smilestarter
New Member
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2022
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 1
AA: 23
BIO: 23
GC: 20
OC: 26
TS: 22
QR: 27
RC: 21
PAT:24
I have recently taken my DAT for the first time, and I am very proud of my scores, so I thought why not share some of the study habits/tips. For some background, I just finished the organic chemistry series last semester, and studied for about 3.5 months with a full course load, teaching my own lab, and being involved in some clubs on campus—so I definitely was on a crunch for time every day, but if you create a good schedule for yourself and study efficiently, a great score is very possible. This process is so stressful, so hopefully this can help you guys. During the school year, I studied 3-4 hours a day, then over winter break around 5-7 hours a day. I don’t think studying for longer helps at all either. If you can study effectively, go for it, I just needed to budget more time because I tend to get distracted.
Materials: I only used DAT Booster to prepare for the exam, which I thought was a great resource. Even some of the questions I encountered on my real exam were the same from practice tests. I seriously cannot recommend Booster anymore; I credit Booster with all of my success!
BIO: Bio was very overwhelming (which it seems to be for everyone). I started out by reading the notes from Booster and taking some of my own notes. I learn well by rewriting information and organizing it in different ways that help me (flowcharts, pictures, tables, etc). For Bio, if you are going to take notes, I really recommend not taking notes on EVERYTHING. Note taking is so time consuming, so seriously only take notes on any information that is completely new/you are not completely familiar or comfortable with. I also recommend using the pre-made ANKI sets. I did not have time to make my own, but I found that the flashcards were really beneficial, especially for taxonomy. I am a teaching assistant for anatomy, so that helped a bit, but besides that, the rest of my BIO background was limited. Do not worry about remembering every detail, because it truly is breadth over depth.
GC: Again, I only used Booster for this. I was a learning assistant for Gen Chem, so I felt fairly comfortable in this section. This was normally my highest on practice exams, but ended up being my lowest, which was somewhat of a surprise. I’m not too disappointed, since I do not think I could have prepared any different, it may have just been test day jitters. I feel like I was zoning out during the GC section for some reason, so that might be the reason for my score. I still think Booster was representative for this section. I did the question banks and practice exams to study for this section.
OC: Like I said, I just finished organic chem, so this was fresh in my mind. Again, Booster was very representative. I wrote out the reactions a few times and reviewed ANKI for this section. Booster also does a great job explaining stability, resonance, and everything.
RC: I didn’t do much to prepare for this section, and my practice exam scores never changed much. I feel like you can’t change your reading a ton, but you just need to find the best strategy for you. The night before the exam I started stressing about how I hadn’t touched the reading section in weeks and half completed a few practice exams, but my scores were still the same.
QR: I have not taken a math class since junior year of high school (outside of STAT) and I am now a junior in college. This section was always my lowest, but Booster prepared me well. The Booster exams were harder than what I saw on the real DAT, but that allowed me to work a lot faster and gave me time to check answers on everything I did. Getting used to the calculator takes some time, in my opinion, but on the real exam I didn’t even need it that much. To study, I watched all the videos and did each question bank multiple times. I also did every practice exam twice, just because I was so stressed over math, but that was probably excessive.
PAT: The most humbling section. PAT was very hard to get used to, but I ended up scoring well on my practice exams and real exam thankfully. The tips given in the Booster videos are lifesaving for this section. I was lucky to only get one rock keyhole question and fairly easy pattern folding questions. Cube counting, hole punch, and pattern folding were never too hard for me either. However, for keyhole, TFE, and angle ranking, I was constantly using the generators and question banks. If I could give one tip for PAT, it would be to practice every day. Rest days are super important for mental health and reducing burn out, but if I didn’t practice PAT for a day or two, I could immediately notice the difference. Also, on practice exams, I never skipped keyhole or TFE (the harder sections) and started with angle ranking. I always worked through start to finish. On the real exam, I decided to skip them for some reason (horrible idea) and only had 11 minutes to do both TFE and keyhole sections, so don’t be like me and use a new strategy on test day.
I cannot recommend enough taking the practice exams seriously and reviewing every mistake! This really showed me my weak spots and stopped me from getting things wrong again and again. For every practice exam, I took notes on anything I got wrong or didn’t think I knew well enough/fast enough, which I thought was key to my success.
BIO: 23
GC: 20
OC: 26
TS: 22
QR: 27
RC: 21
PAT:24
I have recently taken my DAT for the first time, and I am very proud of my scores, so I thought why not share some of the study habits/tips. For some background, I just finished the organic chemistry series last semester, and studied for about 3.5 months with a full course load, teaching my own lab, and being involved in some clubs on campus—so I definitely was on a crunch for time every day, but if you create a good schedule for yourself and study efficiently, a great score is very possible. This process is so stressful, so hopefully this can help you guys. During the school year, I studied 3-4 hours a day, then over winter break around 5-7 hours a day. I don’t think studying for longer helps at all either. If you can study effectively, go for it, I just needed to budget more time because I tend to get distracted.
Materials: I only used DAT Booster to prepare for the exam, which I thought was a great resource. Even some of the questions I encountered on my real exam were the same from practice tests. I seriously cannot recommend Booster anymore; I credit Booster with all of my success!
BIO: Bio was very overwhelming (which it seems to be for everyone). I started out by reading the notes from Booster and taking some of my own notes. I learn well by rewriting information and organizing it in different ways that help me (flowcharts, pictures, tables, etc). For Bio, if you are going to take notes, I really recommend not taking notes on EVERYTHING. Note taking is so time consuming, so seriously only take notes on any information that is completely new/you are not completely familiar or comfortable with. I also recommend using the pre-made ANKI sets. I did not have time to make my own, but I found that the flashcards were really beneficial, especially for taxonomy. I am a teaching assistant for anatomy, so that helped a bit, but besides that, the rest of my BIO background was limited. Do not worry about remembering every detail, because it truly is breadth over depth.
GC: Again, I only used Booster for this. I was a learning assistant for Gen Chem, so I felt fairly comfortable in this section. This was normally my highest on practice exams, but ended up being my lowest, which was somewhat of a surprise. I’m not too disappointed, since I do not think I could have prepared any different, it may have just been test day jitters. I feel like I was zoning out during the GC section for some reason, so that might be the reason for my score. I still think Booster was representative for this section. I did the question banks and practice exams to study for this section.
OC: Like I said, I just finished organic chem, so this was fresh in my mind. Again, Booster was very representative. I wrote out the reactions a few times and reviewed ANKI for this section. Booster also does a great job explaining stability, resonance, and everything.
RC: I didn’t do much to prepare for this section, and my practice exam scores never changed much. I feel like you can’t change your reading a ton, but you just need to find the best strategy for you. The night before the exam I started stressing about how I hadn’t touched the reading section in weeks and half completed a few practice exams, but my scores were still the same.
QR: I have not taken a math class since junior year of high school (outside of STAT) and I am now a junior in college. This section was always my lowest, but Booster prepared me well. The Booster exams were harder than what I saw on the real DAT, but that allowed me to work a lot faster and gave me time to check answers on everything I did. Getting used to the calculator takes some time, in my opinion, but on the real exam I didn’t even need it that much. To study, I watched all the videos and did each question bank multiple times. I also did every practice exam twice, just because I was so stressed over math, but that was probably excessive.
PAT: The most humbling section. PAT was very hard to get used to, but I ended up scoring well on my practice exams and real exam thankfully. The tips given in the Booster videos are lifesaving for this section. I was lucky to only get one rock keyhole question and fairly easy pattern folding questions. Cube counting, hole punch, and pattern folding were never too hard for me either. However, for keyhole, TFE, and angle ranking, I was constantly using the generators and question banks. If I could give one tip for PAT, it would be to practice every day. Rest days are super important for mental health and reducing burn out, but if I didn’t practice PAT for a day or two, I could immediately notice the difference. Also, on practice exams, I never skipped keyhole or TFE (the harder sections) and started with angle ranking. I always worked through start to finish. On the real exam, I decided to skip them for some reason (horrible idea) and only had 11 minutes to do both TFE and keyhole sections, so don’t be like me and use a new strategy on test day.
I cannot recommend enough taking the practice exams seriously and reviewing every mistake! This really showed me my weak spots and stopped me from getting things wrong again and again. For every practice exam, I took notes on anything I got wrong or didn’t think I knew well enough/fast enough, which I thought was key to my success.
