DAT Breakdown (9/20/12)

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Husky31

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This is my breakdown for the DAT that I took last Thursday. I’ve been gleaning information from everyone on here for the last 5 weeks. Thanks to all who have posted their scores and advice. I was inspired to study harder and smarter by the awesome scores and detailed breakdowns that were posted. I took my test last Thursday and was very happy with my scores.

PAT 23
QR 20
RC 25
Bio 24
GC 28
OC 23
TS 25
AA 24

Background

I am a Biology major going into my senior year at the University of Washingtion and plan to apply for the next cycle. I am 31 and married with two toddlers at home :). I spent 5 weeks between Summer and Fall Quarters studying for the test. For the first couple weeks I studied about 5 hrs a day and for the last few it was around 8 hrs day. I don’t have a lot of volunteer or shadowing experience yet so I won’t be applying this cycle and am planning for a gap year.

Study Resources Used: Kaplan’s Blue Book, CDP, Top Score, Achiever, Qvault (Bio only), Destroyer, Math Destroyer, and 2009 ADA Practice Test(online).

In general I think all of these study materials were worth the money but I would take the scores on the practice tests with a grain of salt. Also, Achiever is much harder than the real thing as many people have already said. I think it is good practice for the PAT but some of the tests can really take the wind out of your sails. I got a 15 for RC for the 3rd test and decided not to do anymore!

Practice Test Scores

Topscore
#1 Bio 17 GC 23 OC 19 QR 20
#2 Bio 18 GC 18 OC 19 QR 18
#3 Bio 18 GC 19 OC 18 QR 24

Achiever
#1 PAT 19 Bio 18 GC 16 OC 19 RC 17
#2 PAT 21 Bio 17 GC 15 OC 17 RC 18
#3 PAT 18 RC 15
#4 PAT 18

Qvault (Bio only) #1-10
21/18/20/22/20/21/20/22/18/18

CDP #1-10 (took on my 11” Macbook Air which sucked for the angle ranking section)

19/19/19/21/22/21/21/21/21/25

ADA 2009 Practice Test (online)
TS 89/100 PAT 82/90 RC 40/50 QR 29/40 (not sure about scaling on these)



The DAT

Bio: I had about six questions marked in total when I finished this section. I think KBB, Qvault, and Destroyer are all good investments for this section. I went through KBB once and only 300 or so of the bio questions in Destroyer. There is a lot of information in the Destroyer if you study the wrong answers as well as the right ones.

GC: I had 2 questions marked in this section. Had a few calculations that weren’t set up in the answer but nothing too difficult. I did less than half the questions in Destroyer because it was taking me too long. KBB was a good resource for a review but doesn’t give you any practice working through problems.

OC: Probably spent the least time studying for this section. Did well in my OC classes so I didn’t put a lot of emphasis on it. Didn’t even get through the KBB section for it. I did memorize the Destroyer road maps, which were very helpful, and went through about half the questions in the book.

PAT: CDP and Achiever are great resources to use. I liked using both because after awhile you can get used to the types of figures/answers each program uses. The real PAT was somewhere between the two. I used a tic-tac-toe grid for the hole punching and tallied up the sides for the cube counting section. Also, it wasn’t until half way through my studying that I realized, for the pattern folding section, you can only fold the pattern one way- down. The pattern is outside of the figure. Everyone else probably figured this out a long time ago but it was a real revelation for me after arguing with the computer that my answer was right ☺

RC: I am a slow . . . well let’s just say “detailed oriented” reader and was dreading this section the most. The passages were much easier than Achiever and not so crammed with scientific terms. The questions were all reasonable including the couple of inference ones that I had. I didn’t have any tone questions which was nice but did have a few 2 statement questions where they ask if one or both are true/false. I think the best strategy for this section is to have a plan that works for you. Doing practice passages I realized that pure S&D wouldn’t work for me and that I needed to read the passages to make sense of everything. I ended up looking at the first 3-4 questions and then reading. I answered questions as I came upon them, always reading 3-4 questions ahead and skipping ones I couldn’t find till the end.

QR: I had 2 combination problems that I guessed on for lack of time and 3 trig problems that I didn’t know. Also had a log problem that I didn’t know. It would have benefited me to have spent an extra 30 minutes doing an in depth review of log properties. It seemed like everything else was basic algebra, conversions (ie Celcius to Farenheit), work/time problems, coin toss probability, area, etc. I did get a question on Standard Deviation, which I got right thanks to the equations/problems in Math Destroyer. Time management is key for this section especially since mental fatigue starts to set in by the time it rolls around. I skipped problems that I didn’t know or knew would take me some time. This way I made sure to get to any of the easier ones at the end of the test before going back to work on the harder ones. Its almost common sense but it can be easy to get caught up on hard questions and waste valuable time (I did it on some of my practice tests).

Final Thoughts

I would recommend coming up with test taking strategy based on your strengths. The day before the test I wrote down my test strategy and looked it over before the test. I think it was an important part of making me feel somewhat in control and able to keep my focus. Most of my strategy involved time management. It looked something like this:

-Don’t get bogged down on any one problem.
-Skip long calculation problems in GC, go back to them at the end.
-Skip hard Keyhole/TFE questions (my weakest sections) to ensure I get through the easier sections.
-Read a few questions ahead in RC, then read the passage. Answer questions as you come upon them.
-Skip unknown or time-consuming calculation problems in QR, go back to them at the end.

Good luck to those prepping for the DAT!

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Epic scores. Really nice job. Congrats.

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Inspiring. If a student with a family at home can achieve amazing scores, so can we all! Good luck with interviews.
 
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