DAT DONE 7/12/2010. 6 week study plan

[immalozer]

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Bare with me, I'm a little new at this.

Took the DAT today and did well considering I only studied for 6 weeks. I thought I would share what I did to manage my time and study as efficiently as possible. Score break down:
PAT 22
QR 18 😴
RC 20
BIO 20
GCHEM 23
OCHEM 28
TS 22
AA 22

I started out with Chad's videos to get the ball rolling. I took very detailed notes while I watched these videos and I would suggest you do the same because he covers the majority of what you should know for the test and I also figured out that his side comments are very helpful. Overall, these videos help me with a lot of major concepts you should have down come test day. After I relearned concepts for chemistry and ochem I went through destroyer to gauge whether I could applied those concepts. At first I started doing one question at a time but a later realized its a lot faster if you do about 20-25 questions and then go over the answers. This really helped me with the small details I needed to work on such as remembering enols shift to ketone. What really helped me in the Ochem section was memorizing the road maps. In between working on questions in destroyer I read Cliff Notes AP Bio. It really does cover everything you need to know and in just the right amount of detail. I feel like I might have went into too much detail when studying for bio and it turns out that I got a whole bunch of random questions that I didnt even think to cover. So read every section in the AP bio book because they will cover that section that you didn't pay enough attention to. Also, I think the biology section for destroyer was not as helpful as the chemistry and ochem sections since it goes into a little to much detail. After I felt like I had a good basis for the material, I took a practice test every other day around the same time my test was scheduled. I did this to gauge where I was and to also figure out a strategy for each section. After each test, I went over most of the questions and made sure I understood them. I used 4 kaplan test, topscore and achiever. I would say topscore is close to the difficulty of the questions on the actual exam. It was also the best indicator for my scores. Kaplan was a little harder but it did help me understand some concepts and it also helped me find a pace esp. for QR and RC. Achiever was a total waste of time. Because of the difficulty, it is def. not a good indicator for where you stand. Throughout all of the practice test I routinely went over my notes from Chad's videos and made sure I memorized everything. I did not study much for the other sections, as you can tell from my QR score. I just did QR from destroyer and memorized some formulas. If you have the time you should def. catch up on your math. I didn't do much to prepare for RC, I just figured that I would just wing it. For PAT, I used Crack Dat Pat. I started 11 days before my test and tried to fit in a practice test everyday.

After everything, I feel that I used study materials that allowed me to understand concepts relatively quickly. The most helpful materials were Chad's videos, Destroyer, CDP, AP BIO Cliff notes and topscore. I would not recommend that anyone get achiever. Even though its only 60$, I wouldn't waste my money because it did not help at all.

Well thats how I studied for the DAT in a little less than 6 weeks while also working part time. It didn't seem like enough time at first but I got through it. I was studying about 14 hours a day and dreaming about chem formulas. Although I didn't do as well as I wanted to do in some sections, I feel like I did as much as I could to prepare in the time I had. I really don't know what happened to BIO because it was my strongest section going in but there were some really random questions thrown in the bunch. Ok, to sum it all up, quality over quantity, memorize road maps and Chad's videos are awesome!

 

[nyr201]

GREAT JOB those are scores i dream of lol....for the roadmaps, did u draw each reaction out? or just kept looking at them. I'm debating whether i should just use roadmaps or sit down and go through ACS, i've watched chads and have taken very detailed notes, but i still get a lot wrong in destroyer, so idk what's the right thing to do in regards to orgo.

 

[immalozer]

Def. go over the road maps. I would say that a lot (17+) of the questions that I got gave me a reactant and a sequence of reagents then asked for the product. For me, studying the road maps helped me with sequencing the reactions so I could just glance and at it and know right away what the product should be. This was a huge time saver for me since I knew my reactions so well through memorizing the road maps I was able to get through ochem in about 15 minutes. By the time I finished the section I still had about 30-35 minutes left to go back and check all of my answers.
To memorize the road maps, I wrote out note cards for each reaction; it really did not take long considering that many reactions are repeated in the road maps and that theres not very much writing involved ( at most your probably drawing a few hexagons). The pay off has greatly exceeded the investment in my case. Also, I grouped the notecards together in order to see the progression of the reactions (ex. the products on one card is the reactants on the next). Chad's videos were great for concepts, know the acid base strength concepts, as well SN1 SN2 E1 E2, IR and NMR concepts( I wouldn't stress knowing the values very much, maybe -OH ~3300, and and C=O~1700), isomers, and lab techniques. Don't sweat to much about destroyer, I got the majority of the questions wrong at first, then I went over my notes from the videos and the concepts were right there in front of me. If you get a question wrong, make you understand the approach they used for answering the question. Most of the time they will just be applying the concepts you should already know. I would say that what helped me get the score in ochem was knowing the concepts very well and knowing the reactions.

Keep up with Destroyer, I know its frustrating but it is a great way for you to practice applying the concepts. I don't think the test questions were as hard or as tricky as destroyer and that was a major factor in me breezing through the ochem section.

 

[OU11BB]

can you post some of your practice scores from kaplan and topscore? thanks. Great job by the way!

 

[nyr201]

Def. go over the road maps. I would say that a lot (17+) of the questions that I got gave me a reactant and a sequence of reagents then asked for the product. For me, studying the road maps helped me with sequencing the reactions so I could just glance and at it and know right away what the product should be. This was a huge time saver for me since I knew my reactions so well through memorizing the road maps I was able to get through ochem in about 15 minutes. By the time I finished the section I still had about 30-35 minutes left to go back and check all of my answers.
To memorize the road maps, I wrote out note cards for each reaction; it really did not take long considering that many reactions are repeated in the road maps and that theres not very much writing involved ( at most your probably drawing a few hexagons). The pay off has greatly exceeded the investment in my case. Also, I grouped the notecards together in order to see the progression of the reactions (ex. the products on one card is the reactants on the next). Chad's videos were great for concepts, know the acid base strength concepts, as well SN1 SN2 E1 E2, IR and NMR concepts( I wouldn't stress knowing the values very much, maybe -OH ~3300, and and C=O~1700), isomers, and lab techniques. Don't sweat to much about destroyer, I got the majority of the questions wrong at first, then I went over my notes from the videos and the concepts were right there in front of me. If you get a question wrong, make you understand the approach they used for answering the question. Most of the time they will just be applying the concepts you should already know. I would say that what helped me get the score in ochem was knowing the concepts very well and knowing the reactions.

Keep up with Destroyer, I know its frustrating but it is a great way for you to practice applying the concepts. I don't think the test questions were as hard or as tricky as destroyer and that was a major factor in me breezing through the ochem section.

thanks i'll get on the road maps stat! 😀

 

[marymatthews]

Congrats! Now that you have taken the DAT, what is the best way to do well on QR and RC? How could you have done better on QR, if give them time?
Thanks

 

[immalozer]

I think the biggest issue you are dealing with for RC and QR is time. 10 minutes into the RC section I changed up my strategy because the search and destroy method wasn't working fast enough. I started reading the first few words of each paragraph in order to figure out the general location of the answer. I then read the first few words for each sentence. This really helped me for later questions because I was able to locate answers pretty easily after getting some content from my skimming.

For QR, you just really need to have a good basis in math. I became pretty good at setting up word problems and I also memorized the trig functions, all the important triangles, probabilities, and random formulas like bisector equation. I thought this would be good enough to do most of the problems but when I got my first word problem I started to panic a little. It took me about a minute to read and understand the problem then it took me a while to set it up and calculate.I ended up running out of time on this section and I had to guess on about 5 questions. I think if I could do it all over again what I would do is mark the question and move on as fast as I could. Getting that one lengthy word problem right (I probably didn't even get it right), was not worth those 5 questions that I probably got wrong, esp. if those questions could have been easily answered. To do well in this section, you should be able to set up equations relatively quickly, know your basics and then some, and know when you should just move on. I also encountered about 3 questions that I had no clue how to answer and never seen while studying. I didn't even try to answer these questions, I just guessed, marked it and moved on. There would be no point in even wasting time on it.

 

[immalozer]

can you post some of your practice scores from kaplan and topscore? thanks. Great job by the way!

Kaplan
Test1:20 AA/23 PA
Test2:19AA/21PA
Test3:20AA/21PA
Test4:21AA/22PA

TOPSCORE
Test1: 21Bio/19Chem/19Ochem (I wasn't in the test taking mode that day so I only did natural sciences)
Test2: 21AA/20QR/21RC/22Bio/19Chem/21Ochem/21TS/22PA
Test3: 22AA/25QR/20RC/20Bio/23Chem/23Ochem/22TS/21PA

Achiever
18PA/16QR/15RC/17BIO/16CHEM/19OCHEM/18TS
I did equally as bad on the other 2 tests that I took. I think that 19 in ochem as high as it gets

Topscore was a very good indicator of my score, although I did unusually well on the QR on my last test. On that note, the DAT is not going to be consistent and all you can do is prepare as much as you can. Go through as many problems and questions that you can so that when test day comes, you've at least seen it.

 

[MowgliR]

Can you elaborate a little more on your GC? Did you have a strong GC background? Did you make flashcards for GC or anything like that?

 

[immalozer]

For gen chem I did make a few notecards from Chads videos but I didn't want to go overboard. I probably made a few note cards for the general concepts. I made sure that I understood the trends including the exceptions and the calculations. I did not do anything else for chem other than Chad's videos, destroyer and practice test.

When I started studying for chemistry I knew absolutely nothing. I am dead serious when I say that because I never had a strong basis of Chemistry. Other than the fact that I took it a little more than four years ago, I really didn't do well in the series. I did enough to get passing grades and that was not much. The only subject that I had some background in was biology. I basically had to relearn everything when studying for this and its was pretty frustrating. I really have to credit Chad's videos for my progress in Chem. It was really the best study material to relearning an entire subject. The best part of these videos is that I didn't to crack open my chem book once.

 

[nyr201]

Def. go over the road maps. I would say that a lot (17+) of the questions that I got gave me a reactant and a sequence of reagents then asked for the product. For me, studying the road maps helped me with sequencing the reactions so I could just glance and at it and know right away what the product should be. This was a huge time saver for me since I knew my reactions so well through memorizing the road maps I was able to get through ochem in about 15 minutes. By the time I finished the section I still had about 30-35 minutes left to go back and check all of my answers.
To memorize the road maps, I wrote out note cards for each reaction; it really did not take long considering that many reactions are repeated in the road maps and that theres not very much writing involved ( at most your probably drawing a few hexagons). The pay off has greatly exceeded the investment in my case. Also, I grouped the notecards together in order to see the progression of the reactions (ex. the products on one card is the reactants on the next). Chad's videos were great for concepts, know the acid base strength concepts, as well SN1 SN2 E1 E2, IR and NMR concepts( I wouldn't stress knowing the values very much, maybe -OH ~3300, and and C=O~1700), isomers, and lab techniques. Don't sweat to much about destroyer, I got the majority of the questions wrong at first, then I went over my notes from the videos and the concepts were right there in front of me. If you get a question wrong, make you understand the approach they used for answering the question. Most of the time they will just be applying the concepts you should already know. I would say that what helped me get the score in ochem was knowing the concepts very well and knowing the reactions.

Keep up with Destroyer, I know its frustrating but it is a great way for you to practice applying the concepts. I don't think the test questions were as hard or as tricky as destroyer and that was a major factor in me breezing through the ochem section.

hey man once again, abt making flash cards in orgo u say products on one card and reactants on the next what do u mean? do u mean product on one side and reactant on the flip side? oh and is it important to know the names of reactions ie "gabriel synthesis" or just knowing reactants reagents and products is enough? are intermediates important? sorry for all the questions lol i feel like a 5 yr old lol. thanks for the advice!

 

[immalozer]

What I was trying to say was, do the regular note card format reaction on one side and on the back side put the product. I also arranged my notecards so that the product from the previous card is now a reactant for the next card.

I did have 1 question regarding the name of a reaction. You should know the big ones: claisen condensation, haber, dies alder... etc

 

[TamHLe]

Congrats on the scores. I just finnaly took a practice topscore test today I got
AA 14
Bio-14
Gchem-12
Ochem-10
PA-17
Qr-16
RC-20
TA-13

What would you recommend me doing? I did a lot of practice test with pat, qr, and reading and you can see from the scores. With Bio, i did not do much, Gchem I did chads but have not reviewed all the material and I am half way with Ochem with chad. I have destroyer. Should I study for the three science everyday and a little bit on the others? My test is august 10. I remember things easily its just hard cause I want to get better at everything and I felt so scatter brain that I end up not learning much from it.

 

[NewBee12]

Nice scores 🙂
well done. You are on your way to dental school.

 

[immalozer]

Congrats on the scores. I just finnaly took a practice topscore test today I got
AA 14
Bio-14
Gchem-12
Ochem-10
PA-17
Qr-16
RC-20
TA-13

What would you recommend me doing? I did a lot of practice test with pat, qr, and reading and you can see from the scores. With Bio, i did not do much, Gchem I did chads but have not reviewed all the material and I am half way with Ochem with chad. I have destroyer. Should I study for the three science everyday and a little bit on the others? My test is august 10. I remember things easily its just hard cause I want to get better at everything and I felt so scatter brain that I end up not learning much from it.

I would first reccomend that you take a full practice test after you have learned all of the concepts for each subject. You should have a good grasp on the material before you even attempt a practice test. If you are taking them to practice RC and QR you should just take those sections seperately. Go over your notes routinely. I went over my notes so often, I remembered everything word for word (not saying that you should know it word for word, but thats the point I eventually got to by going over them routinely).