Finished the DAT today finally after a painstaking 2.5 months of studying.
PAT 22 (96.2%)
QR 22 (95.7%)
RC 20 (72.4%)
Bio 21 (91.7%)
GC 24 (95.2%)
OC 20 (81.3%)
TS 21 (92.4%)
AA 21 (93.0%)
Bio: started w/ kaplan bb, used a bit of schaum's, then destroyer, eventually got to cliffs near the end. I'd say cliffs combined w/ destroyer is sufficient. do the cliffs end of chap exams and the practice ones too, defintiely helpful. my bio section was pretty straight fwd, i was pretty surprised by it after what i had heard on here, i had no random ones, nothing i hadn't seen before, definitely thought I did better than 21, but still happy with it considering i was not hitting this on practice tests.
GC: Probably the worst section for me on practice tests, but did destroyer, went through topscore n made sure i didn't make the same mistakes again. Also watched chad's vids to start with, pretty good as a crash course. started EK 1001, but not that great really. This section was decent on my test. some number ones were set up, others not. about even btw numbers and theory.very straight fwd.
OC: Majority of my time was spent on this, im terrible at ochem, went thru destroyer again and again, watched chad's vids. started off w/ kaplan BB too. Did EK1001 as well, up to Q880 or something. Was doing best on this during pracitce tests, but i defintiely went overboard and just had too much stuff in my head during the test.
PAT: keyholes- way easier than CDP, TFE- about the same, angles- a bit easier, holepunch- hard as can be, crazy folds going on, had to come back to a few of these, patterns were also killler! but the last 2-3 days i spent on PAT to find a way to hurry my speed so i have enough time for folds. used cdp and wicked sick pat tutorial for this, both very helpful. This section really really burnt me out. The patterns were just things I had never seen/considered before.
RC: PIANO! I have heard some terrible things about piano, and I gotta say that it is actually a very very difficult passage. I didnt' really do much for this section in terms of practice. I still retained my fast reading speed that I picked up while studying for MCAT verbal 2 summers ago so that helped. Piano passage was killer, but the other 2 were a breeze and I came back and changed a few answers. Did not use search and destroy, just read the passage as fast as I could, then went through questions because I knew where things were. Things weren't as cut and dry as Topscore, so I was pretty glad I did this. The RC was tough, but I think MCAT VR from two yrs ago really stuck with me, and those are defintiely a lot tougher than these.
QR: I know people on SDN struggle with QR, but I really thought I did better on this. Thought I hit 25 atleast. I used CDM for this. CDM imo was significantly harder than this. CDM probably prepares you for the worst of this section. A few things that weren't in CDM showed up on this test version which kind of caught me off guard, but nothing that wasn't manageable.
For most of the test I had a bit of a headache, nothing too crazy though. Actually left during my sci section to go to the bathroom, I usually have a bit of time left for this section, but w/ the bathroom break wasn't able to go over my orgo questions a second tme. All in all I thought the bio was a lot easier than expected, i was prepping for the worst. gchem was about what I expected. Ochem was a bit tough, the nmr's and ir's caught me off guard esp. bc it was not only just one question on it.
Practice scores-> Topscore, was not breaking 20's on these except hitting 23 on orgo on the last test, T3 - RC-21, Bio-19, Gchem-20, Ochem-23 PAT-21. -> did this 2 days before the test.
CDP-> Got the royal flush w/ the CDM, was getting aroudn 21-22, mostly 21's, got an 18 on the first one, but then read more into wicked sick pat tutorial, helped a lot. I would also reccomend CDM. It may be over the top, but it really gets you to build that speed and confidence. Initially when I started CDM i had like 5-10 questions to go with a minute left. By the 15th test I was down to having 2-3 minutes left. On the real test had 6 minz left to go back and check over a few questions. Although CDM's explanations suck, they really get you to work at the math and scare the crap outta you.
PAT 22 (96.2%)
QR 22 (95.7%)
RC 20 (72.4%)
Bio 21 (91.7%)
GC 24 (95.2%)
OC 20 (81.3%)
TS 21 (92.4%)
AA 21 (93.0%)
Bio: started w/ kaplan bb, used a bit of schaum's, then destroyer, eventually got to cliffs near the end. I'd say cliffs combined w/ destroyer is sufficient. do the cliffs end of chap exams and the practice ones too, defintiely helpful. my bio section was pretty straight fwd, i was pretty surprised by it after what i had heard on here, i had no random ones, nothing i hadn't seen before, definitely thought I did better than 21, but still happy with it considering i was not hitting this on practice tests.
GC: Probably the worst section for me on practice tests, but did destroyer, went through topscore n made sure i didn't make the same mistakes again. Also watched chad's vids to start with, pretty good as a crash course. started EK 1001, but not that great really. This section was decent on my test. some number ones were set up, others not. about even btw numbers and theory.very straight fwd.
OC: Majority of my time was spent on this, im terrible at ochem, went thru destroyer again and again, watched chad's vids. started off w/ kaplan BB too. Did EK1001 as well, up to Q880 or something. Was doing best on this during pracitce tests, but i defintiely went overboard and just had too much stuff in my head during the test.
PAT: keyholes- way easier than CDP, TFE- about the same, angles- a bit easier, holepunch- hard as can be, crazy folds going on, had to come back to a few of these, patterns were also killler! but the last 2-3 days i spent on PAT to find a way to hurry my speed so i have enough time for folds. used cdp and wicked sick pat tutorial for this, both very helpful. This section really really burnt me out. The patterns were just things I had never seen/considered before.
RC: PIANO! I have heard some terrible things about piano, and I gotta say that it is actually a very very difficult passage. I didnt' really do much for this section in terms of practice. I still retained my fast reading speed that I picked up while studying for MCAT verbal 2 summers ago so that helped. Piano passage was killer, but the other 2 were a breeze and I came back and changed a few answers. Did not use search and destroy, just read the passage as fast as I could, then went through questions because I knew where things were. Things weren't as cut and dry as Topscore, so I was pretty glad I did this. The RC was tough, but I think MCAT VR from two yrs ago really stuck with me, and those are defintiely a lot tougher than these.
QR: I know people on SDN struggle with QR, but I really thought I did better on this. Thought I hit 25 atleast. I used CDM for this. CDM imo was significantly harder than this. CDM probably prepares you for the worst of this section. A few things that weren't in CDM showed up on this test version which kind of caught me off guard, but nothing that wasn't manageable.
For most of the test I had a bit of a headache, nothing too crazy though. Actually left during my sci section to go to the bathroom, I usually have a bit of time left for this section, but w/ the bathroom break wasn't able to go over my orgo questions a second tme. All in all I thought the bio was a lot easier than expected, i was prepping for the worst. gchem was about what I expected. Ochem was a bit tough, the nmr's and ir's caught me off guard esp. bc it was not only just one question on it.
Practice scores-> Topscore, was not breaking 20's on these except hitting 23 on orgo on the last test, T3 - RC-21, Bio-19, Gchem-20, Ochem-23 PAT-21. -> did this 2 days before the test.
CDP-> Got the royal flush w/ the CDM, was getting aroudn 21-22, mostly 21's, got an 18 on the first one, but then read more into wicked sick pat tutorial, helped a lot. I would also reccomend CDM. It may be over the top, but it really gets you to build that speed and confidence. Initially when I started CDM i had like 5-10 questions to go with a minute left. By the 15th test I was down to having 2-3 minutes left. On the real test had 6 minz left to go back and check over a few questions. Although CDM's explanations suck, they really get you to work at the math and scare the crap outta you.
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