DAT DONE!! 8/10.... Breakdown and some questions

[xjh915]

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Hey guys. This is my second post. I just finished DAT and have some questions.... my scores are

PAT 21
QR 19
RC 18
Bio 20
GChem 22
Ochem 23

TS 22
AA 20

I took it at 4 pm and it gets very tiring after pat.... I don't know if I will take 4 pm if I have to retake the DAT.

My other stat is:

UCSD Bioengineering, 3.0 graduated in 2006
Post Back for a year 4.0 since fall 2008
Science GPA 3.11 and non science 3.39

6 month volunteering from dental office of USC faculty member. (he wrote me recommendation)
6 month of volunteering in regular dental office
3 years of research in UCSD doing animal surgery (3 paper acknowledged)
Trilingual: born in Korea, raised in south america and us since 1998.

But all volunteering was done in 2005~4 and lab experience from 2002-2005.

My dream school USC, NYU, Boston. I applied june but since I took DAT today, I think my app. is halted.

So what are my chances? Should I retake??

Oh my opinion on the Exam.....

Bio: I was expecting random questions..... BUT not really.... I see why people say it is random but if you took molecular bio and many upper division biology I think you are fine. I used cliff (didn't read every single page....). DAT destroyer.... and princeton review AP biology!!!. If you don't like reading, just read princeton review and find details from cliffs. Easy read and explains things much better but in bigger scale (not much in detail but if you don't have good foundation i recommend reading princeton review first). For testing practice I used Kaplan tests, achiever, topscore.....

Gen: I was actually surprised for this section. I was told that the questions are set up but none of my questions were set up. about little less than half was calculation and difficulty was comparable to achiever and topscore chem. I used dat destroyer, topscore, ACS, Kaplan, achiever...

Ochem: Surprised again. I read that Ochem questions are basic and nothing tricky. At first glance it seemed all straight forward and I thought "ok this section is easy". and I got 20 min left so I went over gchem and ochem again and I found that there were many tricky questions.... If you don't understand well on reactions you will fall for traps... I think I switched like 5 questions and saved my score.... I used ACS, topscore, destroyer, achiever...

PAT: CDP. That's only source I used. I did achiever test 1 and there were so many questions that I did not get it even with animation on. Just don't do achiever PAT... it sucks. TOP score pat are ok. OK for keyhole, top front, angles are about the same difficulty. There were weird keyhole folding that never seen in CDP. Cube counting was little bit confusing (I got illusion) and pattern folding was harder than CDP. I got 10 test version for CDP and i did it twice, and last round I got 22~25 and highest 28. So I was expecting about 24 but oh well.....

Reading: English is my third language and I am very slow reader. First passage easy but second and third were very hard. Many tone questions and questions jumped around from paragraph 1 to last paragraph.... I think the key is skipping question that you don't know. I just used search and destroy.
On achiever tests I usually get 19~17.

Math: This section just killed me because during the break I was exahusted and drank 3 cups of water, ate banana and drank whole bottle of gatorade. I felt need to go restroom right before this math section started but the signing out and signing in take too long and I knew that I will have no spare time for this test. So first I scanned all questions and did trig problems and plane calculations. By that time I was dying.... I almost wanted to just pee on my pant and continue with the test. My head was just spinning like crazy and I did my calculation with right hand and I had my left hand holding my thing. Anyways, I used destroyer (not math destroyer), and Crack DAT math. Destroyer math is too easy, and real test qs are much harder. CDM is also easy side. I usually get 22~23 on CDM but I saw some "huh?" questions during the test and of course my need for restroom probably affected my score....

Thank you for reading and please let me know what do you think about my chances....

also, should I apply more schools? I applied 7 schools and was planning to apply more depending my DAT score but I am not sure now... (my scores iffy....)

 

[americanpierg]

Hey guys. This is my second post. I just finished DAT and have some questions.... my scores are

PAT 21
QR 19
RC 18
Bio 20
GChem 22
Ochem 23

TS 22
AA 20

I took it at 4 pm and it gets very tiring after pat.... I don't know if I will take 4 pm if I have to retake the DAT.

My other stat is:

UCSD Bioengineering, 3.0 graduated in 2006
Post Back for a year 4.0 since fall 2008
Science GPA 3.11 and non science 3.39

6 month volunteering from dental office of USC faculty member. (he wrote me recommendation)
6 month of volunteering in regular dental office
3 years of research in UCSD doing animal surgery (3 paper acknowledged)
Trilingual: born in Korea, raised in south america and us since 1998.

But all volunteering was done in 2005~4 and lab experience from 2002-2005.

My dream school USC, NYU, Boston. I applied june but since I took DAT today, I think my app. is halted.

So what are my chances? Should I retake??

Oh my opinion on the Exam.....

Bio: I was expecting random questions..... BUT not really.... I see why people say it is random but if you took molecular bio and many upper division biology I think you are fine. I used cliff (didn't read every single page....). DAT destroyer.... and princeton review AP biology!!!. If you don't like reading, just read princeton review and find details from cliffs. Easy read and explains things much better but in bigger scale (not much in detail but if you don't have good foundation i recommend reading princeton review first). For testing practice I used Kaplan tests, achiever, topscore.....

Gen: I was actually surprised for this section. I was told that the questions are set up but none of my questions were set up. about little less than half was calculation and difficulty was comparable to achiever and topscore chem. I used dat destroyer, topscore, ACS, Kaplan, achiever...

Ochem: Surprised again. I read that Ochem questions are basic and nothing tricky. At first glance it seemed all straight forward and I thought "ok this section is easy". and I got 20 min left so I went over gchem and ochem again and I found that there were many tricky questions.... If you don't understand well on reactions you will fall for traps... I think I switched like 5 questions and saved my score.... I used ACS, topscore, destroyer, achiever...

PAT: CDP. That's only source I used. I did achiever test 1 and there were so many questions that I did not get it even with animation on. Just don't do achiever PAT... it sucks. TOP score pat are ok. OK for keyhole, top front, angles are about the same difficulty. There were weird keyhole folding that never seen in CDP. Cube counting was little bit confusing (I got illusion) and pattern folding was harder than CDP. I got 10 test version for CDP and i did it twice, and last round I got 22~25 and highest 28. So I was expecting about 24 but oh well.....

Reading: English is my third language and I am very slow reader. First passage easy but second and third were very hard. Many tone questions and questions jumped around from paragraph 1 to last paragraph.... I think the key is skipping question that you don't know. I just used search and destroy.
On achiever tests I usually get 19~17.

Math: This section just killed me because during the break I was exahusted and drank 3 cups of water, ate banana and drank whole bottle of gatorade. I felt need to go restroom right before this math section started but the signing out and signing in take too long and I knew that I will have no spare time for this test. So first I scanned all questions and did trig problems and plane calculations. By that time I was dying.... I almost wanted to just pee on my pant and continue with the test. My head was just spinning like crazy and I did my calculation with right hand and I had my left hand holding my thing. Anyways, I used destroyer (not math destroyer), and Crack DAT math. Destroyer math is too easy, and real test qs are much harder. CDM is also easy side. I usually get 22~23 on CDM but I saw some "huh?" questions during the test and of course my need for restroom probably affected my score....

Thank you for reading and please let me know what do you think about my chances....

also, should I apply more schools? I applied 7 schools and was planning to apply more depending my DAT score but I am not sure now... (my scores iffy....)

you got an illusion? how do u even know it was an illusion? lies

 

[miedvied]

Congrats on the solid scores.

What makes you say Math Destroyer was too easy? Do you have recommendations on what to study for QR?

 

[fldnstrm]

Why would you want to retake? What about your scores are you concerned about? I don't see anything "iffy" about your scores, at least your DAT anyway.

 

[xjh915]

I did not use math destroyer (the single book version just for math). I used dat destroyer (i meant the math section in the dat destroyer book). I thought the math section was broad and trig was complicated than what I expected. But as others said before if you get about ~20 questions done and know that you got it correct you should be fine. I ran out of time and guessed many questions.

Illusion, I meant I saw a cube counting problem where at first glance I thought a one cube row was floating. I had to stare and figured out that it was not in the shape that i thought it was. Maybe I was too nervous but sorry for confusion.

I am concern about my gpa and the fact that my volunteer experiences are all over 3 years old. Some recommendation are even 3 years old.... hopefully it won't effect me much. Which school would you recommend me to apply?

 

[yumi43]

i think your scores are terrific. i would be ecstatic if i had DAT scores like yours!!!!!

one question: you said if we took upper division bio courses, then we'd be fine in the DAT bio section, but what about for people that have only taken regular bio?! are we screwed?? i'm using kaplan and cliff's ap bio and destroyer to study for bio... thanks~

 

[xjh915]

i think your scores are terrific. i would be ecstatic if i had DAT scores like yours!!!!!

one question: you said if we took upper division bio courses, then we'd be fine in the DAT bio section, but what about for people that have only taken regular bio?! are we screwed?? i'm using kaplan and cliff's ap bio and destroyer to study for bio... thanks~

I think there were about 5~6 questions that i answered from stuff that I learned from bio classes. But nothing weird or something to throw you off. I think it relates to the topics discussed in cliff's or kaplan but more in detail (not detail in memorization but elaborating and relating stuffs) I think... hoho. but there are more people getting above 20 in bio so they should answer your question better but general idea is nothing "totally random".

P.S: I also did couple crack dat science.... Useless useless...... They were giving you so random questions that I never heard before. Questions were like how do you distinguish RNA and DNA, and answer was shooting with H3 (tritium)...... and relay of those kinds of question. Don't waste your time doing crack science.

 

[Philippines03j]

P.S: I also did couple crack dat science.... Useless useless...... They were giving you so random questions that I never heard before. Questions were like how do you distinguish RNA and DNA, and answer was shooting with H3 (tritium)...... and relay of those kinds of question. Don't waste your time doing crack science.[/QUOTE]

Just curioius... What were a few of your scores on crack the biology section? I agree they have some very obscure questions but seems that alot of them are lagit but I havent taken the dat so I dont know... Quite a few errors also on the answer key.

 

[xjh915]

P.S: I also did couple crack dat science.... Useless useless...... They were giving you so random questions that I never heard before. Questions were like how do you distinguish RNA and DNA, and answer was shooting with H3 (tritium)...... and relay of those kinds of question. Don't waste your time doing crack science.

Just curioius... What were a few of your scores on crack the biology section? I agree they have some very obscure questions but seems that alot of them are lagit but I havent taken the dat so I dont know... Quite a few errors also on the answer key.[/QUOTE]

I bought crack dat and did first test and I decided not to do it. So sorry I have no score for crack science.... But I thought it was waste of time. I think the biology section wants to test the big picture of your biology knowledge. Each question was relating at least two topics, couple of them was experimental (molecular bio gene knockdown) and ask you about the result of it, those kinda of questions. So I think memorizing facts after facts without understanding is not going to help you.

 

[yumi43]

also for math, what trig stuff did you memorize? are identities (the ones provided in regular DAT destroyer) enough to know or do we need to know more than that?

 

[Emmie]

Gen: I was actually surprised for this section. I was told that the questions are set up but none of my questions were set up. about little less than half was calculation and difficulty was comparable to achiever and topscore chem. I used dat destroyer, topscore, ACS, Kaplan, achiever...

Ochem: Surprised again. I read that Ochem questions are basic and nothing tricky. At first glance it seemed all straight forward and I thought "ok this section is easy". and I got 20 min left so I went over gchem and ochem again and I found that there were many tricky questions.... If you don't understand well on reactions you will fall for traps... I think I switched like 5 questions and saved my score.... I used ACS, topscore, destroyer, achiever...

really? r u sure?