DAT Breakdown 9/8/16 (w/ practice scores)

[Alemmy]

Took the DAT today! I looked at so many other peoples posts to get an idea where I stood before I took it so I figured it might be helpful to other people. I would say I'm a pretty average pre-dental student. I studied for 10 weeks 5-8 hours a day 5-6 times a week. I took some days off sporadically towards the last five weeks when I felt I was potentially going insane. I followed Ari's study guide for the first five weeks completely @Ari Rezaei . The last five weeks I decided I wanted to go through the destroyer one extra time through and I started to cater it more to my individual needs but his study guide was very helpful. My practice scores are not arranged in a nice organized table sorry! But if you look at them I scored much better on the real DAT than on any of the practice tests I took.

Real Dat Scores

Biology: 22
General Chemistry: 23
Organic Chemistry: 23
Reading Comprehension: 19
Quantitative Reasoning: 16 (will this hurt my chances? )
PAT: 20
AA: 21
Total Science: 22

**I know a lot of people on here are geniuses and get 24AA but I'm pretty happy with my scores. I honestly couldn't have crammed any more information in my head. Is my QR score going to hurt me though? **

Study Materials

DAT Destroyer!!: This helped me immensely. I did the biology section 1 time through and made notes that categorized everything. I also did the chemistry and orgo sections 3 times through and circled everything I didn't get right the third time and made flash cards for all of them. This book is honestly a must if you want to get higher than a 20 on the science sections. I could recall various questions in the biology section from the destroyer! @orgoman22 thank you!!

Chads Videos: I watched orgo and chem 1 1/2 times through. I watched them the first time through over the course of four weeks and followed Ari's study guide. I started watching them again 2 weeks before my exam and spent 2 1/2 days watching 10 hours of gen chem and 10 hours of orgo. I think I should have probably made sure I knew the material before moving onto the Destroyer so soon but I learn better through practicing problems. If I was to redo it I would watch the videos and REVIEW when I don't know something. I didn't review the basic concepts from Chads until two weeks before I took it and I found that the Destroyer problems made a lot more sense after rewatching the videos (duh).

Math Destroyer: This is a great resource! You may not think so if you look at my QR but I forfeited my QR grade because I don't like math and wanted to focus more on the sciences. On the test, there were a lot of problems similar to the math destroyer. I just didn't practice it enough and didn't look at it before my exam. I did 7 practice tests over the 10/11 week time period and only ever took one actual QR test before my exam through topscore. Not really surprised by my score. I don't think I could have done as well on sciences if I did lots of QR though.

Kaplan FlashCards: I used them but I don't know how helpful they actually were. One biology question was directly from the flashcards though and it definitely helped me practice the material. This is also the only thing I used from Kaplan other than the full length tests.

Bootcamp: This is a must for PAT!! It was also extremely helpful for Bio/Orgo/Chem so I highly recommend it. I only took 4 Bootcamp exams for PAT (I know I should have done all 10) and I got 18's every time so I was very nervous but it really prepares you. I regret not doing all 10.

**Note about RC** I did not study for this at all. I feel like you can read and interpret passages only to a certain extent and it makes more sense to focus time and effort to sciences which dental schools focus on more. I know people who practiced this a good amount and did poorly on the section anyways so if you speak fluent English its probably not worth your time studying. I did however read other peoples strategies and utilized them during the test. During the test, I spent too long on the first passage and freaked out. I then used search and destroyer for the following two. As I was going through and finding the answers, I would look back and correct answers I guessed on/couldn't find. By the end of the passage, I had pretty much all the questions corrected and felt decently confident about them. I think the first passage messed me up on this section so practice timing if anything.

Practice Scores

I am unsure of the exact dates I took these but I'm going to organize them the best I can placing the tests I took at the beginning of the 10 weeks to the exams I took closer to my exam date.

1. Kaplan Diagnostic yikes (had not studied at all)
AA:16 Bio:14 Chem:17 Orgo:12 TS:14 RC:21 PAT:13 QR:16

2. Kaplan 1st Full Length (studied for two weeks; also note my PAT portion messed up and it left 30 questions blank so a 14 isn't really an accurate portrayal)
AA:16 Bio:17 Chem:16 Orgo:14 TS:16 RC:18 PAT:14 QR:13

2nd FL: Bio:17 Chem:19 Orgo:18
3rd FL: Bio:19 Chem:23 Orgo:19

3. Five DAT Bootcamp Biology Tests (studied for 5/6 weeks)
Biology: 19/23/19/18/23

4. Five DAT Bootcamp Chemistry Tests (studied for 5/6 weeks)
Gen Chem: 16/17/20/17/19
Second Time: 25/24

5. Five DAT Bootcamp Orgo Tests (studied for 5/6 weeks)
Orgo: 17/18/19/24/20
Second Time: 27/29

6. Kaplan Practice Exams (7/8 weeks of studying maybe?)
Gen Chem: 17/21/19
Biology: 22/18/18
Orgo: 19/23/16

7. TopScore (4 days before test; these are the only sections I did)
1st one: Bio:19 Chem:18 Orgo:23 TS:14 QR:19
2nd one: Gen Chem: 19 Orgo:25

8. 2009 ADA! (3 days before)
Bio:24 Chem:18 Orgo:19 PAT:21

SPENT THE NEXT TWO DAYS REVIEWING EVERYTHING I CONSISTENTLY MISSED.
I continuously made the same errors on chem and orgo so I reviewed the stuff I circled in DAT Destroyer and focused on those items. This is probably why my chem and orgo score increased significantly. I made dumb mistakes on the 2009 test that I should've gotten correct. Hope this is helpful to someone. Sorry its not very organized!

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[averageasian]

Great job! you killed it! and a 21 AA with a 16 QR factored in? unreal. I think you killed the main sections and i hear the qr section is the least important score to Adcoms but i guess that depends on the school. your TS is impressive and i think thats what matters most. even if you decide to do a retake, all you really have to do is shore up your math and review the other sections. this is something i would ask @orgoman22

 

[Charles_Darwin]

Good job!!! @nateriver is the perfect example of this, but a low QR score usually won't mean too much in your app. At least, not enough to warrant a retake (unless you don't get any interviews)

 

[LuckBloodandSweat]

Nah you did great in all the main sections as other people said. QR isn't a big deal from what I've heard.

 

[Ari Rezaei]

Awesome scores, congratulations! A 21AA is still a very difficult score to achieve despite what you read on SDN, so you should be very proud! I'm copy/pasting this from another thread, there are a lot of people who do well on the DAT except for QR, I think it'll help you out too (tl;dr: don't worry about it, you did great!)

I wouldn't think too much about your QR score unless a dental school explicitly tells you to retake the DAT for it. As a matter of fact, I remember Alan from Coursesaver interviewed UoP about dental school admissions and asked how they look at low QR scores, and as long as everything else looks good it won't cause a problem, relevant video: https://www.coursesaver.com/video/watch/failure-best-areas-of-success/uop-admissions-interview

 

[DAT Destroyer]

Took the DAT today! I looked at so many other peoples posts to get an idea where I stood before I took it so I figured it might be helpful to other people. I would say I'm a pretty average pre-dental student. I studied for 10 weeks 5-8 hours a day 5-6 times a week. I took some days off sporadically towards the last five weeks when I felt I was potentially going insane. I followed Ari's study guide for the first five weeks completely @Ari Rezaei . The last five weeks I decided I wanted to go through the destroyer one extra time through and I started to cater it more to my individual needs but his study guide was very helpful. My practice scores are not arranged in a nice organized table sorry! But if you look at them I scored much better on the real DAT than on any of the practice tests I took.

Real Dat Scores

Biology: 22
General Chemistry: 23
Organic Chemistry: 23
Reading Comprehension: 19
Quantitative Reasoning: 16 (will this hurt my chances? )
PAT: 20
AA: 21
Total Science: 22

**I know a lot of people on here are geniuses and get 24AA but I'm pretty happy with my scores. I honestly couldn't have crammed any more information in my head. Is my QR score going to hurt me though? **

Study Materials

DAT Destroyer!!: This helped me immensely. I did the biology section 1 time through and made notes that categorized everything. I also did the chemistry and orgo sections 3 times through and circled everything I didn't get right the third time and made flash cards for all of them. This book is honestly a must if you want to get higher than a 20 on the science sections. I could recall various questions in the biology section from the destroyer! @orgoman22 thank you!!

Chads Videos: I watched orgo and chem 1 1/2 times through. I watched them the first time through over the course of four weeks and followed Ari's study guide. I started watching them again 2 weeks before my exam and spent 2 1/2 days watching 10 hours of gen chem and 10 hours of orgo. I think I should have probably made sure I knew the material before moving onto the Destroyer so soon but I learn better through practicing problems. If I was to redo it I would watch the videos and REVIEW when I don't know something. I didn't review the basic concepts from Chads until two weeks before I took it and I found that the Destroyer problems made a lot more sense after rewatching the videos (duh).

Math Destroyer: This is a great resource! You may not think so if you look at my QR but I forfeited my QR grade because I don't like math and wanted to focus more on the sciences. On the test, there were a lot of problems similar to the math destroyer. I just didn't practice it enough and didn't look at it before my exam. I did 7 practice tests over the 10/11 week time period and only ever took one actual QR test before my exam through topscore. Not really surprised by my score. I don't think I could have done as well on sciences if I did lots of QR though.

Kaplan FlashCards: I used them but I don't know how helpful they actually were. One biology question was directly from the flashcards though and it definitely helped me practice the material. This is also the only thing I used from Kaplan other than the full length tests.

Bootcamp: This is a must for PAT!! It was also extremely helpful for Bio/Orgo/Chem so I highly recommend it. I only took 4 Bootcamp exams for PAT (I know I should have done all 10) and I got 18's every time so I was very nervous but it really prepares you. I regret not doing all 10.

**Note about RC** I did not study for this at all. I feel like you can read and interpret passages only to a certain extent and it makes more sense to focus time and effort to sciences which dental schools focus on more. I know people who practiced this a good amount and did poorly on the section anyways so if you speak fluent English its probably not worth your time studying. I did however read other peoples strategies and utilized them during the test. During the test, I spent too long on the first passage and freaked out. I then used search and destroyer for the following two. As I was going through and finding the answers, I would look back and correct answers I guessed on/couldn't find. By the end of the passage, I had pretty much all the questions corrected and felt decently confident about them. I think the first passage messed me up on this section so practice timing if anything.

Practice Scores

I am unsure of the exact dates I took these but I'm going to organize them the best I can placing the tests I took at the beginning of the 10 weeks to the exams I took closer to my exam date.

1. Kaplan Diagnostic yikes (had not studied at all)
AA:16 Bio:14 Chem:17 Orgo:12 TS:14 RC:21 PAT:13 QR:16

2. Kaplan 1st Full Length (studied for two weeks; also note my PAT portion messed up and it left 30 questions blank so a 14 isn't really an accurate portrayal)
AA:16 Bio:17 Chem:16 Orgo:14 TS:16 RC:18 PAT:14 QR:13

2nd FL: Bio:17 Chem:19 Orgo:18
3rd FL: Bio:19 Chem:23 Orgo:19

3. Five DAT Bootcamp Biology Tests (studied for 5/6 weeks)
Biology: 19/23/19/18/23

4. Five DAT Bootcamp Chemistry Tests (studied for 5/6 weeks)
Gen Chem: 16/17/20/17/19
Second Time: 25/24

5. Five DAT Bootcamp Orgo Tests (studied for 5/6 weeks)
Orgo: 17/18/19/24/20
Second Time: 27/29

6. Kaplan Practice Exams (7/8 weeks of studying maybe?)
Gen Chem: 17/21/19
Biology: 22/18/18
Orgo: 19/23/16

7. TopScore (4 days before test; these are the only sections I did)
1st one: Bio:19 Chem:18 Orgo:23 TS:14 QR:19
2nd one: Gen Chem: 19 Orgo:25

8. 2009 ADA! (3 days before)
Bio:24 Chem:18 Orgo:19 PAT:21

SPENT THE NEXT TWO DAYS REVIEWING EVERYTHING I CONSISTENTLY MISSED.
I continuously made the same errors on chem and orgo so I reviewed the stuff I circled in DAT Destroyer and focused on those items. This is probably why my chem and orgo score increased significantly. I made dumb mistakes on the 2009 test that I should've gotten correct. Hope this is helpful to someone. Sorry its not very organized!

Congratulations! Your scores are excellent IMO the QR will not be a problem at the vast majority schools. Schools like to see high science and reading scores and you accomplished that. Lovely science scores, love the double 23's in the Orgo and GenChem. If you are asked on an interview about your QR score I would have a thought out response. You should be very proud of these scores. I work with thousands of students each year and your scores are tops!!!

Wishing you the very best, thanks for the shout out and detailed breakdown.

Nancy

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Awesome scores, congratulations! A 21AA is still a very difficult score to achieve despite what you read on SDN, so you should be very proud! I'm copy/pasting this from another thread, there are a lot of people who do well on the DAT except for QR, I think it'll help you out too (tl;dr: don't worry about it, you did great!)

Unrelated to anything but I just saw this and got sad at how she said they desire a PAT of 20 +

 

[Alemmy]

Unrelated to anything but I just saw this and got sad at how she said they desire a PAT of 20 +

I don't think I said that! I just wrote that I did only 4/10 PAT tests offered on boot camp in which I received an 18 on every single one but ended up on a 20 on the real thing. If I had of done the other 6 I probably would have gotten a higher score.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I don't think I said that! I just wrote that I did only 4/10 PAT tests offered on boot camp in which I received an 18 on every single one but ended up on a 20 on the real thing. If I had of done the other 6 I probably would have gotten a higher score.

I was talking about the UP admissions lady who was in the video link I quoted in my post not you! You have solid scores and won't have any issues going anywhere!

 

[LuckBloodandSweat]

Unrelated to anything but I just saw this and got sad at how she said they desire a PAT of 20 +

Dw my PAT score makes me cry too.