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Hey guys!! I've recently taken my DAT and got a fairly decent score. I'll be honest I was shooting for something higher but I guess we should all be shooting for perfect 30's across the board anyways. If you're not dreaming big you're doing it wrong. The SDN community has been amazing to me in these past months so I wanted to give back by sharing my experience with this exam.
Some background :
Graduated college last May. Was initially pre-med, switched to dentistry in January. I studied for this test for 3 months.
Now, on to my scores...
PAT 23
TS 22
AA 22
Materials used: DAT/Math Destroyer, DAT Bootcamp, Chad, Feralis notes, the mighty internet, Craig Savage youtube videos, Quizlet iPhone App, my own flash cards
I guess I'll just go down the list and say what I feel helped me in the attainment of these scores and hopefully you guys can get something out of it. But before I go on to breakdown every section I want to make a very important point about the practice material out there. The "DATdestroyers", the "Bootcamps", the "CDPs", etc... are TOOLS for you to use in learning as much as you possibly can! They are not to be treated as indicators of how you are going to score on the actual exam! They are only to be used as indicators of your weaknesses on which you should focus until they are no longer your weaknesses!
PAT(23):
I actually had fun with this section. This is the only section in which I found myself completely immersed every single practice test and the actual exam. For me it was like playing a video game haha. I honestly think that if you can get yourself excited about PAT and do a ton of practice you are setting your self up for success. I know that it can get discouraging when you aren't getting the right answers. Like when you keep getting 7-8/15 angles wrong on every practice test you do. Yeah I know how that feels but that's why we have the AMAZING!, the 6/5-stars, the MUST-HAVE!... DATBOOTCAMP!!!. This is the only program I used for PAT. Its 10 practice tests along with the generators are all you need to get a great score. However, remember what I said? DAT bootcamp is only a tool. As great as it is, it will only give you a bang for your buck if you use it right. Here is how you use it right.... 1) Take a practice test. 2) Go through ALL the explanations. One thing I REALLY loved about bootcamp is its tendency to nit-pick or pay close attention to little details especially on the keyholes. By being a total "nit" you are training your eyes to watch out for the subtle differences in angles, lengths, and just the overall spatial positioning of everything. Overtime, it will become second nature and you will be thankful. 3) Take note of the sections you are struggling with and run the Bootcamp's generator for that section until you feel somewhat better about it. For me it was always angles. On the day before the test I ran the angle generator and got 40/50 angles right. An improvement from the 20/50 a month before.
Now just some comments about each PAT section:
Keyholes: I always considered every answer choice before, by the process of elimination, narrowing it down to one. What helped me the most were the explanations at the end of each test. Read them thoroughly!
TFE: This section might seem intimidating at first. What worked for me was using the 2 views given to try to visualize what the the object might look like before moving on to the answer choices.
Angles: This one was tough, but I think that was only because bootcamp's angles are somewhat tougher than the real test. Overall, with practice, its nothing to be feared of. I just compared two angles at a time to figure out the order. I read about all the different strategies like the hills method, the rapid eye method, etc.. I personally just looked at them and used my intuition.
Hole punching: I used the "tic -tac-toe", or what ever, method. Look it up! I breezed through this section on the real DAT.
Cube Counting: Just tally up all the cubes based on their sides "painted" and then answer the questions.
Pattern Folding: Bootcamp's explanations for this section are a must read. There were a few problems where I didn't even know where to begin but after reading the tips given in the explanation it began to make a lot of sense.
PAT on the real exam was pretty much on the level of Bootcamp. The angles and pattern folding were a bit easier. There were a few weird keyhole and TFE problems but, by being meticulous in my preparation, I never felt lost and was able to reason through most of them.
QR:
GET.....MATH.....DESTROYER (period)
I was always good in math in highschool. All of my math classes were AP level and I never did the homework but somehow ended up with A's. College came around, and as a bio major, I only needed two math classes to graduate which I took care of freshmen year. 4 years later, after not doing any math I got math destroyer and did the first test. I was amazed at how much I have "atrophied" in the math department. I felt like I was learning math for the first time. And honestly I pretty much forgot everything and had to re-learn it. I got the 2015 math destroyer which contains, not 12, but 16 practice tests. I went through the first 12 tests untimed the first time around. This took me for ever!!!! I think I averaged 3-4 hours per test. I remember one time I lost track of time and spent about an hour trying to figure out how to solve one problem. I just couldn't let myself see the answer until I was confident I have solved it haha I guess you can call it a personality flaw. After going through the first 12 tests untimed I completed them timed scoring fairly well, 32-37/40. I finished this about 2 weeks before my exam date so I just kept doing a math destroyer test timed everyday until test day to keep myself sharp. I did tests 12-16 and then repeated, for the third time haha, tests 1-6. At this point I was remembering answer choices but because I always have to solve the problem on my own I couldn't help myself but to go through the reasoning of each. I did the 5 QR tests from Bootcamp as well. They were actually more difficult than math destroyers. Lengthy word problems, some tricky graphing and geometry problems, but never the less, great practice. I averaged 20s on Bootcamp tests. On test day I was surprised by how easy most of the questions were. There were a few tough ones but I didn't even bother with them until after I've completed all the easy questions which were about 32/40 of them. Basically, get math destroyer, do their tests over and over again until your test date and you should be good.
RC
Holy !@#$ how terrified I was of this section and the joy and relief that I felt when I saw my score. My first bootcamp practice test was a 16, my second, less than 15. I was in freakout mode for awhile and this section contributed to about 95% of my DAT related stress haha. I tried S&D, I did not like it at all. I tried mapping, but I found that taking my eyes of the screen to write something down distracted me. I came up with my own strategy that got me a couple of 20s on bootcamp where I would read part of the passage, answer some questions, then finish the passage, and answer the rest of the questions. This worked for me for awhile but then I tried the vanilla method. Ari from bootcamp used it and its where you read the first 2 paragraphs twice, finish the passage, and only then answer questions while referring back to the text. I used bootcamp's RC tests and they were spot on as far as the content difficulty. Like with other sections, I strongly urge you to review your answer choices and explanations while referring back to the passage so that you know exactly where you messed up. I also used CDR. I thought it was great practice for inference and tone based questions and just critical reading in general. Some passages were not science related but I think that's fine as long as you do practice reading science related articles through out your months of studying. I liked to read passages from the scientific american and sciencedaily. The passages on the real DAT were pretty interesting to me. One of them was on a medical technique, the other about some lizard, and I actually don't remember the third, yeah I head some fun over the weekend
haha. I felt the passages were reasonable in length. I was able to read them all and answer the questions without running out of time, something I was never able to do on Bootcamp btw. I always ended up resorting to S&D on the last passage ewww. Oh and remember how I said don't dwell on your practice scores? For the life of me I couldn't score higher than a 17 on any of the 5 CDR passages. At that point I was saying to myself "I'll be happy with an 18". That mentality was a mistake because I am pretty sure that if I was more confident about this section and not nervous during the test, I could have done better! How does one achieve that confidence? I really don't know. I kept missing the answer bubble because my hand couldn't stop shaking. I also used this to increase my reading speed and comprehension: http://www.spreeder.com/ .... Look into it if you're struggling with this. What you can do is copy and past a scientific article into the speed reader and practice reading that way once a day in addition to normal reading. That's what I did and it definitely helped me for reasons explained on the website.
BIO
I'm not too psyched about this score though, I'll be honest, there were a few questions on the test, straight up memory recall questions, which I couldn't remember the answer to so I just narrowed it down to 2-3 answer choices and guessed. Funny thing is, I was however, able to recall exactly where in DAT destroyer the answer lied. And it hurt so much because I was thinking to myself "if only I spent a little more time on DAT destroyer Bio I would have been able to answer the question correctly". The moral of the story is go through Destroyer Bio at least twice, making thorough notes or flash cards on stuff you don't yet have in your memory. I also used Feralis notes for some sections. I actually mainly used them as a reference and made my own notes on flashcards, I have like a foot long stack of them. I also watched all the Bio/Plant diversity and physiology videos from a guy name Craig Savage on youtube. I knew nothing about plants and bio diversity before studying for the DAT and I owe it to Craig Savage for helping me understand those topics. I also decorated my room with poster boards of plant and bio diversity stuff so that I was always exposed to it. Cliffs AP Bio is superb for summarizing about 99% of the topics covered on the DAT but unfortunately I don't think it goes into enough detail that is sufficient for the DAT. I read through it twice in the beginning of my studies and than only referred to it when I felt it could give me the answer. Bootcamp Bio tests were awesome as well but I would mostly use them as indicators of which areas you need to focus on. I went over their tests twice and made some flashcards. But for questions I got wrong, I made sure to study that topic thoroughly using the internet, youtube, cliffs, and feralis.
There is just one more thing I want to say about DAT Destroyer Bio. You really have to "milk it". Every question, answer choice, and the explanation in the back contains valuable information that is very very relevant to the DAT! I made the mistake of overlooking some of the stuff stated in the answer choices because I was able to answer the question correctly and at the moment I was satisfied. Don't make the same mistake that I did!
GC
I used DAT destroyer, DAT Bootcamp, and Chad. I first went through chads videos by thoroughly watching them and taking meticulous notes on everything that came out of his mouth. I then watched about half of them which included the topics I felt were my weaknesses and made flash cards for stuff I felt I needed to memorize. Oh, and I also completed all the quizes right after every video. About a month into it I started using Bootcamp and Destroyer. I thoroughly reviewed my answers and on the topics I still felt weak in I referred to the internet, chad, and SDN for clarification. I think I completed DAT destroyer like 3 times for this section. Aside from the occasional brain farts I never really struggled with this section. This is mainly because I was exposed to a lot of it during my 2 years of being a GC and OC tutor on campus. But regardless, I think destroyer and bootcamp are stellar combinations for dominating this section.
OC
In my opinion, this is the easiest section on the DAT. This is simply because the scope of the orgo topics tested is pretty narrow. If you go through chad and understand everything that he said and commit it to memory, at the very least that would cover about 75% of the questions on this section. But that doesn't mean you don't have to do destoyer or bootcamp. What I did was watch chad's videos, and just like for GC, take thorough notes. The second time around, I rewrote the notes onto flashcards which I would take with me on my morning walks to the coffee shop. Also, the roadmaps from destroyer are superb! I went through them about 5 times along with going through all of the orgo questions twice. It really is not over kill.
Some final thoughts:
*Schedule some kind of fun activity or vacation right after your exam. When you have something to look forward to, aside from getting a great score, it makes it a lot easier to push yourself through a study session. It just puts you in a good mood and when you're in a good mood, even studying can be fun.
*Find a way to stay motivated and don't dwell on the low practice scores. You will have days when you'll doubt yourself and almost start believing that the worst that can happen will probably happen. I had this feeling when I was having trouble with RC. I remember one day I became really sad and discouraged after getting a 17 for the 4th time in a row on a CDR test that I almost started tearing. I got up, walked out of the house and went for a 2 mile run. I felt so much better after and completely forgot about the incident until now. For me its exercise. You have to find what it is that takes your mind off of the negative bull!@#$ and shifts it back to the moment that got you pursuing dentistry to begin with.
I guess that's it! If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or msg me. I would be happy to answer any questions you have. Good luck to anybody that still has to take the DAT! If I can get these scores, you can definitely do better
Some background :
Graduated college last May. Was initially pre-med, switched to dentistry in January. I studied for this test for 3 months.
Now, on to my scores...
PAT 23
TS 22
AA 22
Materials used: DAT/Math Destroyer, DAT Bootcamp, Chad, Feralis notes, the mighty internet, Craig Savage youtube videos, Quizlet iPhone App, my own flash cards
I guess I'll just go down the list and say what I feel helped me in the attainment of these scores and hopefully you guys can get something out of it. But before I go on to breakdown every section I want to make a very important point about the practice material out there. The "DATdestroyers", the "Bootcamps", the "CDPs", etc... are TOOLS for you to use in learning as much as you possibly can! They are not to be treated as indicators of how you are going to score on the actual exam! They are only to be used as indicators of your weaknesses on which you should focus until they are no longer your weaknesses!
PAT(23):
I actually had fun with this section. This is the only section in which I found myself completely immersed every single practice test and the actual exam. For me it was like playing a video game haha. I honestly think that if you can get yourself excited about PAT and do a ton of practice you are setting your self up for success. I know that it can get discouraging when you aren't getting the right answers. Like when you keep getting 7-8/15 angles wrong on every practice test you do. Yeah I know how that feels but that's why we have the AMAZING!, the 6/5-stars, the MUST-HAVE!... DATBOOTCAMP!!!. This is the only program I used for PAT. Its 10 practice tests along with the generators are all you need to get a great score. However, remember what I said? DAT bootcamp is only a tool. As great as it is, it will only give you a bang for your buck if you use it right. Here is how you use it right.... 1) Take a practice test. 2) Go through ALL the explanations. One thing I REALLY loved about bootcamp is its tendency to nit-pick or pay close attention to little details especially on the keyholes. By being a total "nit" you are training your eyes to watch out for the subtle differences in angles, lengths, and just the overall spatial positioning of everything. Overtime, it will become second nature and you will be thankful. 3) Take note of the sections you are struggling with and run the Bootcamp's generator for that section until you feel somewhat better about it. For me it was always angles. On the day before the test I ran the angle generator and got 40/50 angles right. An improvement from the 20/50 a month before.
Now just some comments about each PAT section:
Keyholes: I always considered every answer choice before, by the process of elimination, narrowing it down to one. What helped me the most were the explanations at the end of each test. Read them thoroughly!
TFE: This section might seem intimidating at first. What worked for me was using the 2 views given to try to visualize what the the object might look like before moving on to the answer choices.
Angles: This one was tough, but I think that was only because bootcamp's angles are somewhat tougher than the real test. Overall, with practice, its nothing to be feared of. I just compared two angles at a time to figure out the order. I read about all the different strategies like the hills method, the rapid eye method, etc.. I personally just looked at them and used my intuition.
Hole punching: I used the "tic -tac-toe", or what ever, method. Look it up! I breezed through this section on the real DAT.
Cube Counting: Just tally up all the cubes based on their sides "painted" and then answer the questions.
Pattern Folding: Bootcamp's explanations for this section are a must read. There were a few problems where I didn't even know where to begin but after reading the tips given in the explanation it began to make a lot of sense.
PAT on the real exam was pretty much on the level of Bootcamp. The angles and pattern folding were a bit easier. There were a few weird keyhole and TFE problems but, by being meticulous in my preparation, I never felt lost and was able to reason through most of them.
QR:
GET.....MATH.....DESTROYER (period)
I was always good in math in highschool. All of my math classes were AP level and I never did the homework but somehow ended up with A's. College came around, and as a bio major, I only needed two math classes to graduate which I took care of freshmen year. 4 years later, after not doing any math I got math destroyer and did the first test. I was amazed at how much I have "atrophied" in the math department. I felt like I was learning math for the first time. And honestly I pretty much forgot everything and had to re-learn it. I got the 2015 math destroyer which contains, not 12, but 16 practice tests. I went through the first 12 tests untimed the first time around. This took me for ever!!!! I think I averaged 3-4 hours per test. I remember one time I lost track of time and spent about an hour trying to figure out how to solve one problem. I just couldn't let myself see the answer until I was confident I have solved it haha I guess you can call it a personality flaw. After going through the first 12 tests untimed I completed them timed scoring fairly well, 32-37/40. I finished this about 2 weeks before my exam date so I just kept doing a math destroyer test timed everyday until test day to keep myself sharp. I did tests 12-16 and then repeated, for the third time haha, tests 1-6. At this point I was remembering answer choices but because I always have to solve the problem on my own I couldn't help myself but to go through the reasoning of each. I did the 5 QR tests from Bootcamp as well. They were actually more difficult than math destroyers. Lengthy word problems, some tricky graphing and geometry problems, but never the less, great practice. I averaged 20s on Bootcamp tests. On test day I was surprised by how easy most of the questions were. There were a few tough ones but I didn't even bother with them until after I've completed all the easy questions which were about 32/40 of them. Basically, get math destroyer, do their tests over and over again until your test date and you should be good.
RC
Holy !@#$ how terrified I was of this section and the joy and relief that I felt when I saw my score. My first bootcamp practice test was a 16, my second, less than 15. I was in freakout mode for awhile and this section contributed to about 95% of my DAT related stress haha. I tried S&D, I did not like it at all. I tried mapping, but I found that taking my eyes of the screen to write something down distracted me. I came up with my own strategy that got me a couple of 20s on bootcamp where I would read part of the passage, answer some questions, then finish the passage, and answer the rest of the questions. This worked for me for awhile but then I tried the vanilla method. Ari from bootcamp used it and its where you read the first 2 paragraphs twice, finish the passage, and only then answer questions while referring back to the text. I used bootcamp's RC tests and they were spot on as far as the content difficulty. Like with other sections, I strongly urge you to review your answer choices and explanations while referring back to the passage so that you know exactly where you messed up. I also used CDR. I thought it was great practice for inference and tone based questions and just critical reading in general. Some passages were not science related but I think that's fine as long as you do practice reading science related articles through out your months of studying. I liked to read passages from the scientific american and sciencedaily. The passages on the real DAT were pretty interesting to me. One of them was on a medical technique, the other about some lizard, and I actually don't remember the third, yeah I head some fun over the weekend
haha. I felt the passages were reasonable in length. I was able to read them all and answer the questions without running out of time, something I was never able to do on Bootcamp btw. I always ended up resorting to S&D on the last passage ewww. Oh and remember how I said don't dwell on your practice scores? For the life of me I couldn't score higher than a 17 on any of the 5 CDR passages. At that point I was saying to myself "I'll be happy with an 18". That mentality was a mistake because I am pretty sure that if I was more confident about this section and not nervous during the test, I could have done better! How does one achieve that confidence? I really don't know. I kept missing the answer bubble because my hand couldn't stop shaking. I also used this to increase my reading speed and comprehension: http://www.spreeder.com/ .... Look into it if you're struggling with this. What you can do is copy and past a scientific article into the speed reader and practice reading that way once a day in addition to normal reading. That's what I did and it definitely helped me for reasons explained on the website.BIO
I'm not too psyched about this score though, I'll be honest, there were a few questions on the test, straight up memory recall questions, which I couldn't remember the answer to so I just narrowed it down to 2-3 answer choices and guessed. Funny thing is, I was however, able to recall exactly where in DAT destroyer the answer lied. And it hurt so much because I was thinking to myself "if only I spent a little more time on DAT destroyer Bio I would have been able to answer the question correctly". The moral of the story is go through Destroyer Bio at least twice, making thorough notes or flash cards on stuff you don't yet have in your memory. I also used Feralis notes for some sections. I actually mainly used them as a reference and made my own notes on flashcards, I have like a foot long stack of them. I also watched all the Bio/Plant diversity and physiology videos from a guy name Craig Savage on youtube. I knew nothing about plants and bio diversity before studying for the DAT and I owe it to Craig Savage for helping me understand those topics. I also decorated my room with poster boards of plant and bio diversity stuff so that I was always exposed to it. Cliffs AP Bio is superb for summarizing about 99% of the topics covered on the DAT but unfortunately I don't think it goes into enough detail that is sufficient for the DAT. I read through it twice in the beginning of my studies and than only referred to it when I felt it could give me the answer. Bootcamp Bio tests were awesome as well but I would mostly use them as indicators of which areas you need to focus on. I went over their tests twice and made some flashcards. But for questions I got wrong, I made sure to study that topic thoroughly using the internet, youtube, cliffs, and feralis.
There is just one more thing I want to say about DAT Destroyer Bio. You really have to "milk it". Every question, answer choice, and the explanation in the back contains valuable information that is very very relevant to the DAT! I made the mistake of overlooking some of the stuff stated in the answer choices because I was able to answer the question correctly and at the moment I was satisfied. Don't make the same mistake that I did!
GC
I used DAT destroyer, DAT Bootcamp, and Chad. I first went through chads videos by thoroughly watching them and taking meticulous notes on everything that came out of his mouth. I then watched about half of them which included the topics I felt were my weaknesses and made flash cards for stuff I felt I needed to memorize. Oh, and I also completed all the quizes right after every video. About a month into it I started using Bootcamp and Destroyer. I thoroughly reviewed my answers and on the topics I still felt weak in I referred to the internet, chad, and SDN for clarification. I think I completed DAT destroyer like 3 times for this section. Aside from the occasional brain farts I never really struggled with this section. This is mainly because I was exposed to a lot of it during my 2 years of being a GC and OC tutor on campus. But regardless, I think destroyer and bootcamp are stellar combinations for dominating this section.
OC
In my opinion, this is the easiest section on the DAT. This is simply because the scope of the orgo topics tested is pretty narrow. If you go through chad and understand everything that he said and commit it to memory, at the very least that would cover about 75% of the questions on this section. But that doesn't mean you don't have to do destoyer or bootcamp. What I did was watch chad's videos, and just like for GC, take thorough notes. The second time around, I rewrote the notes onto flashcards which I would take with me on my morning walks to the coffee shop. Also, the roadmaps from destroyer are superb! I went through them about 5 times along with going through all of the orgo questions twice. It really is not over kill.
Some final thoughts:
*Schedule some kind of fun activity or vacation right after your exam. When you have something to look forward to, aside from getting a great score, it makes it a lot easier to push yourself through a study session. It just puts you in a good mood and when you're in a good mood, even studying can be fun.
*Find a way to stay motivated and don't dwell on the low practice scores. You will have days when you'll doubt yourself and almost start believing that the worst that can happen will probably happen. I had this feeling when I was having trouble with RC. I remember one day I became really sad and discouraged after getting a 17 for the 4th time in a row on a CDR test that I almost started tearing. I got up, walked out of the house and went for a 2 mile run. I felt so much better after and completely forgot about the incident until now. For me its exercise. You have to find what it is that takes your mind off of the negative bull!@#$ and shifts it back to the moment that got you pursuing dentistry to begin with.
I guess that's it! If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or msg me. I would be happy to answer any questions you have. Good luck to anybody that still has to take the DAT! If I can get these scores, you can definitely do better
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