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I've been waiting to write one of these for the last 4 months.
I would like to first thank sdn for all of the help and inspiration. I was on sdn more often than facebook these last couple of months, I was obsessed with this thing and read every post.
Now, I am by no means a crazy 4.0 student with an iq of 1000, I just put in a lot of effort into this exam. It is possible for anybody to do well if they put in the work, I am proof of that!
Now for the breakdown....
PAT 22 93.4
QR 24 99
RC 17 24.3 (oops)
Bio 21 92.3
GC 23 95.4
OC 27 98.7
TS 23 97.8
AA 22 97
I am extremely satisfied with my scores!
Here is my story....
I quit my assisting job and studied for a good 3.5 months since I wanted to do really well. I not only studied for 3.5 months, but I completely immersed myself in the material. I didn't go a waking/sleeping moment not thinking about this exam. If you ask my gf, she'd probably say that I became a little too obsessed with this thing. But hey, I wanted to knock it out.
As for the study material:
Kaplan bb-good basic material to get down. I started off reading this and my college text books.
Chad's-for the both chems, he is great! He really helped me get a solid handle on everything.
Destroyer-Way harder than the real deal. As somebody mentioned earlier it totally gears you for the dat. If you can master it, you will do well.
cdp-great help for the pat. It was pretty similar to the difficulty, but there were some differences.
math destroyer-waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay harder than the real thing, it is possibly an over kill. That being said, if you have 3 months with nothing to do, master it and you'll do great.
sdn-I obviously read all of the breakdowns to figure out what to study with but I also read the pat tutorials, they seemed to really help.
khan's vids-I used him a little bit for some of the math stuff that I didn't know and also watched some of the bio ones just for fun. Def not a do or die, but it helped me nonetheless.
Cliff's ap-It was a decent review book. I guess if you read Campbells or some textbook from cover to cover you'll be set. But that thought scared me, so I just read cliff's. I felt like it was a pretty good review, def a good idea to read through once or twice.
sdn notes-I printed out a ton of sdn notes that I found from various breakdowns, they were pretty helpful.
For the test:
Bio: I hate to say it, but when 10000 people say it is random, they are correct. It was more difficult than the practice ADA test so I was a little thrown off. The best approach is to read as much as possible from as many sources as possible when you are studying, so cliffs, sdn notes, etc. etc.
GC: It was pretty basic since I had really mastered the destroyer. Some simple calculations and that's about all I remember.
OC: I didn't think I would do this well, but I guess I got lucky. I had a few reaction questions, so know all of your roadmaps so they are gimmes.
PAT: CDP is great! It was very similar to the real deal. There were however some differences. The holes on the hole punching are smaller on the real thing, so it did throw me off a little bit. The keyhole section was more difficult on the real thing. The pattern folding was more difficult on the real thing. TFE seemed about on par with cdp, maybe a little easier. Hole punch and cube counting were much easier on the real thing. angle ranking actually seemed doable compared to cdp, which I found to be impossible
Break time: Stuffed my face with a cliff bar and a ham sandwich, used the bathroom and had a brief pep talk with myself. Basically saying, "wow those sections were too hard, I will probably have to retake 🙁 Now off to the rc which I didn't practice at all and math which is supposed to be impossible...greaaaaaaaat"
RC: English is my first language, but this section was insane. The only prep I did for this was reading a few sdn strategies aka nothing. I ended up just skimming the passage and then staring blankly at each question for a couple of minutes just just trying to pronounce the words in my head. Then I went back and kind of search and destroyed it, minus the destroy part though...
qr: I figured that I'd be super tired and hungry and everything at this point of the test, but surprisingly I could have gone another hour or two. This section was way easier than I expected. Mostly the easy questions from destroyer maybe 1 probability and 1 trig function, but they were pretty easy.
Finally the scores popped up and my jaw dropped. I must have been pale because when I walked out to check out the lady asked me if I was ok. I said, "uhh I think so"
Other thoughts:
I think my loooong study days really helped me in the end. Stamina is a really big part of a 5 hour test like this. I would do 40 mins of bio reading/destroyer problems, followed by 30 gc and 30 oc questions timed and then a cdp test to get my timing down. It really helped me to simulate it like that.
Practice, practice, practice! Do the problems in destroyer and any other problems that you can find and master them all.
Finally, relax, you will do great!
I'M FINISHED!!! 🙂
I would like to first thank sdn for all of the help and inspiration. I was on sdn more often than facebook these last couple of months, I was obsessed with this thing and read every post.
Now, I am by no means a crazy 4.0 student with an iq of 1000, I just put in a lot of effort into this exam. It is possible for anybody to do well if they put in the work, I am proof of that!
Now for the breakdown....
PAT 22 93.4
QR 24 99
RC 17 24.3 (oops)
Bio 21 92.3
GC 23 95.4
OC 27 98.7
TS 23 97.8
AA 22 97
I am extremely satisfied with my scores!
Here is my story....
I quit my assisting job and studied for a good 3.5 months since I wanted to do really well. I not only studied for 3.5 months, but I completely immersed myself in the material. I didn't go a waking/sleeping moment not thinking about this exam. If you ask my gf, she'd probably say that I became a little too obsessed with this thing. But hey, I wanted to knock it out.
As for the study material:
Kaplan bb-good basic material to get down. I started off reading this and my college text books.
Chad's-for the both chems, he is great! He really helped me get a solid handle on everything.
Destroyer-Way harder than the real deal. As somebody mentioned earlier it totally gears you for the dat. If you can master it, you will do well.
cdp-great help for the pat. It was pretty similar to the difficulty, but there were some differences.
math destroyer-waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay harder than the real thing, it is possibly an over kill. That being said, if you have 3 months with nothing to do, master it and you'll do great.
sdn-I obviously read all of the breakdowns to figure out what to study with but I also read the pat tutorials, they seemed to really help.
khan's vids-I used him a little bit for some of the math stuff that I didn't know and also watched some of the bio ones just for fun. Def not a do or die, but it helped me nonetheless.
Cliff's ap-It was a decent review book. I guess if you read Campbells or some textbook from cover to cover you'll be set. But that thought scared me, so I just read cliff's. I felt like it was a pretty good review, def a good idea to read through once or twice.
sdn notes-I printed out a ton of sdn notes that I found from various breakdowns, they were pretty helpful.
For the test:
Bio: I hate to say it, but when 10000 people say it is random, they are correct. It was more difficult than the practice ADA test so I was a little thrown off. The best approach is to read as much as possible from as many sources as possible when you are studying, so cliffs, sdn notes, etc. etc.
GC: It was pretty basic since I had really mastered the destroyer. Some simple calculations and that's about all I remember.
OC: I didn't think I would do this well, but I guess I got lucky. I had a few reaction questions, so know all of your roadmaps so they are gimmes.
PAT: CDP is great! It was very similar to the real deal. There were however some differences. The holes on the hole punching are smaller on the real thing, so it did throw me off a little bit. The keyhole section was more difficult on the real thing. The pattern folding was more difficult on the real thing. TFE seemed about on par with cdp, maybe a little easier. Hole punch and cube counting were much easier on the real thing. angle ranking actually seemed doable compared to cdp, which I found to be impossible
Break time: Stuffed my face with a cliff bar and a ham sandwich, used the bathroom and had a brief pep talk with myself. Basically saying, "wow those sections were too hard, I will probably have to retake 🙁 Now off to the rc which I didn't practice at all and math which is supposed to be impossible...greaaaaaaaat"
RC: English is my first language, but this section was insane. The only prep I did for this was reading a few sdn strategies aka nothing. I ended up just skimming the passage and then staring blankly at each question for a couple of minutes just just trying to pronounce the words in my head. Then I went back and kind of search and destroyed it, minus the destroy part though...
qr: I figured that I'd be super tired and hungry and everything at this point of the test, but surprisingly I could have gone another hour or two. This section was way easier than I expected. Mostly the easy questions from destroyer maybe 1 probability and 1 trig function, but they were pretty easy.
Finally the scores popped up and my jaw dropped. I must have been pale because when I walked out to check out the lady asked me if I was ok. I said, "uhh I think so"
Other thoughts:
I think my loooong study days really helped me in the end. Stamina is a really big part of a 5 hour test like this. I would do 40 mins of bio reading/destroyer problems, followed by 30 gc and 30 oc questions timed and then a cdp test to get my timing down. It really helped me to simulate it like that.
Practice, practice, practice! Do the problems in destroyer and any other problems that you can find and master them all.
Finally, relax, you will do great!
I'M FINISHED!!! 🙂
