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- Sep 19, 2014
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Thank you to everyone on sdn. I read way too many breakdowns during my own DAT studies and I know I wouldn’t have gotten these scores without all the great advice on here.
SCORES:
AA - 22
TS - 22
PAT - 20
Bio - 21
GC - 27
OC - 21
RC - 23
QR – 17
GENERAL NOTES ABOUT STUDYING FOR THE DAT
Are you a procrastinator?
I used to skip my organic chemistry class a lot and not really have any clue what was going on until a day or two before the test. Then I would cram like crazy, not sleep, pull off an A, and then go back to sitting in the back of the class and playing video games. If you’re that type of person too, I have bad news for you – being able to cram is a good skill to have, but it’s not going to work at all for the DAT. I originally gave myself 3 weeks to study, thinking that if I just went full steam ahead I could pull it off and that those 3 month study schedules were for people who couldn’t cram. Well, thankfully I came to my senses, realized that my plan was stupid and rescheduled my test.
Have you accepted the amount of time this is gonna take?
On the breakdowns on this site I saw a lot of scores that were so high they kinda lowered my self-esteem (more on that below), but I finally accepted a very basic idea – if somebody got a great score, I should probably do what they did. And if you read through enough breakdowns on this site there are some definite patterns. In general the people who get super high DAT scores either have a very strong background in the sciences already, they invested a ton of time into studying for the DAT, or – often – both. So, for me an important step in this whole process was just accepting that a solid score was going to take some time and a change in strategy. I studied for about 2 months, 5 to 8 hours a day. 8+ hours a day the week before the test.
How organized are you with your studying?
It’s time to get nerdy. I know, I know… Flashcards and different colored highlighters are for nerds. Lol. But it’s time to bust them out. Seriously, the amount of material on the DAT is massive and like I said above, shoving it all into short term memory just won’t cut it for a test this big. This is probably a really obvious statement for the people out there with better study habits, but my most important insight as I studied was this: Without an organized system (either notes or flashcards) to review what I was studying, learning new material was almost a waste of time. Once wasn’t enough if I really wanted this material to make it into long term memory. It’s all about active learning, review, and going through the same material multiple times.
Is studying for the DAT feeling kind of overwhelming?
At the same time, I learned that I couldn’t be a perfectionist studying for this test. I had to manage my time well and study the topics that were most likely to appear on the test and leave it at that. You will never feel DONE studying for this test and shooting for understanding when you’re wrong is a much better goal than shooting for perfect practice test scores. On a related note…
Are you convinced that you need a 24 AA or your life is over?
This site is a great resource, and I would strongly advise anyone studying for the DAT to read through a bunch of breakdowns before they make up their own study schedule. That said, once you’ve learned what you need to know, get off sdn, stop worrying too much and just go study. Sure, a little fear can be good motivation, but I stressed myself out by looking through too many posts written by mad geniuses with 26AA’s whose first practice test score was higher than my best practice score. When I took the DAT and got my scores I was trying not to dance in the testing center I was so happy. But by sdn standards a 22 means I’m just shy of drooling on myself. Seriously, don’t believe the hype. Remember that the scores people post on sdn are absolutely out of this world insane and not even close to representative. In the real world a score of 21 is above 90th percentile and is at or above the average for 60 out of 65 dental schools. A 22 is high enough to be fast tracked for HPSP but higher than the average for scholarships recipients. So go read through some doc toothache stuff on here, look at the ADEA book, and take a deep breath. A decent DAT score is a must, but… while a high score is definitely nice - barring a horrible GPA - a ton of people get into dental school and get military with scores lower than anything in these breakdowns.
BREAKDOWN BY SECTION
Bio – 21
Bootcamp average: 20 (22,22,19,18,21)
The real thing: Bootcamp is very representative, at least as much as that’s possible for something like bio. The real test is so random I’m not sure how to describe it. It includes… everything.
Materials: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Cliff’s AP Bio, Mcgraw Hill bio chapter animations, and YouTube videos from Crashcourse, Bozeman Science, Kahn Academy, and other random videos I found.
How I studied: I’m a liberal arts major with very little bio under my belt so I had to focus a lot on bringing up my A&P and ecology knowledge. I was very weak on important areas like embryology, the endocrine systems, bones, etc. I went through destroyer bio once, and cliff’s twice, and watched a lot of videos, especially the new Crashcourse anatomy and Crashcourse ecology. My second time through cliff’s I made a couple hundred flashcards for everything I didn’t know. I did all of bio bootcamp in the week before the test.
How I should have studied: I should have gone through destroyer again and made flashcards for everything in there as well. I should have done more periodic review, as I started to forget things by the end. Also, doing all of bootcamp in a couple days was a little over the top and I would have spread those tests out more, doing multiple attempts.
Gen Chem – 27
Bootcamp average: 21 (24,18,21,22,18)
The real thing: Ari from Bootcamp is right - the real test doesn’t focus too heavily on calculation questions and theoretical knowledge is key.
Materials: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Chad
How I studied: I went through Chad’s videos once, I went through all of destroyer twice, making flashcards for everything I didn’t know. Again, I did all the bootcamp tests the week before the test and the day before my test I went through all of Chad’s quizzes again and watched a few videos on weak areas only.
How I should have studied: This seemed to work! Destroyer was good if a little too hard with some calculation questions, Bootcamp was perfect and very representative of the real test and even Chad is a little bit too computation heavy in a few areas, but otherwise great. I would highly recommend going through Chad’s as many times as you can for getting the concepts down.
Ochem – 21
Bootcamp average: 20 (18,20,18,22,19)
The real thing: Bootcamp was representative. Between Chad’s and Destroyer, you should know most everything they can throw at you.
Materials: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Chad
How I studied: I went through Chad’s videos once, I went through all of destroyer once and that was all I had time for. I did all the bootcamp tests the week before the test and the day before my test I went through some of Chad’s quizzes again, but I ran out of time.
How I should have studied: There’s a big difference between my gen chem and ochem scores and I think the why of it is obvious. I should have gone through Destroyer a second time for ochem as well. Also, for the areas I struggled with, going through Chad’s a second time would have been very helpful.
RC – 23
Bootcamp: 20 I only did one
The real thing: Bootcamp seemed similar, except that the questions on the real DAT felt more straightforward.
Materials: Bootcamp, pretty much nothing
How I studied: I didn’t study for RC at all and if you’re a native English speaker and a good reader I don’t think you really need to study a lot for this section. I used the complicated technique of reading it and answering the questions. I tried some of the techniques for RC on my practice test and honestly I found that stuff distracting. Pure search and destroy is very time consuming if you have no idea where the information is. And writing down key words for each paragraph also takes up a ton of time and is only marginally more effective than just searching based on memory. I would recommend just taking a few minutes to read through the article like it’s something you want to read (the articles on my test were actually pretty interesting). From that you will be able to answer a few questions without looking back at the article and for the rest search and destroy will be a lot faster since you have a vague idea of where everything is.
How I should have studied: More practice probably would have helped me with timing, but with so many things to study for on the DAT, I found it hard to make time to sit down for an hour to practice this section. One thing I would do if I had studied more was make sure to duplicate testing conditions and not use the scroll wheel on the mouse because the scroll wheel will be disabled at the testing center.
QR – 17
Bootcamp average: 19 (18,18,20,20) I only did 4, not 5
The real thing: I screwed up on this section due to timing issues and fatigue. By the time I hit QR I was pretty fried and my pacing fell apart. Overall, I would say the DAT destroyer QR section is probably the most representative of the actual test, with Bootcamp being fairly similar. The real test was somewhat easier than math destroyer, but… it wasn’t that easy. I think I underestimated the difficulty of the real DAT. At least on my version I wouldn’t say there were a lot of really hard problems, but there also weren’t very many of the “gimme” easy problems. Most problems required a little bit of setup and I ended up running out of time.
Materials: DAT Destroyer, Math Destroyer, Bootcamp, Chad
How I studied: I went through Chad’s videos once, I went through DAT destroyer twice, and I went through the first 7 tests of math destroyer. I did the bootcamp tests the week before the test.
How I should have studied: I think the QR section is almost like PAT in that it’s all about timing and speed. I shouldn’t have let the super easy questions make me overconfident and I shouldn’t have let the really hard problems take up too much of my time. In a perfect world I would have dedicated a lot more time to QR and gone through math destroyer multiple times etc., but if I had to prep again in the same amount of time I would have focused more on getting fast at the medium difficulty problems and working on pacing. Also, in another breakdown someone said to practice QR at the end of the day when you’re a little fried and I think I should have tried that. I know it’s hard to imagine not being focused right now, but a real 5 hour DAT will leave you a little out of it by the end.
PAT – 20
Crack DAT PAT average: 18 (14,14,18,17,19,18,18,18,22) I only did 9.
Bootcamp: 20 I only did one.
The real thing: CDP is pretty representative of the actual test, but Bootcamp seemed just as good and probably better for hole punching in that you will at least be exposed to the dreaded third fold a few times. Based on reading sdn, a lot of people say that the CDP cube counting is ridiculous compared to the real thing but I don’t really agree. I saw a minor optical illusion in my version and there were some with quite a few blocks. Cubes ended up being more time consuming on the real test than I expected.
Materials: Crack the DAT PAT, Bootcamp
How I studied: I went through 9 of the 10 CDP tests doing a lot of them in a short time period. I struggled a lot with timing and TFE, so in the end – and on the real test – I put C and marked every TFE problem and went back to that section at the end. I got a lot better at PAT when I realized that it’s all about pacing and being sure you have time for the sections you’re stronger in. By the end I could usually ace the following sections: keyhole by elimination, hole punch by the line of symmetry method, and cube counting by making a table and counting each one. Pattern folding I could get about 70%, TFE about the same if I had a little time, and angles I blasted through and tended to get about 60% right.
How I should have studied: First I wouldn’t have spent so much money on CDP. Bootcamp seemed comparable, comes with all of Ari’s awesome science stuff and is way cheaper. Second, I would have spread out my PAT studying more. It takes time to absorb new strategies for PAT and doing a few tests in a row can really burn you out fast. Third, if I had had more time I would have worked on getting even faster in my stronger areas. I got pretty quick at hole punch and cubes, but I probably could have gotten faster with more practice. Of course I also would have worked a lot more on my weak areas, especially angles and TFE.
THE TEST EXPERIENCE
Timing wasn’t an issue in the science section. I spent about 25 minutes on each section and marked a few questions in each, particularly those in gen chem that involved some math and looked time consuming. Looking through my marked questions took me another 10 minutes and then I used my last 5 minutes to write out my grids and tables for PAT and just relax for a minute. My center gave me two pieces of double sided laminated graph paper not the boards I was expecting. I was able to exchange these on the break and get two fresh sheets so it was never an issue.
One last note, if you get there early be prepared to start your test early. I was more than 30 minutes early and I was able to start right then.
Thanks again to sdn and good luck everybody.
SCORES:
AA - 22
TS - 22
PAT - 20
Bio - 21
GC - 27
OC - 21
RC - 23
QR – 17
GENERAL NOTES ABOUT STUDYING FOR THE DAT
Are you a procrastinator?
I used to skip my organic chemistry class a lot and not really have any clue what was going on until a day or two before the test. Then I would cram like crazy, not sleep, pull off an A, and then go back to sitting in the back of the class and playing video games. If you’re that type of person too, I have bad news for you – being able to cram is a good skill to have, but it’s not going to work at all for the DAT. I originally gave myself 3 weeks to study, thinking that if I just went full steam ahead I could pull it off and that those 3 month study schedules were for people who couldn’t cram. Well, thankfully I came to my senses, realized that my plan was stupid and rescheduled my test.
Have you accepted the amount of time this is gonna take?
On the breakdowns on this site I saw a lot of scores that were so high they kinda lowered my self-esteem (more on that below), but I finally accepted a very basic idea – if somebody got a great score, I should probably do what they did. And if you read through enough breakdowns on this site there are some definite patterns. In general the people who get super high DAT scores either have a very strong background in the sciences already, they invested a ton of time into studying for the DAT, or – often – both. So, for me an important step in this whole process was just accepting that a solid score was going to take some time and a change in strategy. I studied for about 2 months, 5 to 8 hours a day. 8+ hours a day the week before the test.
How organized are you with your studying?
It’s time to get nerdy. I know, I know… Flashcards and different colored highlighters are for nerds. Lol. But it’s time to bust them out. Seriously, the amount of material on the DAT is massive and like I said above, shoving it all into short term memory just won’t cut it for a test this big. This is probably a really obvious statement for the people out there with better study habits, but my most important insight as I studied was this: Without an organized system (either notes or flashcards) to review what I was studying, learning new material was almost a waste of time. Once wasn’t enough if I really wanted this material to make it into long term memory. It’s all about active learning, review, and going through the same material multiple times.
Is studying for the DAT feeling kind of overwhelming?
At the same time, I learned that I couldn’t be a perfectionist studying for this test. I had to manage my time well and study the topics that were most likely to appear on the test and leave it at that. You will never feel DONE studying for this test and shooting for understanding when you’re wrong is a much better goal than shooting for perfect practice test scores. On a related note…
Are you convinced that you need a 24 AA or your life is over?
This site is a great resource, and I would strongly advise anyone studying for the DAT to read through a bunch of breakdowns before they make up their own study schedule. That said, once you’ve learned what you need to know, get off sdn, stop worrying too much and just go study. Sure, a little fear can be good motivation, but I stressed myself out by looking through too many posts written by mad geniuses with 26AA’s whose first practice test score was higher than my best practice score. When I took the DAT and got my scores I was trying not to dance in the testing center I was so happy. But by sdn standards a 22 means I’m just shy of drooling on myself. Seriously, don’t believe the hype. Remember that the scores people post on sdn are absolutely out of this world insane and not even close to representative. In the real world a score of 21 is above 90th percentile and is at or above the average for 60 out of 65 dental schools. A 22 is high enough to be fast tracked for HPSP but higher than the average for scholarships recipients. So go read through some doc toothache stuff on here, look at the ADEA book, and take a deep breath. A decent DAT score is a must, but… while a high score is definitely nice - barring a horrible GPA - a ton of people get into dental school and get military with scores lower than anything in these breakdowns.
BREAKDOWN BY SECTION
Bio – 21
Bootcamp average: 20 (22,22,19,18,21)
The real thing: Bootcamp is very representative, at least as much as that’s possible for something like bio. The real test is so random I’m not sure how to describe it. It includes… everything.
Materials: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Cliff’s AP Bio, Mcgraw Hill bio chapter animations, and YouTube videos from Crashcourse, Bozeman Science, Kahn Academy, and other random videos I found.
How I studied: I’m a liberal arts major with very little bio under my belt so I had to focus a lot on bringing up my A&P and ecology knowledge. I was very weak on important areas like embryology, the endocrine systems, bones, etc. I went through destroyer bio once, and cliff’s twice, and watched a lot of videos, especially the new Crashcourse anatomy and Crashcourse ecology. My second time through cliff’s I made a couple hundred flashcards for everything I didn’t know. I did all of bio bootcamp in the week before the test.
How I should have studied: I should have gone through destroyer again and made flashcards for everything in there as well. I should have done more periodic review, as I started to forget things by the end. Also, doing all of bootcamp in a couple days was a little over the top and I would have spread those tests out more, doing multiple attempts.
Gen Chem – 27
Bootcamp average: 21 (24,18,21,22,18)
The real thing: Ari from Bootcamp is right - the real test doesn’t focus too heavily on calculation questions and theoretical knowledge is key.
Materials: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Chad
How I studied: I went through Chad’s videos once, I went through all of destroyer twice, making flashcards for everything I didn’t know. Again, I did all the bootcamp tests the week before the test and the day before my test I went through all of Chad’s quizzes again and watched a few videos on weak areas only.
How I should have studied: This seemed to work! Destroyer was good if a little too hard with some calculation questions, Bootcamp was perfect and very representative of the real test and even Chad is a little bit too computation heavy in a few areas, but otherwise great. I would highly recommend going through Chad’s as many times as you can for getting the concepts down.
Ochem – 21
Bootcamp average: 20 (18,20,18,22,19)
The real thing: Bootcamp was representative. Between Chad’s and Destroyer, you should know most everything they can throw at you.
Materials: Destroyer, Bootcamp, Chad
How I studied: I went through Chad’s videos once, I went through all of destroyer once and that was all I had time for. I did all the bootcamp tests the week before the test and the day before my test I went through some of Chad’s quizzes again, but I ran out of time.
How I should have studied: There’s a big difference between my gen chem and ochem scores and I think the why of it is obvious. I should have gone through Destroyer a second time for ochem as well. Also, for the areas I struggled with, going through Chad’s a second time would have been very helpful.
RC – 23
Bootcamp: 20 I only did one
The real thing: Bootcamp seemed similar, except that the questions on the real DAT felt more straightforward.
Materials: Bootcamp, pretty much nothing
How I studied: I didn’t study for RC at all and if you’re a native English speaker and a good reader I don’t think you really need to study a lot for this section. I used the complicated technique of reading it and answering the questions. I tried some of the techniques for RC on my practice test and honestly I found that stuff distracting. Pure search and destroy is very time consuming if you have no idea where the information is. And writing down key words for each paragraph also takes up a ton of time and is only marginally more effective than just searching based on memory. I would recommend just taking a few minutes to read through the article like it’s something you want to read (the articles on my test were actually pretty interesting). From that you will be able to answer a few questions without looking back at the article and for the rest search and destroy will be a lot faster since you have a vague idea of where everything is.
How I should have studied: More practice probably would have helped me with timing, but with so many things to study for on the DAT, I found it hard to make time to sit down for an hour to practice this section. One thing I would do if I had studied more was make sure to duplicate testing conditions and not use the scroll wheel on the mouse because the scroll wheel will be disabled at the testing center.
QR – 17
Bootcamp average: 19 (18,18,20,20) I only did 4, not 5
The real thing: I screwed up on this section due to timing issues and fatigue. By the time I hit QR I was pretty fried and my pacing fell apart. Overall, I would say the DAT destroyer QR section is probably the most representative of the actual test, with Bootcamp being fairly similar. The real test was somewhat easier than math destroyer, but… it wasn’t that easy. I think I underestimated the difficulty of the real DAT. At least on my version I wouldn’t say there were a lot of really hard problems, but there also weren’t very many of the “gimme” easy problems. Most problems required a little bit of setup and I ended up running out of time.
Materials: DAT Destroyer, Math Destroyer, Bootcamp, Chad
How I studied: I went through Chad’s videos once, I went through DAT destroyer twice, and I went through the first 7 tests of math destroyer. I did the bootcamp tests the week before the test.
How I should have studied: I think the QR section is almost like PAT in that it’s all about timing and speed. I shouldn’t have let the super easy questions make me overconfident and I shouldn’t have let the really hard problems take up too much of my time. In a perfect world I would have dedicated a lot more time to QR and gone through math destroyer multiple times etc., but if I had to prep again in the same amount of time I would have focused more on getting fast at the medium difficulty problems and working on pacing. Also, in another breakdown someone said to practice QR at the end of the day when you’re a little fried and I think I should have tried that. I know it’s hard to imagine not being focused right now, but a real 5 hour DAT will leave you a little out of it by the end.
PAT – 20
Crack DAT PAT average: 18 (14,14,18,17,19,18,18,18,22) I only did 9.
Bootcamp: 20 I only did one.
The real thing: CDP is pretty representative of the actual test, but Bootcamp seemed just as good and probably better for hole punching in that you will at least be exposed to the dreaded third fold a few times. Based on reading sdn, a lot of people say that the CDP cube counting is ridiculous compared to the real thing but I don’t really agree. I saw a minor optical illusion in my version and there were some with quite a few blocks. Cubes ended up being more time consuming on the real test than I expected.
Materials: Crack the DAT PAT, Bootcamp
How I studied: I went through 9 of the 10 CDP tests doing a lot of them in a short time period. I struggled a lot with timing and TFE, so in the end – and on the real test – I put C and marked every TFE problem and went back to that section at the end. I got a lot better at PAT when I realized that it’s all about pacing and being sure you have time for the sections you’re stronger in. By the end I could usually ace the following sections: keyhole by elimination, hole punch by the line of symmetry method, and cube counting by making a table and counting each one. Pattern folding I could get about 70%, TFE about the same if I had a little time, and angles I blasted through and tended to get about 60% right.
How I should have studied: First I wouldn’t have spent so much money on CDP. Bootcamp seemed comparable, comes with all of Ari’s awesome science stuff and is way cheaper. Second, I would have spread out my PAT studying more. It takes time to absorb new strategies for PAT and doing a few tests in a row can really burn you out fast. Third, if I had had more time I would have worked on getting even faster in my stronger areas. I got pretty quick at hole punch and cubes, but I probably could have gotten faster with more practice. Of course I also would have worked a lot more on my weak areas, especially angles and TFE.
THE TEST EXPERIENCE
Timing wasn’t an issue in the science section. I spent about 25 minutes on each section and marked a few questions in each, particularly those in gen chem that involved some math and looked time consuming. Looking through my marked questions took me another 10 minutes and then I used my last 5 minutes to write out my grids and tables for PAT and just relax for a minute. My center gave me two pieces of double sided laminated graph paper not the boards I was expecting. I was able to exchange these on the break and get two fresh sheets so it was never an issue.
One last note, if you get there early be prepared to start your test early. I was more than 30 minutes early and I was able to start right then.
Thanks again to sdn and good luck everybody.
