DAT Breakdown/ Poor scores/Apply?

[Lou42]

I took my DAT this past Friday and it went a little worse than I had expected. I will be retaking in October and was curious if I should submit my application with my current scores making the schools aware that I'm retaking.

Perceptual ability - 14
Quantitative Reasoning - 11
Reading Comprehension - 15
Biology - 19
General Chemistry - 16
Organic Chemistry - 17

TS - 18
AA - 16

After putting those scores down I'm reminded of how poor I did and it's rather embarrassing. I did put a lot of time into studying and would really appreciate some positive feedback. Also, others can benefit from what I did wrong in studying.

About this time last year is when I quit my sales job and decided that I was going back to school and applying to dental school. My confidence was rock bottom and finding this site made me believe that it was possible to go back and with the right materials score well on the DAT. I graduated in 2007 with a biology degree. I'm 27 years old. This past year I went back to school and finished a year of physics with solid grades.

My actual studying probably started sometime in January. Although I spent most of my time concentrating on my physics class then the DAT. The biggest mistake that I made was accumulating way to many resources to study from instead of just concentrating on a few. It also took much much longer to get through certain material than I had anticipated.

Here's the list of resources that I had:

Crack PAT
Kaplan Blue book
Cliffs AP Bio
Cliffs AP bio notecards
Campbell's Textbook
Chad's Videos
The Teaching Company Science of Life 65 videos
MCAT Audio Osmosis
Alan's Bio notes
Math Destroyer
DAT Destroyer
Cliff's General Chemistry exams
DAT Achiever 1-5
Topscore
My old Organic Textbook

Initially I started with Kaplan Blue book and Cliff's AP bio. I went back and forth between these two for some time and never completely finished either of them. Obviously everyones knows that Cliff's is the way to go for Bio and I should have read it a few times. I got burnt out on books and started watching The Teaching Companies- Science of life video series. Looking back it was a bad move because I only had month and a half left when I started watching this series of 70 videos. However, I thought they were great for somebody that has a more like 3-4 mths before the exam. Another mistake is that I started watching the Freelance teacher videos on Youtube. The teacher is awesome and really teaches organic chemistry well! The problem is that it will take you a longgggggg ass time to get through them all and I spent too much time thinking that it would be possible to finish the videos.

I completed my first Achiever practice exam about a month before my test date. It went real bad and I scored a 13. At that point I didn't have a solid grasp on chemistry as a whole and was guessing on a lot of questions. I should've quit with the practice exams then but instead I kept taking them once a week instead of concentrating on fixing the weak spots. Anyways, I ended up taking 4 Achiever exams and scored 13 on all of them. These exams were really tough and a major confidence killer for someone who wasn't ready. I also completed two Topscore exams and scored a 16 and 15. Didn't start Destroyer until 3 wks before my test date and that was an enormous mistake.

I also competed all 10 Crack Pat exams and retook a few of them in the last days leading up to my test. My scores started around 15-16 and by my test date I was consistently scoring 18-20. How on earth I did so bad on the real thing is concerning?? I was very confident about this section going in...ughh. I've always been a good reader and never scored below a 17 on my practice exams. Apparently I need to really work on this section. Finally I think the monkey's would've done better on quantitative reasoning? As many other people have mentioned I ran out of time and guessed on the last 10 or so. I have always sucked at math to begin with.

For those of you who haven't taken the exam yet I hope you can see where I went wrong with not using my time and resources efficiently. I welcome some constructive criticism on how I can improve and if I would be wasting my time submitting my app.

As for the materials: These are all you need...

Cliff's AP Bio
Chad's Videos
DAt Destroyer
Crack PAT
Math Destroyer

MCAT audio osmosis - This was great to listen too on my Ipod whenever I was on the bus, eating breakfast, taking a walk, ect...

I have a 3.4 sGPA and a pretty solid application... at least I think.

Thanks and good luck to everyone who hasn't taken their test yet!!

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[iamgosu]

I dunno man. You definitely need a retake. I think you just got really bad luck that time.

If I were you I would submit now...since AADSAS takes a few weeks time that might mean the difference between an interview or not. Just do well on the retake and you should be okay!

 

[DrTank]

You definitely need to retake. You should call the schools you are applying to and let them know you are going to retake and to hold off your application until then.
Go through Kaplan, Cliffs, and destroyer to make sure you have all the concepts down and then start taking practice tests. Try to go through as many problems as possible.

 

[shiftypoptart]

On a positive note, your TS is not too bad which is by far the most important score on the test in my opinion. in order to improve you AA you should definitely study up for the QR of which math destroyer is really awesome. In all honesty, QR is probably the least important section of all the test but improving this will improve you AA the most. Its really only a few concepts you need to get down like probabilities and percentages. For this section I skipped all the questions that I knew were gunna be time consuming and just did all the algebra first yet I still ran out of time with 5 questions to go. Its hard but definitely study up for round 2.

 

[americanpierg]

Can you give us the percentage breakdown for that 11? Just curious.

 

[Lou42]

5th percentile.

 

[Lou42]

Can anyone provide some insight into applying? I come from a family of dentists and have a few connections at select schools. Initially I was going to apply to around 15 schools and anticipated paying around $1000 to submit. My sister who's a recent dental school graduate says I should apply but I'm under the impression that it's a waste of time and money with my under cutoff scores?

Thanks!

 

[flyingforever]

Can anyone provide some insight into applying? I come from a family of dentists and have a few connections at select schools. Initially I was going to apply to around 15 schools and anticipated paying around $1000 to submit. My sister who's a recent dental school graduate says I should apply but I'm under the impression that it's a waste of time and money with my under cutoff scores?

Thanks!

I think you should wait and retake the exam. Don't waste money.

 

[alanan84]

I think you should wait and retake the exam. Don't waste money.

I think I agree.

To the OP: I would less time watching videos (with the exception of Chad) and more time doing practice problems. Even Chad's videos are only useful when you practice the things he's teaching. The key to the DAT is practice, practice, practice.