DAT Done! 7/4/13

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FutureDentist17

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After 6 long weeks of studying I'm done! Although I was hoping to score higher after lurking around the forums for the past few months I'm still very pleased!

PAT: 20
Bio: 21
GC: 21
OC: 22
RC: 21
QR: 21
TS: 21
AA: 21

I literally studied about 6-12 hours almost every day for six weeks and was really hoping for mid 20s, I'm usually a great test taker and do well under pressure but I guess my nerves got the best of me. I want to start by talking about the test center. It is required you bring two forms of ID, both signed and one with a photo. Now, I don't know about everyone else, but I got my license when I was 16 and had to sign on an electronic thing so the signature on my ID isn't ver similar to how I signed my social security card/passport/etc. So five minutes before my test they were telling me I couldn't take it. That really messed me up and once it was resolved and I started sciences I was freaking out and thought I bombed it...so I took the rest of my test with the mindset I would have to retake anyway. Needless to say after the survey when I saw everything had a 2 in front I was ecstatic. Okay now my breakdown...

Materials used:
KBB (for bio only)
Chads (for OC and GC)
DAT Qvault Bio
TopScore
Achiever (5 tests....should have gotten 3 and saved $50)
Destroyer
OC Odyssey
Math Destroyer
CDP
Cliffs AP Bio
Barrons AP Bio

My review on these materials is the same as you will find in all other breakdowns. Achiever really lowered my confidence and so I only took 1.5 of the 5 tests (total waste of money for me)
and the PAT on Achiever is unlike CDP or the real thing...I only recommend it for RC because it was much more accurate than TopScore.

Math Destroyer and OC Odyssey were phenomenal and if I had started them during the first week of studying as opposed to the third and had time to go through them twice my scores would have been MUCH higher.

I went through KBB bio and made a 58 page outline (ouch), read Cliffs and outlined (around 20 pages) then read through Barron's and highlighted...however I never ran over these notes (so dumb). But was getting between 20-22 on Qvault so I would say that's pretty accurate.

On CDP I was getting scores around 20-23, so I was hoping for a bit higher, but like I said after sciences I had the mindset I would have to retake so that affected me I'm sure.

I ran out of time for QR and wish I had worked more on timing while doing Math Destroyer. On all of the practice tests I took I was scoring around 18-20.

On all of the practice tests I took I never got above a 17 for gen chem, 18 for Bio and 20 for o chem....and I also scored a 29 on RC on Topscore and a 17 on Achiever. My biggest advice is don't let practice test scores discourage you. They really got to me and made me less confident. Also, if I could do it again I would get fewer materials for the amount of time I had...I really do believe if I had stretched these materials out over 2 months I would have been golden. I hope this helps and would love to answer any questions if you have them!
 
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Great scores all around! Congrats!

How does the QR portion compare to math destroyer in terms of difficulty?
 
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Thanks! I thought it was easier than Math destroyer and would have done better if I had gone faster....I had to guess on about 5 problems that I knew how to do but didn't have the time to work out.
 
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Congrats!! Those are some amazing scores!!! Now you should enjoy the rest of your summer cause you deserve it 🙂

Did you encounter any obscure topics in bio, gchem, ochem, and QR? Was chad's quizzes on par with the chemistries? or what source do you think was more accurate for those sections?

I was going to purchase Achiever (5 tests) today just for the PAT, most people have been saying that recently the CDP is just not sufficient so how come you feel Achiever PAT was unlike the real thing?

Lastly, was the QR more representative of the regular DAT destroyer or the Math Destroyer? What topics did you feel were represented?

Thank you very much in advance!! & Awesome job again on your scores!!
 
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The chem sections were much easier than destroyer and I would say about the same level of difficulty as topscore. Bio I had some questions that I thought were easy but there would be two answer choices that I felt were the same conceptually (I took an upper level developmental bio course last semester so I may have over analyzed). Chads quizzes were good but I recommend using other sources as well...destroyer and topscore were my favorite. And oc odyssey was probably overkill

Achiever's layout and graphics were just different ans threw me off...whereas CDP looked almost identical to the real thing. I felt that everything was easier on the real thing than CDP and that I got a lower score because I was nervous and not because it was harder than CDP.

I would say math destroyer prepared me very well for the real thing and if I had been better at timing myself would have scored much higher...my test was very algebra and probability intensive and I had no gemometry (which was my strongest section of course haha)

Thanks for all of the kind words! I got worried because everyone seems to score 23+ but you all are making me feel better now!! Let me know if you have any other questions 🙂
 
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it does seem like a lot high scores in this forum but I felt the percentile tells the story. If i remembered correctly around 5000 out of 12000 got accepted so that is roughly 40% acceptance rate. I think your scores are near or above the 90 percentiles, which is very good IMO
 
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21AA is a top 5-10% score. SDN appears to be nuts because we don't see breakdowns of folks with 17AA.
 
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My PAT (20) was in the 85th percentile and my RC (21) was in the 88th...everything else was 93rd+...which I was NOT expecting with all of the scores I've seen here. It really is important to remember people who post these awesome breakdowns with crazy high scores are not the average!!

I had a TON of tone questions but it wasn't that they were difficult it was that multiple answers seemed correct. I had practiced looking at the first question and reading until I found that answer and kept going in that manner until the whole article was read and the questions were answered. Topscores RC was too easy and Achievers seemed just right! Two of my passages were pretty easy and one was tough but manageable...I was expecting higher!
 
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I really think it all depends on the test...my friend got a 23 on bio and it was like 96 or something and I got 21 and it was 97th...it doesn't really matter though since schools don't even see percentiles
 
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I thought they were more similar to the QR section in destroyer and that math destroyer was a bit harder... I never had to use a calculator while doing destroy but had really big numbers on the real thing that slowed me down
 
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Haha once I saw my scores I was relieved and then I was annoyed because I started it so stressed out and knew I could have done better if the whole signature dilemma hadn't occured
 
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How specific were the bio questions? Do you think Cliffs can cover all the concepts?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk
 
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You did fine. When you relaxed, you were able to focus on the questions and the answers to those questions, not your scores. It made a difference.
 
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miathescientist said:
Solid scores! Congratz! Do you happen to have the practice test scores on record that you can share?
Click to expand...

Thanks! Yes here they are...(don't judge)

Top Score AA/TS/PAT
Test One 15/15/18
Test Two 18/17/20
Test Three 20/18/19 (I got a 29 on RC haha)

Achiever
Test One 17/16/17
Test Two...I only got through PAT and Sciences... X/15/17

I thought Bio was very similar to DAT qVault and that reading through Cliff's twice would have been sufficient!
 
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FutureDentist17 said:
I want to start by talking about the test center. It is required you bring two forms of ID, both signed and one with a photo. Now, I don't know about everyone else, but I got my license when I was 16 and had to sign on an electronic thing so the signature on my ID isn't ver similar to how I signed my social security card/passport/etc. So five minutes before my test they were telling me I couldn't take it. That really messed me up and once it was resolved and I started sciences I was freaking out and thought I bombed it...so I took the rest of my test with the mindset I would have to retake anyway. Needless to say after the survey when I saw everything had a 2 in front I was ecstatic.
Click to expand...

How was it resolved? I'm worried about having the same exact problem cause my signature on my credit card looks NOTHING like my driver's license which is from when I was 16 -.-
 
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I just had to re-sign the back of my debit card and had to make it look like my terrible 16 year old signature, and then had to sign in and out with that signature haha
 
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patricklin27 said:
How was your pat 20 and then 85 percent percentile? I got a 19 and it was a 62 percentile
Click to expand...

It really just depends on how well others taking the test do. For example, I had a 21 on my own PAT and it was 83% - lower than his 20. He had a 21 on his RC and was 88%, I had a 20 and was 63% (???!?). I also got a higher score on my o chem the second time I took it and had a lower percentile on it too.

Well done on those scores OP! Gives you a great shot 😛
 
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