAT Bootcamp is the best investment of your money and IT'S TRUE. The sections are all AT LEAST on par with the actual DAT, but most of them are a little harder. Using bootcamp to take timed practice tests honestly was the best thing that I did. During my practice tests I would get so tired by the end, but on the actual test I was completely fine. Compared to my practice tests when I used to use the full time for every section, I finished 15 minutes early for SNS, 10 minutes early for PAT, 10 minutes early for RC, and used the full time for QR (and I took my time in each section, I didn't just fly through them). In addition to helping with my stamina, their questions and explanations were extremely helpful.
Chad's Videos - Again, everyone talks about how Chad's videos are the best for GC and orgo and it's true. He teaches everything in such an easy to learn way and simplifies everything so that even if a topic is brand new (like orgo lab concepts for me), it's easy to learn. The quiz questions were pretty on par with the difficulty level. Definitely worth the time and money I spent on this.
Bio - 25
I'm going into my junior year and I'm a bio major, but I haven't taken a gen bio class since my junior year of high school, so bio was the section that I studied for the most. Honestly, I didn't feel completely ready going into the test, I think it just happened that I didn't get any "random" questions so my studying covered pretty much all of it. First I used the Barron's DAT book (see above), then Cliffs AP Bio and DAT Destroyer together, then qVault for practice questions and lastly bootcamp
Cliff's AP Bio - yeah its hard to read it, but I took notes on almost everything in the book and ended up with a 37 page word document, my own little version of Feralis' notes. The notes I made ended up being my primary study material for bio. This book has almost everything you'd need to know for bio
DAT qVault Bio - I learned SOO much from the 10 tests in qVault and it really helped add to my bio knowledge. Their explanations are great and go beyond just why the answer is right, it explains why the other choices are wrong and also adds other relevant info.
Practice test scores were: 20/21/18/20/19/20/19/20/20/20
GC - 27
All I used for GC was Chad's videos and Destroyer. There weren't really any surprises on the actual DAT, most just standard chem questions. I don't think you'd need anything else, destroyer doesn't add a ton of new info but it helps with practicing concepts
Orgo - 20
I'm actually REALLY disappointed with this score. My school's organic chemistry course is really difficult and I did well (I'm going to be an undergrad version of a TA this year for it) so I figured that I wouldn't really need to study much. There weren't really any tricky questions so I guess I just messed up on some things, I guess that's what I get for being overconfident about it. I don't think anything other than Chad's and Destroyer are really necessary for learning/practicing for this section
PAT - 23
DAT BOOTCAMP. LEARN IT. PRACTICE IT. MASTER IT. I started off using Crack DAT PAT and I thought it was pretty hard but I got good at it. Then I started using Bootcamp and I thought I was going to get a 15. I used the generators a lot before I actually took the practice tests because I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. Bootcamp is such great preparation for the PAT section because all of the sections are harder than the real thing (but are GREAT practice) so timing became a non-issue. Tests 6-10 are harder than 1-5, but definitely helped solidify everything for me. I'd say the real DAT was a little easier than tests 1-5 though
CDP scores: 22/22/22/22/26/23/21/22/21/23
QR - 27
I honestly have no idea where this came from, I didn't study for this section much even though I'd heard that it's pretty hard. IT IS. For some of the questions all I could think was WTF IS THIS. I think I just guessed correctly on the ones that I didn't know (there were like 5-7 of them). I used Chad's videos, which were pretty helpful for the probability and permutation/combination things, and the QR section of the Destroyer (not Math Destroyer), which was good for practice problems.
RC - 26
After doing the Bootcamp reading sections, I was expecting so much worse. I didn't do badly on bootcamp, but I guessed correctly on a lot of the questions so I was worried if that would carry over. The articles I had were actually pretty interesting and unlike bootcamp, so many of the questions were straight factual (but again, the harder questions helped with timing and such). I had my own method of doing RC, I would try and find the answer to the question but also read the article at the same time so that by the time I did 4-6 questions, I would have basically read the entire article. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but the questions on the DAT seemed to be in order of the article so that was convenient
Practice test scores
Bio - Chem - Orgo - PAT - RC - QR
DAT Bootcamp (taken as timed practice tests with the 15 minute break):
23 - 23 - 19 - 22 - 20 - 23
25 - 24 - 24 - 20 - 20 - 22 (using PAT 8)
22 - 26 - 21 - 20 - 23 - 22 (using PAT 9)
23 - 22 - 26 - 22 - 25 - 20
20 - 21 - 23 - 20 - 22 - 18 (using PAT 10)
-Note: Since I knew that PAT 6-10 were harder, I tried to used those in my timed practice tests.
Bootcamp PAT 2 - 21, PAT 3 - 22, PAT 5 - 20, PAT 6 - 20, PAT 7 - 20
ADA 2007
20 - 25 - 30 - 22 - 19 - 24
ADA 2009
21 - 23 - 23 - 23 - 21 - 22
DAT 8/22/14
25 - 27 - 20 - 23 - 26 - 27 || TS 23, AA 25
Well, that's pretty much it. Sorry this is so long! I just wanted to say everything I could think of that might help others. Thanks again for all of the advice that I've gotten from reading other people's posts! Feel free to ask any questions!
