DAT Done!!! 8-19-2010 (Breakdown inside)

[jameszones]

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woooo! First of all i want to thank everybody on SDN...you guys are awesome and have been super helpful! I know i dont post much but ive been reading everyday this past month and its been really helpful

PAT 22
QR 30
RC 19 <---- Piano'ed!!!! 🙁
Bio 22
GC 26
OC 20
TS 22
AA 23

CDP(10 test version): x/18/18/18/21/20/23/21/20/23

Topscore 1/2/3
PAT 18/21/21
QR 21/22/25
RC 29/21/22
Bio 19/21/17
GC 18/19/19
OC 20/20/25
TS 19/20/20
AA 21/21/22

BREAKDOWN:

PAT: I thought this section was pretty similar to CDP. The keyholes were pretty much the same if not easier. TFE was harder than CDP because there were 3 or so that were really weird and i couldnt picture them at all in my head. Angles were about the same difficulty. Hole punching was harder!! Usually i get 14-15/15 on hole punching on cdp but there were some folds i had never seen before that were on the DAT that kinda threw me off. There also were a couple half hole punches. Cube counting was pretty easy, easier than cdp. Pattern folding was a lot different than CDP in my opinion...there werent too many shading ones but on the whole was slightly easier than cdp. Overall, my pat score is consistent with my last 6 cdp scores so im happy.

QR: I thought this section was pretty easy. If you don't have math destroyer, get it. It helps but it overemphasizes trig stuff in my opinion. It will definitely help with timing. I didnt rlly have any calculator issues and i finished with 5 minutes left.

RC: PIANO'ED!! haha...yeah it sucked. But im not gonna make any excuses....the piano passage was the last one for me but the first two were pretty straightforward and went by pretty quickly. I know absolutely nothing about music or pianos so i took a while on the piano section. I didnt do much to prepare for this rlly....after I got a 29 on the first topscore, i kinda got a bit overconfident thinking that I could atleast pull off a 21 on the real thing haha

Bio: This section wasnt as bad as it was hyped up to be. Yes, it had some random questions but there were also a lot of straightforward questions. My advice is to study hard for it, know your cliffs ap bio/kbb book and you will get a 19+. I had about 6-8 questions that were "random" and ones that you wouldnt find in cliffs ap bio or kbb and for each of those questions, i usually could eliminate atleast 2 or 3 answer choices. So dont worry about the random part of it but atleast make sure you get the straightforward stuff down. I only used cliffs ap bio and dat destroyer. Destroyer was useless but cliffs ap bio was suppppper helpful. i strongly recommend it!!

GC: I wasnt expecting this high of a score as I only got 18-19 on topscore but i think topscore is overkill. Most calculations are set up and there are a lot of conceptual questions. But basically, if you want to do good in this section, get CHAD!! he is amazing, just like everyone says. if you understand his videos, you're gonna be fine. I used chad, kaplan tests, and dat destroyer to study for it. Destroyer was good for this but chad is rlly the key here.

OC: I didnt study for this at all because I just took a 10 week, 2 semesters worth of ochem course during the summer and everything was fresh in my head. I guess i got a bit overconfident here too and i probably could've used some studying. oh well.

Anyways, for all you guys stressing out about the DAT, my advice is to practice practice practice and you'll do great. There is nothing scary about this test and as long as you are confident and you've studied hard, you'll be fine! Good Luck!

 

[casper22]

Awesome Scores...Congrats....

Can you share how did you approach the piano passage...

 

[clearview]

May i ask you what's your gpa?

 

[TexasDDS]

how do you compare the kaplan test vs the actual DAT?

I feel like the kaplan is a lot tougher and more detail based for the chem/ochem part?

 

[jameszones]

Casper22- For the piano passage as well as for the other passages in the RC section, i would strongly recommend that you actually read the passage first and then answer the questions instead of just SnD. My strategy was always to SnD and it worked great for topscore because topscore's questions and answer choices would be word for word from the passage so it was easy to find. But on the real thing, they often rephrased things in their questions and they also had a lot of inference type questions so it was more important to understand the passage. Also, i felt that the DAT passages were much less dense and much much easier to read than the the topscore ones so dont let topscore scare you. I realized that if I just read the passage to begin with, i would have a much easier time answering the piano passage questions but i was too far into the test to go and read at that point =/

clearview- my gpa is a 3.4 science and a 3.6 overall but im in UoP's predental program so as long as i keep up a 3.25 science gpa and get all 18s or higher on the DAT(which i did lol), then im guaranteed an interview wooo

texasdds- i thought that kaplans gchem tests were harder than the real thing and most of the gchem questions on the real dat dont ask you to calculate things out but they just set up the equation for you which saves time....as for ochem, i didnt really do much studying for this but i did a couple kaplan tests and the topscore ones and i felt that the DAT's ochem section was harder(slightly) than all of those. when i got 20s on topscore, it was mostly because i misread a few questions or stupid mistakes but on the real thing, i actually didnt know a few of em. i think it was because kaplan and topscore focuses a lot on reactions but there werent too many reaction questions on the real DAT...it was a lot more conceptual stuff...i find the reaction questions to be a lot easier than the conceptual ones but maybe thats just me....haha

Hope that helps!

 

[peace love dds]

Where can I find Chad's videos??


BTW, that's amazing! Pacific for life. <3

 

[jaw520]

regarding the infamous piano passage... what exactly is the topic?
how a piano works? (this seems most probable)
what to look for in buying a piano?
the history of pianos?
how are pianos made?

im taking the DAT on tuesday... all i hear about is how this passage is destroying people. my RC scores on CDR are not stellar, they have been ranging from 17-20... so i want to prepare myself as much as possible in case i get this passage...

 

[jameszones]

peacelovedds- chads videos are at c o u r s e s a v e r .com (cept without all the spaces of course)

jaws520- im probably being paranoid but i dont want reveal too much information about it...sorry...but i can tell you that this passage wont destroy you if you just read it...there are just too many inference type questions to simply SnD...read it(not a very hard read) and i bet you'll be fine

 

[LaFleur]

Great scores and stats!!! 🙂

I don't mean to sound stupid but having just taken orgo 1 over the summer, I don't understand what conceptual questions can be asked for orgo other than lab techniques. By conceptual question do you mean something like: Which of these molecules favors a sn1 reaction? Or something like: What conditions would favor a sn2 reaction? Or something like: What would the energy diagram of this reaction look like? If I'm off base with the examples I thought up, please give an example that's not on the test, of course because after a summer session of being asked just about predicting products, mechanisms, and synthesis (which I think are the

 

[jameszones]

Great scores and stats!!! 🙂

I don't mean to sound stupid but having just taken orgo 1 over the summer, I don't understand what conceptual questions can be asked for orgo other than lab techniques. By conceptual question do you mean something like: Which of these molecules favors a sn1 reaction? Or something like: What conditions would favor a sn2 reaction? Or something like: What would the energy diagram of this reaction look like? If I'm off base with the examples I thought up, please give an example that's not on the test, of course because after a summer session of being asked just about predicting products, mechanisms, and synthesis (which I think are the

know C-NMR, HNMR, IR and a lot of sn1, sn2, e1, e2 stuff (not just the basic primary, secondary, tertiary stuff but also like what solvents promote which type of reactions ie polar protic solvents vs aprotic solvents) and which mechanisms compete against each other....also, know which types of molecules have highest/lowest boiling points/heat of combustion and that kind of stuff....definitions wise, know difference btwn electrophilic aromatic substitution vs nucleophilic aromatic substitution and also be able to determine which is a strong base vs a good nucleophile and know the intermediates of reactions including which resonance structure in an intermediate is the "most important"...those are just some things off the top of my head...

 

[LaFleur]

Thanks so much for getting back to me about this! It helped a ton!

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