DAT Done! 3/13/08

[Flipper405]

Hey everyone,

Feels weird after reading so many of these threads to finally be making one of my own. Literally just got back from the test center (luckily there's one right at my university so that made it easy) I was quite shocked when I finally got to the score report - the little 15 question survey right before it might have been the fastest I've ever flown through haha

Anyway, I'm just going to get to the scores:

PA: 19 75.2%
QR: 20 87.2%
RC: 26 98.7%
Bio: 17 48.2%
GC: 19 70.7%
OC: 22 89.8%
TS: 19 73.6%
AA: 21 91.0%

I was very much pleasantly surprised to see these results. The way my studying had been going, I knew bio would pull me down and organic and rc would pull me up... just didn't know it would be like this. Particularly since I didn't feel like I got enough time to study... I pretty much studied like 5-6 hours a day over the holiday break then I reviewed some last-minute things the last couple of days and took the topscore 1 practice test... my practice test score for reference was: (keep in mind I did these kinda off and on and wasn't focusing completely)

PA:19
QR:19
RC:23
Bio:16
GC:16
OC:18
TS:17
AA:18

Anyway, just believe in yourself and you can accomplish great things! Thanks for everyone that has helped me here on SDN over the last few years that I have been on here. I'll try and answer any questions that people might have. Thanks for reading

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DRKNM]

Congrats!! what did you use to study for the RC, WOW, and what strategies did you use during the test? did you read the questions first, then skim the paragraphs, or what?

thanks

 

[Flipper405]

Yeah, I read the questions first then skimmed through. During the process of skimming the paragraphs, I tried to get a general idea of what each paragraph was about so that I could go to that paragraph. For example, one of my passages was about fungi, and some of the paragraphs would be about particular fungi, so I would remember to go to those paragraphs for that fungi etc...


didn't really study for the RC to be honest - I think it's just a matter of technique - and maybe experience of having to pull information from lots of reading.

 

[Mamona]

You did really good congratulations !!!!
what did you use for biology, general chemistry and organic?

 

[Flipper405]

Thanks!

Pretty much just read through some of the kaplan dat book for bio and gchem. Just took organic last semester so I didn't really study for that. I had some other books that I just never got to. (very briefly did some reading in schaum's bio and cliff's ap bio)

 

[113zami]

how was QR? some say its now equal to or harder than kaplan subject tests
and CONGRATS

 

[Flipper405]

I didn't take the kaplan subject tests... the only kaplan test I took was the blue book test and that was about 3 months ago... got a 16 qr so eh

I did spend some time yesterday focusing on my QR as I felt I was making some dumb mistakes - make sure you know the TYPES of problems that you see in the practice tests and you will have no problems with QR ... eg calculating interest, know your TRIG identities (think I could have gotten another point had I known those heh), probability stuff etc.

 

[laugh]

Very nice. Congradulations! Did you have many calculations for GC? Compared to the real DAT and the practice test you took, there was a big difference in scores. Did you find that the real DAT was easier or just that the grading scale was a bit more relaxed? Again, congradulations.....

 

[nhasifuture]

congrats! great scores.

 

[Flipper405]

Very nice. Congradulations! Did you have many calculations for GC? Compared to the real DAT and the practice test you took, there was a big difference in scores. Did you find that the real DAT was easier or just that the grading scale was a bit more relaxed? Again, congradulations.....

I think the grading scale was definitely easier in bio cause I thought the actual section was harder than the practice test... on the other sections, I attribute the increases to focusing... I'm usually a good test-taker, and today was further proof of that.

On GC, I did have more calculations than I expected, but they were quite easy calculations - I'm pretty sure the questions I missed were the conceptual ones rather than the calculations.

 

[jay47]

Hey everyone,

Feels weird after reading so many of these threads to finally be making one of my own. Literally just got back from the test center (luckily there's one right at my university so that made it easy) I was quite shocked when I finally got to the score report - the little 15 question survey right before it might have been the fastest I've ever flown through haha

Anyway, I'm just going to get to the scores:

PA: 19 75.2%
QR: 20 87.2%
RC: 26 98.7%
Bio: 17 48.2%
GC: 19 70.7%
OC: 22 89.8%
TS: 19 73.6%
AA: 21 91.0%

I was very much pleasantly surprised to see these results. The way my studying had been going, I knew bio would pull me down and organic and rc would pull me up... just didn't know it would be like this. Particularly since I didn't feel like I got enough time to study... I pretty much studied like 5-6 hours a day over the holiday break then I reviewed some last-minute things the last couple of days and took the topscore 1 practice test... my practice test score for reference was: (keep in mind I did these kinda off and on and wasn't focusing completely)

PA:19
QR:19
RC:23
Bio:16
GC:16
OC:18
TS:17
AA:18

Anyway, just believe in yourself and you can accomplish great things! Thanks for everyone that has helped me here on SDN over the last few years that I have been on here. I'll try and answer any questions that people might have. Thanks for reading

Good scores, you should get in with those. I also got a 21 with similiar scores. I think people keep freaking out about this test and want a shortcut to learn everything they can in two months. I think it is better to just pay attention in class, review and read your books well again, and not freak out about topscore test averages. I also averaged about 18-19 on all 3 topscore tests, but I found many of their questions were way too specific, especially in Bio, and chem was geared way too much towards math. So if you are reading this and get similiar scores in TS, don't freak. I think if you have a good understanding of the material, conceptual that is, you will most likely do well.