DAT Destroyer

[KingSchultz]

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[doctor-strange]

Hey DrKingSchultz! You may find this DAT breakdown that was recently posted helpful. My thoughts are very similar to this poster's.

can you definitively share which one is most similar to the actual, most recent DAT.

Bootcamp is quite representative of the format of the actual test, while Destroyer is better for deeply comprehending the science you need on the test. If you just want to simulate the actual DAT, I would go with Bootcamp.

Which one should have most of our attention on?

Sorry that this isn't a definitive answer, but focusing on both would really benefit you. I spent most of my time with Bootcamp, but I know Destroyer would have really helped me improve my science scores. I just didn't have the time to use it as much as I wanted to, unfortunately.

are there sections of the DESTROYER that are better than BOOTCAMP and vise versa?

Define "better." If you are looking to REALLY be challenged, Destroyer is better for the sciences. If you are looking for something representative of the real deal, Bootcamp is better for virtually all the sections.

 

[dentalschl44]

If you’re short on time or really just wanna get the DAT over with, get bootcamp. IMO destroyer is way harder than anything you’ll be asked on the DAT. I almost find it useless that the questions are that complex. Bootcamp was even more complex than my DAT. I’m glad that I only stuck with bootcamp and didn’t give destroyer another run through, it would’ve wasted my time TBH. I know people who study destroyer and do super well, and people who get bootcamp and do super well. It just depends on what you want. I wanted to just study what I needed to know (you will never need to know organic past the DAT) and just get it over with. Math destroyer is pretty legit though, I think that was very helpful (24 AA/30 PAT using just bootcamp and math destroyer)

 

[KingSchultz]

If you’re short on time or really just wanna get the DAT over with, get bootcamp. IMO destroyer is way harder than anything you’ll be asked on the DAT. I almost find it useless that the questions are that complex. Bootcamp was even more complex than my DAT. I’m glad that I only stuck with bootcamp and didn’t give destroyer another run through, it would’ve wasted my time TBH. I know people who study destroyer and do super well, and people who get bootcamp and do super well. It just depends on what you want. I wanted to just study what I needed to know (you will never need to know organic past the DAT) and just get it over with. Math destroyer is pretty legit though, I think that was very helpful (24 AA/30 PAT using just bootcamp and math destroyer)

hey thanks for the info! So for math you used Math destroyer, otherwise you stuck with BC?

 

[ChemistryDentist]

Ok, Ive looked up many threads regarding this, but I haven't found a definite, clear answer:

For anyone who has taken the DAT and is familiar with DAT DESTROYER and BOOTCAMP, can you definitively share which one is most similar to the actual, most recent DAT.
Which one should have most of our attention on? And, more specifically, are there sections of the DESTROYER that are better than BOOTCAMP and vise versa?
Thank you for any helpful input

Just want to throw in my opinion real fast! As far as I know, bootcamp had its tests made in 2013. Not due if that sways you any. Regardless, from my experience the DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer + PATBooster were the best resources for the DAT (and cheaper too). There's no way to predict questions you'll see in the exam, but the concepts are covered incredibly well in those books.

Feel free to check out my breakdown below for more info, if you find it might be useful! I'm open for questions too!

 

[futureteethdriller]

I highly recommend the Destroyer and the Destroyer FB page. These resources have updated information, Dr. Romano updates the book every year and adds helpful information in real time on the FB page. The book encourages you to learn all the information needed to succeed on the exam. I also recommend the Math Destroyer. That was spot on for the exam. I used the DAT and Math Destroyer, with TopScore and got accepted to my first choice school. Now, there are even free orgo, bio, and gen chem practice exams. Best of luck to you!

 

[bribri01]

I found math destroyer to be really good, but the science destroyer to be a bit of an overkill. Gen chem was pretty good practice, and the orgo roadmaps were really good, but the problems overall I found to be too challenging. I used around 100 bio questions, and stopped as I thought it was too random. I got a 23 AA overall mostly using bootcamp.

 

[Orka]

Just want to throw in my opinion real fast! As far as I know, bootcamp had its tests made in 2013. Not due if that sways you any. Regardless, from my experience the DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer + PATBooster were the best resources for the DAT (and cheaper too). There's no way to predict questions you'll see in the exam, but the concepts are covered incredibly well in those books.

Feel free to check out my breakdown below for more info, if you find it might be useful! I'm open for questions too!

This is so true.

Bootcamp's PAT questions from 2013 are all still there in Tests #1-5. So from what I see, they don't update their questions as often as you may think. I know Destroyer updates their questions every year. So if you're studying, DATDestroyer + PATBooster is the way to go.

 

[VeNGe]

Destroyer really isn't as bad as some people may lead you to believe. It does an amazing job reinforcing concepts and understanding of those concepts. The 1st time through use it as a learning tool and do it a 2nd time to reinforce what you learned. Honestly, most of the questions are fair game and some of the questions may have an additional step or more involved testing another concept and this is where people think omg its overkill. Obviously they won't ask you such sophisticated questions on the real DAT, but it's a learning tool so you learn/reinforce multiple concepts with a single question. Then there are a few questions out of the blue that will make you think what the heck? But that's more of the exception rather than the norm.
Personally, the 1st time through it was challenging but I just used it as a learning tool and wasn't too upset if I got a lot of problems wrong so avoided any hair pulling. The 2nd time though I was more concerned with how many I got right and even then I'd get a few wrong but it helped me REINFORCE the material and it actually stuck in my head. Then I marked questions I got wrong and redid only those ones before my DAT. For the sake of anonymity, I scored a 26+ in TS by just doing what I stated above.

I highly recommend it. I'd honestly just use your time learning destroyer and practicing those questions multiple times without even touching a bootcamp exam or any other exam, unless of course you have the time.

 

[Pumpkincatdat]

Destroyer really isn't as bad as some people may lead you to believe. It does an amazing job reinforcing concepts and understanding of those concepts. The 1st time through use it as a learning tool and do it a 2nd time to reinforce what you learned. Honestly, most of the questions are fair game and some of the questions may have an additional step or more involved testing another concept and this is where people think omg its overkill. Obviously they won't ask you such sophisticated questions on the real DAT, but it's a learning tool so you learn/reinforce multiple concepts with a single question. Then there are a few questions out of the blue that will make you think what the heck? But that's more of the exception rather than the norm.
Personally, the 1st time through it was challenging but I just used it as a learning tool and wasn't too upset if I got a lot of problems wrong so avoided any hair pulling. The 2nd time though I was more concerned with how many I got right and even then I'd get a few wrong but it helped me REINFORCE the material and it actually stuck in my head. Then I marked questions I got wrong and redid only those ones before my DAT. For the sake of anonymity, I scored a 26+ in TS by just doing what I stated above.

I highly recommend it. I'd honestly just use your time learning destroyer and practicing those questions multiple times without even touching a bootcamp exam or any other exam, unless of course you have the time.

Just to clarify- did you use BC at all? You only used Destroyer?

 

[Rambunctious]

Ok, Ive looked up many threads regarding this, but I haven't found a definite, clear answer:

For anyone who has taken the DAT and is familiar with DAT DESTROYER and BOOTCAMP, can you definitively share which one is most similar to the actual, most recent DAT.
Which one should have most of our attention on? And, more specifically, are there sections of the DESTROYER that are better than BOOTCAMP and vise versa?
Thank you for any helpful input

You don’t want something similar, you want to be practicing on exams that are actually harder than the DAT. So when you take the real thing you kill it. Boot camp is more difficult than the DAT.

 

[Star-Lord]

Just want to throw in my opinion real fast! As far as I know, bootcamp had its tests made in 2013. Not due if that sways you any. Regardless, from my experience the DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer + PATBooster were the best resources for the DAT (and cheaper too). There's no way to predict questions you'll see in the exam, but the concepts are covered incredibly well in those books.

Feel free to check out my breakdown below for more info, if you find it might be useful! I'm open for questions too!

I do think that most resources are this way. A friend of mine gave me his 2012 version of the destroyer books, but I wanted the “new edition” so I purchased the 2016 DAT/Math destroyer books. Once I started doing the problems, I realized that they were almost identical. The newer edition had a few dozen more questions per section but I didn’t feel like it added that much more. The Math destroyer did add a few more tests, which was nice, but they didn’t have any quantitive comparison, even in the 2016 version, so I didn’t even finish those last tests.

OP, even though most of their content was created a while ago, both are good resources to use. The one that’s best to use is the resource that fits your learning style best.

Best of luck studying for the DAT!

 

[DAT Destroyer]

I do want to respond that in 2016 the QR on the DAT did not have QC comparison problems and they were added to the Math Destroyer when the DAT exam changed. The DAT has changed a lot over the 13.5 years since we released the first DAT Destroyer . The DAT is much more challenging and every little bit can make a huge difference in your DAT score. Everyone is free to use what works best for them, but we do our best to make our materials relevant for the current DAT. Our materials have been called overkill but so are our scores. #think30

Just my 2 cents and best of luck to all yet to take the DAT

Nancy, co/owner, Orgoman, LLC

 

[dentalschl44]

hey thanks for the info! So for math you used Math destroyer, otherwise you stuck with BC?

Yup. I also watched the math videos on YouTube by orgoman and dr blois. Honestly found BC to be almost overkill too. My DAT was the most simple science test I’ve taken and maybe I just got lucky but I don’t really think it’s as hard as everyone leads you to believe. Everyone’s experience is different though.

 

[KingSchultz]

Destroyer really isn't as bad as some people may lead you to believe. It does an amazing job reinforcing concepts and understanding of those concepts. The 1st time through use it as a learning tool and do it a 2nd time to reinforce what you learned. Honestly, most of the questions are fair game and some of the questions may have an additional step or more involved testing another concept and this is where people think omg its overkill. Obviously they won't ask you such sophisticated questions on the real DAT, but it's a learning tool so you learn/reinforce multiple concepts with a single question. Then there are a few questions out of the blue that will make you think what the heck? But that's more of the exception rather than the norm.
Personally, the 1st time through it was challenging but I just used it as a learning tool and wasn't too upset if I got a lot of problems wrong so avoided any hair pulling. The 2nd time though I was more concerned with how many I got right and even then I'd get a few wrong but it helped me REINFORCE the material and it actually stuck in my head. Then I marked questions I got wrong and redid only those ones before my DAT. For the sake of anonymity, I scored a 26+ in TS by just doing what I stated above.

I highly recommend it. I'd honestly just use your time learning destroyer and practicing those questions multiple times without even touching a bootcamp exam or any other exam, unless of course you have the time.

Thank you , the truth is I have put all of my effort - thus far- in JUST the destroyer and nothing else as you have done and if what you say worked for you then I will take your word for it

 

[VeNGe]

Just to clarify- did you use BC at all? You only used Destroyer?

I did buy bootcamp and I watched all of Mike's videos and printed the notes and put them in a binder. I also found the biology notes useful as well. They do a great job for content review and I would always skim through my notes when I forgot some things or came across difficult destroyer questions. I took 2 BC exams a long time ago and it was useful AT THE TIME (before I touched destroyer). Again, if you have the time and finished destroyer then you should use it for more practice. I, however, knew just drilling through destroyer questions would be sufficient to get a high TS score, so refrained from taking the other 8 exams. I also realized the "tricky" questions in bootcamp were already in destroyer and realized destroyer has all of those tricky types of questions and believed destroyer definitely has all the concepts bootcamp would test me on and then some so just stuck with it. For example, I took the 1st TS bc exam and did decent and thought that wasn't too bad. Then many people said tests 6-10 are hard on bootcamp so I attempted one of them and I thought yeah there are a lot of "tricky" questions on here (like hmm is it the endo or exo product favored for diels alder reactions, or is the alcohol dehydration better on that carbon or that carbon, you know basically little things you might forget and have to think twice about to answer the question). Then I opened destroyer and all of these concepts were heavily tested on so I felt comfortable enough that it has everything I needed.

I thought timing would be an issue but if you go through destroyer and master the questions, well then timing honestly becomes irrelevant because you know how to quickly solve questions.

 

[VeNGe]

Thank you , the truth is I have put all of my effort - thus far- in JUST the destroyer and nothing else as you have done and if what you say worked for you then I will take your word for it

Hey I wish the best of luck to you but you prob won't need it if you finish destroyer lol. Good luck and enjoy the journey!

 

[raidam1]

Just want to throw in my opinion real fast! As far as I know, bootcamp had its tests made in 2013. Not due if that sways you any. Regardless, from my experience the DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer + PATBooster were the best resources for the DAT (and cheaper too). There's no way to predict questions you'll see in the exam, but the concepts are covered incredibly well in those books.

Feel free to check out my breakdown below for more info, if you find it might be useful! I'm open for questions too!

Could you perhaps list what versions of the DAT Destroyers and Math Destroyer you used? I think I have the 2018 version and am not sure If I should use the most current version as of now.

 

[ChemistryDentist]

Could you perhaps list what versions of the DAT Destroyers and Math Destroyer you used? I think I have the 2018 version and am not sure If I should use the most current version as of now.

I used the most recent version for my exam, which was for 2019. I recommend the recent version, because there are a bunch of questions added every year. If you absolutely must use an older version, you may still be okay, but know you'll be at a slight disadvantage without having the most recent edition.

 

[0Mik3cho]

Could you perhaps list what versions of the DAT Destroyers and Math Destroyer you used? I think I have the 2018 version and am not sure If I should use the most current version as of now.

I used the 2018 version and it worked out just fine for me. But ChemistryDentist is right; A newer version may have questions and topics seen on more recent test versions. If cost is not a concern, get the newer one.

 

[Biofilm preventer]

Just want to throw in my opinion real fast! As far as I know, bootcamp had its tests made in 2013. Not due if that sways you any. Regardless, from my experience the DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer + PATBooster were the best resources for the DAT (and cheaper too). There's no way to predict questions you'll see in the exam, but the concepts are covered incredibly well in those books.

Feel free to check out my breakdown below for more info, if you find it might be useful! I'm open for questions too!

Hey i see you a lot on these forums giving very helpful advice. Just wondering, with your incredible DAT score you probably received many interviews/acceptances. Have you decided on where you plan on attending if you dont mind me asking

 

[ChemistryDentist]

Hey i see you a lot on these forums giving very helpful advice. Just wondering, with your incredible DAT score you probably received many interviews/acceptances. Have you decided on where you plan on attending if you dont mind me asking

Thanks! I'm keeping where I'm going quiet for now, until I'm settled in there. Just more comfortable that way. But until then, here to help out people where I can!