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Hey all, I just finished my exam and I'm overall pleased with my grades.
Thank you to all members who have posted their study habits and practice grades. It has really helped me out, and now it is my turn to share my experience with this exam. Whenever i read these kinds of posts, I wish the OP would write a bit more, so I will write as much as possible to help you guys out!
First off, I finished school around mid May and studied around 1.5 months for the exam. I spent anywhere from 4-8 hours a day studying everyday, with the exception of a few days when I went to NYC for a Coldplay concert (it was awesome and free😀). I stayed on my school campus instead of going home, and I had nothing better to do but study. (No friends/distractions!) I highly recommend anyone to do the same! Also, I took my exam at the Vestal, NY Prometric Center. THEY HAD PAPER/PENCILS! NO MARKERS/LAMINATED SHEETS. If you are in the vicinity, I highly recommend taking the test at this center. Also, from what I've heard, this center is rarely ever packed. There were only about 5 other people there taking exams.
My grades were:
PAT: 21
QR: 19
RC: 20
Bio: 20
GC: 23
OC: 27
TS: 22
AA: 22 (95.4 percentile)
I used Topscore, Achiever, Schaums Outline of Biology, Destroyer, Kaplan Blue Book, and Wikipedia =)
As for my Topscore and Achiever grades, I dont think they are a good representation of my scores. I took these exams before I was thoroughly prepared, and not to mention I made many silly mistakes.
For Bio and GC, my topscore grades were around 19s, and 17-18 for achiever.
For OC, my topscore grades were around 20 and for achiever, 19.
My PAT for topscore were in the mid 20s, and low 20s for achiever. I'm pretty sure I messed up on the angle rankings for the real DAT.
My RC and QR were generally the same as I did on the real DAT.
I felt that the exam was a bit easier than Topscore. I would add 1 or 2 points on top of your topscore exam to gauge how you will do on the real one.
Destroyer is definately one of the best study tools for this exam. I redid the problems in destroyer 3-4 times, and made sure I understood how to do everything. I would not have gotten such a great OC score without destroyer. GC was a bit easier on the real DAT than in destroyer. Bio was about the same difficulty.
As for the test itself, I did NOT get frapped! Thank god lol. I read all about FRAP and was completely prepared for the worst. Bio was completely random as I expected. All I can say about this is to use as many resources as possible and know EVERY LITTLE PIECE OF DETAIL. Some of my questions were so specific that it would have only taken up one sentence in my Schaums outline. Kaplan's Bio did not cover at least 1/4 to 1/3 of the questions I encountered. Definately use Schaums or Cliff for this, and memorize as much as humanly possible. (I must have read Schaums about 5-6 times over.) There were questions that were not covered in schaums outline as well. Wikipedia is your friend! Wiki anything you don't know. Its a great and fast resource! For bio, I guessed on about 3 to 4 questions. I believe that it is easier to prepare and do well on GC/OC than on Bio, just because there's some things you cannot prepare for on the Bio section. So nail GC and OC so it can bring up your AA!
General Chem was relatively straight forward, and I only had about 3-4 calculation problems. There were no questions that I didn't know how to do, so I probably made a few silly mistakes. Like other members have said, it was mostly conceptual for me. As for the calculation questions, none of them were too hard to solve. The numbers all divided nicely or were multiples of each other. I remember doing GC in destroyer and wondering if the real one was as mathematically difficult. For me, it was not. I probably spent the least amount of time on GC.
For OC, I am very pleased with my 27, which means I probably got one wrong if im not mistaken. I encountered a question that had the wrong answer choices. I chose an answer that made the most sense to me, even though I thought it was wrong ( i woudl like to explain but I dont think i'm allowed to discuss this on this forum). I knew how to do every question, so once again either i made a silly mistake or i got the question wrong where I thought it had the wrong answer choices. The reactions were pretty straight forward, nothing as long as some of those long problems in destroyer. DESTROYER IS KEY FOR GETTING A GOOD SCORE IN OC. I am no way affiliated with Destroyer, and as much as it costs, it really helped me get a good score in this section. He is called orgoman for a reason!
PAT was comparable to Topscore. The hole punching was definately not as hard as Achiever, but i thought it was more difficult than Topscore. The angles were as hard as I expected. Everything else was more or less comparable to Topscore. I was hoping for something better than 21, but I am not complaining =)
QR was definately my hardest section. I did not study for it as much as I would have liked. I found it more difficult than any of my prep materials. I followed some of your advices and skipped word problems until the end. I answered all the short problems first, but i had SO many word problems. I definately had to rush and guessed on about 5 questions for this section. Needless to say, this section was my weak area to begin with, so i guess i deserved a lower score on this section. Make sure you practice your time management with this section! I feel that most people don't have a problem with the difficulty, but more so on the timing. Timing is key! Also, I suggest rounding/guestimating to get to your answers if your answer choices are far apart from each other. For example, 19 x 19, think of it as 20 x 20, and look for answer choices a little bit lower than 400. It could save you a lot of time and energy!
Reading comprehension was tougher for me than Topscore or Achiever. Although I'm glad i did not get the ethics passage, I still had a little difficulty with this one. I panicked a little when I couldnt find a few answer choices. Whatever you do, don't panic. I used the search and destroy method for this section. It seemed to work for me for the practice exams. Make sure you are comfortable with your method and make sure you do the RC practice exams. They help!
The best advice i can give is DONT PANIC! You cannot think and function as well if you panic. I told myself I would keep cool throughout the exam but there were a few moments when my heart started racing and my brain wasn't thinking properly. I gave myself a few seconds to cool down and control myself. If you prepared well enough, then all you can do is take the test being calm and collected. I couldnt fall asleep the night before and only got about 5 hours of rest before the exam. I got too nervous and all that I could think about were formulas and topics all night lol. Just get a good night's sleep and stay confident. There's nothing else much you can do after that!
I also recommend retaking the Topscore exams. I dont hear a lot about people doing this. There is an option to erase all test scores, and you can take it again. I gave myself about 2 weeks before taking the exams again. The second time around, you can see what questions you got wrong again, and make sure you know how to do such problems. I'm not sure about achiever, since I didn't retake that one.
Many SDN members are getting awesome scores and I felt a little intimidated at first. However, with the right resources, determination and motivation, I got a 22. I'm no more special than any of you guys. I studied for 1.5 months and mentally prepared myself to do well on this exam. All of you guys out there could do it too! I encourage all of you guys to work hard and keep on studying. It will sure pay off!
Anyway, I have a 3.65 GPA, but my application won't be done for a while. My pre health advisor takes foreverrrrrr and he probably wont have my letter of evaluation done until over a month from now. That isn't too late is it? My school of choice right now is Buffalo. I am hoping that my scores will be good enough, and it seems that I am one step closer to my dreams! Thanks for all your help and support, and I wish everyone taking the DAT's soon the best of luck!
If anyone has any questions, feel free to PM me or respond to my post! I'll be happy to answer anything! Good luck everyone!
Thank you to all members who have posted their study habits and practice grades. It has really helped me out, and now it is my turn to share my experience with this exam. Whenever i read these kinds of posts, I wish the OP would write a bit more, so I will write as much as possible to help you guys out!
First off, I finished school around mid May and studied around 1.5 months for the exam. I spent anywhere from 4-8 hours a day studying everyday, with the exception of a few days when I went to NYC for a Coldplay concert (it was awesome and free😀). I stayed on my school campus instead of going home, and I had nothing better to do but study. (No friends/distractions!) I highly recommend anyone to do the same! Also, I took my exam at the Vestal, NY Prometric Center. THEY HAD PAPER/PENCILS! NO MARKERS/LAMINATED SHEETS. If you are in the vicinity, I highly recommend taking the test at this center. Also, from what I've heard, this center is rarely ever packed. There were only about 5 other people there taking exams.
My grades were:
PAT: 21
QR: 19
RC: 20
Bio: 20
GC: 23
OC: 27
TS: 22
AA: 22 (95.4 percentile)
I used Topscore, Achiever, Schaums Outline of Biology, Destroyer, Kaplan Blue Book, and Wikipedia =)
As for my Topscore and Achiever grades, I dont think they are a good representation of my scores. I took these exams before I was thoroughly prepared, and not to mention I made many silly mistakes.
For Bio and GC, my topscore grades were around 19s, and 17-18 for achiever.
For OC, my topscore grades were around 20 and for achiever, 19.
My PAT for topscore were in the mid 20s, and low 20s for achiever. I'm pretty sure I messed up on the angle rankings for the real DAT.
My RC and QR were generally the same as I did on the real DAT.
I felt that the exam was a bit easier than Topscore. I would add 1 or 2 points on top of your topscore exam to gauge how you will do on the real one.
Destroyer is definately one of the best study tools for this exam. I redid the problems in destroyer 3-4 times, and made sure I understood how to do everything. I would not have gotten such a great OC score without destroyer. GC was a bit easier on the real DAT than in destroyer. Bio was about the same difficulty.
As for the test itself, I did NOT get frapped! Thank god lol. I read all about FRAP and was completely prepared for the worst. Bio was completely random as I expected. All I can say about this is to use as many resources as possible and know EVERY LITTLE PIECE OF DETAIL. Some of my questions were so specific that it would have only taken up one sentence in my Schaums outline. Kaplan's Bio did not cover at least 1/4 to 1/3 of the questions I encountered. Definately use Schaums or Cliff for this, and memorize as much as humanly possible. (I must have read Schaums about 5-6 times over.) There were questions that were not covered in schaums outline as well. Wikipedia is your friend! Wiki anything you don't know. Its a great and fast resource! For bio, I guessed on about 3 to 4 questions. I believe that it is easier to prepare and do well on GC/OC than on Bio, just because there's some things you cannot prepare for on the Bio section. So nail GC and OC so it can bring up your AA!
General Chem was relatively straight forward, and I only had about 3-4 calculation problems. There were no questions that I didn't know how to do, so I probably made a few silly mistakes. Like other members have said, it was mostly conceptual for me. As for the calculation questions, none of them were too hard to solve. The numbers all divided nicely or were multiples of each other. I remember doing GC in destroyer and wondering if the real one was as mathematically difficult. For me, it was not. I probably spent the least amount of time on GC.
For OC, I am very pleased with my 27, which means I probably got one wrong if im not mistaken. I encountered a question that had the wrong answer choices. I chose an answer that made the most sense to me, even though I thought it was wrong ( i woudl like to explain but I dont think i'm allowed to discuss this on this forum). I knew how to do every question, so once again either i made a silly mistake or i got the question wrong where I thought it had the wrong answer choices. The reactions were pretty straight forward, nothing as long as some of those long problems in destroyer. DESTROYER IS KEY FOR GETTING A GOOD SCORE IN OC. I am no way affiliated with Destroyer, and as much as it costs, it really helped me get a good score in this section. He is called orgoman for a reason!
PAT was comparable to Topscore. The hole punching was definately not as hard as Achiever, but i thought it was more difficult than Topscore. The angles were as hard as I expected. Everything else was more or less comparable to Topscore. I was hoping for something better than 21, but I am not complaining =)
QR was definately my hardest section. I did not study for it as much as I would have liked. I found it more difficult than any of my prep materials. I followed some of your advices and skipped word problems until the end. I answered all the short problems first, but i had SO many word problems. I definately had to rush and guessed on about 5 questions for this section. Needless to say, this section was my weak area to begin with, so i guess i deserved a lower score on this section. Make sure you practice your time management with this section! I feel that most people don't have a problem with the difficulty, but more so on the timing. Timing is key! Also, I suggest rounding/guestimating to get to your answers if your answer choices are far apart from each other. For example, 19 x 19, think of it as 20 x 20, and look for answer choices a little bit lower than 400. It could save you a lot of time and energy!
Reading comprehension was tougher for me than Topscore or Achiever. Although I'm glad i did not get the ethics passage, I still had a little difficulty with this one. I panicked a little when I couldnt find a few answer choices. Whatever you do, don't panic. I used the search and destroy method for this section. It seemed to work for me for the practice exams. Make sure you are comfortable with your method and make sure you do the RC practice exams. They help!
The best advice i can give is DONT PANIC! You cannot think and function as well if you panic. I told myself I would keep cool throughout the exam but there were a few moments when my heart started racing and my brain wasn't thinking properly. I gave myself a few seconds to cool down and control myself. If you prepared well enough, then all you can do is take the test being calm and collected. I couldnt fall asleep the night before and only got about 5 hours of rest before the exam. I got too nervous and all that I could think about were formulas and topics all night lol. Just get a good night's sleep and stay confident. There's nothing else much you can do after that!
I also recommend retaking the Topscore exams. I dont hear a lot about people doing this. There is an option to erase all test scores, and you can take it again. I gave myself about 2 weeks before taking the exams again. The second time around, you can see what questions you got wrong again, and make sure you know how to do such problems. I'm not sure about achiever, since I didn't retake that one.
Many SDN members are getting awesome scores and I felt a little intimidated at first. However, with the right resources, determination and motivation, I got a 22. I'm no more special than any of you guys. I studied for 1.5 months and mentally prepared myself to do well on this exam. All of you guys out there could do it too! I encourage all of you guys to work hard and keep on studying. It will sure pay off!
Anyway, I have a 3.65 GPA, but my application won't be done for a while. My pre health advisor takes foreverrrrrr and he probably wont have my letter of evaluation done until over a month from now. That isn't too late is it? My school of choice right now is Buffalo. I am hoping that my scores will be good enough, and it seems that I am one step closer to my dreams! Thanks for all your help and support, and I wish everyone taking the DAT's soon the best of luck!
If anyone has any questions, feel free to PM me or respond to my post! I'll be happy to answer anything! Good luck everyone!
... guess that will motivate me to keep studying! haha
