- Joined
- Jun 16, 2010
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
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Hey everyone! Since you all have been so helpful with your posts and breakdowns of the DAT, I thought I might share my experience with you all as well 
PA - 22 (93.4%)
QR - 21 (96.4%)
RC - 24 (94%)
Bio - 21 (92.3%)
GC - 18 (62.2%) --> no idea what happened here!
OC - 20 (79.9%)
TS - 20 (85.2%)
AA - 21 (93.4%)
Not gonna lie, I barely slept at all last night. I've been having problems sleeping since Saturday. Not to mention the nightmare I had last night about the DAT! I woke up and wanted to throw up!
Anyways, I didn't use that many test-prep materials. The only things I used were KBB, Cliffs AP Bio, CDM and CDP in addition to the sample DAT on the ADA website and their paid sample exam.
Bio: Most random crap I've ever seen in my life! I honestly thought I bombed this section and wanted to start crying in the middle of the exam lol I mentioned that I bought Cliffs AP Bio. I say this because KBB lacks a lot of information. Basically KBB has NOTHING on plants! I mean, I didn't get any plant questions on my exam, but still! Sometimes Cliffs does a better job of explaining things than KBB. I'm also a Bio major and this past spring I took Cell Bio, Genetics and Microbio so I was pretty well-prepared in those areas, as well as Ecology and Evolution because I took a class in that as well.
GC: I really don't know what happened. I probably made some really dumb mistakes or something. I honestly can't even remember the section, I'm so tired! haha
OC: Mostly synthesis questions, I think. Pretty straight-forward.
PA: CDP!! Seriously! My scores in CDP were in the 20-23 range, and mostly 22s so nothing totally weird there
RC: I had such easy passages! I'm so glad, I was honestly ****ting bricks about this section because I had hardly any practice in it! KBB RC is really easy, but the samples from the ADA were really hard! Probably because those passages were boring as hell. The ones on my exam were actually pretty interesting. Mostly detail questions, some tone and a few you had to infer the answer so no surprises there.
QR: Very easy! I was lucky I didn't get too many word problems (maybe I did and either didn't notice or can't remember ) It was really similar to CDM, actually. I felt as if I was taking one of those exams.
So, I started studying around the second week of May, right after finals. I didn't study ridiculously hard-core. I was actually shadowing a dentist about 2 days a week or so from May til about the end of June, working for my dad 2 days a week as well, more or less. I even went on vacation to Florida with my family for 10 days! Well "vacation". I spent most of my time at the kitchen table my nose in a book Even so, I took a few nights off for some quality time with the fam.
What I think that's really REALLY important is that if you're starting to feel miserable, depressed, unhappy, tired and really horribly stressed, you really ought to give yourself a break. I mean I was out of the house a lot of the time shadowing and working, but still at times I felt that if I didn't leave I was going to suffocate! And then there were times where I just wanted to jump out a window. But seriously, there is only so much you can learn and you can only push yourself so much! I really do think that it's crucial for us to have a break every once in a while, just to keep us sane and happy. I can honestly say that I probably spent 3 weeks really hard-core studying in the beginning. After that, it was a lot of drilling and understanding material. Even the days leading up the exam I probably didn't study for more than 3-4 hours.
Anyways, I hope this might help some of you out! I'm not sure if I'm going to retake the exam because of that awful GC score (awful to me, I'm a perfectionist and over-achiever
). But I guess it's time to enjoy what's left of my summer! For now, I'm going to watch TV til my brain turns to mush and Sunday I'm leaving for Greece for about a month!!!!! Yep, going to Sparta
BTW, Fort Minor's "Remember The Name" is such a great song for motivation! Listened to it as I was driving to the testing center
Have a great summer everyone and good luck to you all!!!
PA - 22 (93.4%)
QR - 21 (96.4%)
RC - 24 (94%)
Bio - 21 (92.3%)
GC - 18 (62.2%) -->
no idea what happened here!OC - 20 (79.9%)
TS - 20 (85.2%)
AA - 21 (93.4%)
Not gonna lie, I barely slept at all last night. I've been having problems sleeping since Saturday. Not to mention the nightmare I had last night about the DAT! I woke up and wanted to throw up!
Anyways, I didn't use that many test-prep materials. The only things I used were KBB, Cliffs AP Bio, CDM and CDP in addition to the sample DAT on the ADA website and their paid sample exam.
Bio: Most random crap I've ever seen in my life! I honestly thought I bombed this section and wanted to start crying in the middle of the exam lol I mentioned that I bought Cliffs AP Bio. I say this because KBB lacks a lot of information. Basically KBB has NOTHING on plants! I mean, I didn't get any plant questions on my exam, but still! Sometimes Cliffs does a better job of explaining things than KBB. I'm also a Bio major and this past spring I took Cell Bio, Genetics and Microbio so I was pretty well-prepared in those areas, as well as Ecology and Evolution because I took a class in that as well.
GC: I really don't know what happened. I probably made some really dumb mistakes or something. I honestly can't even remember the section, I'm so tired! haha
OC: Mostly synthesis questions, I think. Pretty straight-forward.
PA: CDP!! Seriously! My scores in CDP were in the 20-23 range, and mostly 22s so nothing totally weird there
RC: I had such easy passages! I'm so glad, I was honestly ****ting bricks about this section because I had hardly any practice in it! KBB RC is really easy, but the samples from the ADA were really hard! Probably because those passages were boring as hell. The ones on my exam were actually pretty interesting. Mostly detail questions, some tone and a few you had to infer the answer so no surprises there.
QR: Very easy! I was lucky I didn't get too many word problems (maybe I did and either didn't notice or can't remember
) It was really similar to CDM, actually. I felt as if I was taking one of those exams.So, I started studying around the second week of May, right after finals. I didn't study ridiculously hard-core. I was actually shadowing a dentist about 2 days a week or so from May til about the end of June, working for my dad 2 days a week as well, more or less. I even went on vacation to Florida with my family for 10 days! Well "vacation". I spent most of my time at the kitchen table my nose in a book
Even so, I took a few nights off for some quality time with the fam.What I think that's really REALLY important is that if you're starting to feel miserable, depressed, unhappy, tired and really horribly stressed, you really ought to give yourself a break. I mean I was out of the house a lot of the time shadowing and working, but still at times I felt that if I didn't leave I was going to suffocate! And then there were times where I just wanted to jump out a window. But seriously, there is only so much you can learn and you can only push yourself so much! I really do think that it's crucial for us to have a break every once in a while, just to keep us sane and happy. I can honestly say that I probably spent 3 weeks really hard-core studying in the beginning. After that, it was a lot of drilling and understanding material. Even the days leading up the exam I probably didn't study for more than 3-4 hours.
Anyways, I hope this might help some of you out! I'm not sure if I'm going to retake the exam because of that awful GC score (awful to me, I'm a perfectionist and over-achiever
). But I guess it's time to enjoy what's left of my summer! For now, I'm going to watch TV til my brain turns to mush and Sunday I'm leaving for Greece for about a month!!!!! Yep, going to Sparta BTW, Fort Minor's "Remember The Name" is such a great song for motivation! Listened to it as I was driving to the testing center
Have a great summer everyone and good luck to you all!!!
