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I finished the DAT today. This is my first post, but I found lots of helpful breakdowns on here so I thought I'd make a breakdown myself. I am thankful to God for delivering me and allowing me to score how I did. I studied about 10 weeks 6 days a week and probably 10-12 hours a day!
Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
My Scores:
PAT 22 (93.4%)
QR 22 (97.9%)
RC 22 ( 84.4%)
Bio 23 (97.4%)
GC 21 (87.0%)
OC 21 (85.7%)
TS 22 (95.6%)
AA 22 (97.0%)
I used Topscore, Achiever, Crack (Math, PAT, and Reading), Destroyer, and Cliff's Bio, and Kaplan.
*This may be valuable to know for many of you, but you cannot use dry erase boards on the DAT any longer. They still give you the laminated sheets, but with a pen that doesn't erase and no eraser. They informed me of this change 48 hours before my test. Lol The pens did not work very well at all if there was any fingerprints or anything like that on the sheet.
PAT: (22)
CDP all the way. I had the 10 test version and made it through 8 of them. My most recent scores varied from 20-24 on it, so I feel like it's a pretty decent indicator of how you'll do. The Keyholes were about the same in difficulty and I thought TFE was easier on the real DAT. The paper folding was comparable. However, the angle ranking on the DAT was really hard for me. I would get the CDP edition that gives you like 2500 angle ranking problems and do some of them if you struggle on these as well. The cube counting was way easier than CDP, and the folding was about the same.
QR: (22)
First of all let me say this: If you take your first QR test and barely finish half of it, you'd be in the same boat as me. I really had a hard time getting up to speed with this section. Crack Math was incredibly helpful on this. I also liked the Math destroyer. I did 15 of the 25 crack math tests and most of the Math Destroyer. By the end I was scoring from 21-24 on Crack Math tests. The biggest advice I have for this section is to not get bogged down. *Important note**After having taken so many of the QR tests, I noticed a trend. Many times the first 2 or 3 problems can be tough ones. I think they put them at the beginning on purpose to waste your time. It's very helpful to just skip those and move because many times there are easier problems at the end. This happened on the real DAT. I started it and didn't know how to do the first 2 or 3 problems. I put a guess down and moved on. This allowed me to get through the test and sure enough questions 30-40 were relatively easy. I had enough time to go back to those first 3 problems and I think I figured them out. So don't get bogged down and keep moving!
Reading Comprehension:
This section is hard! Lol It's also a time crunch section. I used to try the method my Kaplan teachers taught me by taking notes on keywords. For me this did NOT work! Just skimming through a passage looking for keywords will not give you any understanding of the passage, so when a question comes that asks you to comprehend the passage (it is reading comprehension right?), it will be very difficult to answer those. My method was to just read through the passage righting a few words about each paragraph. I would try to do this in 8-9 min for each of the three sections and spend the rest of the 20 minutes answering the questions.
Bio: (23)
I highly recommend Cliff's bio for this section. I only made it through the book once (barely). If you read it through 2-3 times you'd be in way better shape than I was! If you read cliffs and don't understand something or think it needs to be more detailed, pull out your textbooks or wikipedia. I felt the test was random yes but very doable.
Gen Chem (21)
Considering at the beginning of the summer, I barely knew any GC, I'm very happy with this score. I thought DAT destroyer and CHad's videos prepared me the best for it. However, the real DAT was much much easier than destroyer. For both GC and OC I watched Chad's videos and took notes in a notebook. Every example and thing he mentioned, I recorded in that notebook. Even though that meant pausing the video many times to write additional notes, etc. I also would pull out my GC and OC textbooks. If I saw a helpful diagram or chart, I would photocopy it and tape it into the notebook. His videos more than prepared me for the real test.
O. Chem. (21)
I'm happy with this score although I wish I did do better. I did not study very much for this because I just took O. chem this past year and worked hard to make good grades in it. The last topscore test I took before my DAT I scored a 25 in this section. Chad's videos and destroyer are once again the way to go.
Topscore: Definitely get it! Really helpful and most like real thing. It is slightly harder. I did not do much studying between 8/22 and 8/25 and my scores went up on the real thing.
Topscore Tests:
Test 1 (8/11) Test 2 (8/18) Test 3 (8/22)
AA: 19 AA: 20 AA: 21
Bio: 18 Bio: 21 Bio: 19
GC: 19 GC: 18 GC: 19
OC: 18 OC: 19 OC: 25
PAT: 21 PAT: 23 PAT: 23
QR: 19 QR: 19 QR: 24
RC: 22 RC: 21 RC: 20
TS: 19 TS: 20 TS: 20
Achiever: I would maybe get it again. If you want to take something to motivate you to study harder it might be good. Achiever test 1 was my first full-length practice test I ever took and I got a 15
My opinion about Kaplan. I did the online version. I would not recommend it at all to anyone. My Kaplan course ended on July 23 or so. I didn't improve too much with Kaplan. My main improvement happened when I quit using Kaplan materials and started focusing on Crack, Cliff's bio, and destroyer. Another thing to think about is you will pay ~$1400 to hear someone "teach" you all of GC in 6 hours OC in 6 hours, etc etc. Why not buy a Chad's subscription for like $70 and slowly go through GC and OC but actually learn it along the way. I used thinkwell and didn't make it through much of it, but it was very good and he broke it down well.
**In summary, if I had to do it all over again. I would buy thinkwell, chad's gc and oc, Cliff's ap bio, DAT destroyer, math destroyer, and odyssey.(i hear people say that odyssey is too hard, but there were definitely questions on my test today that he covered similarly in Odyssey). I would also get Crack math pat and reading. If you use all this to study and use topscore tests and achiever tests, you'll be in great shape.**
Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
My Scores:
PAT 22 (93.4%)
QR 22 (97.9%)
RC 22 ( 84.4%)
Bio 23 (97.4%)
GC 21 (87.0%)
OC 21 (85.7%)
TS 22 (95.6%)
AA 22 (97.0%)
I used Topscore, Achiever, Crack (Math, PAT, and Reading), Destroyer, and Cliff's Bio, and Kaplan.
*This may be valuable to know for many of you, but you cannot use dry erase boards on the DAT any longer. They still give you the laminated sheets, but with a pen that doesn't erase and no eraser. They informed me of this change 48 hours before my test. Lol The pens did not work very well at all if there was any fingerprints or anything like that on the sheet.
PAT: (22)
CDP all the way. I had the 10 test version and made it through 8 of them. My most recent scores varied from 20-24 on it, so I feel like it's a pretty decent indicator of how you'll do. The Keyholes were about the same in difficulty and I thought TFE was easier on the real DAT. The paper folding was comparable. However, the angle ranking on the DAT was really hard for me. I would get the CDP edition that gives you like 2500 angle ranking problems and do some of them if you struggle on these as well. The cube counting was way easier than CDP, and the folding was about the same.
QR: (22)
First of all let me say this: If you take your first QR test and barely finish half of it, you'd be in the same boat as me. I really had a hard time getting up to speed with this section. Crack Math was incredibly helpful on this. I also liked the Math destroyer. I did 15 of the 25 crack math tests and most of the Math Destroyer. By the end I was scoring from 21-24 on Crack Math tests. The biggest advice I have for this section is to not get bogged down. *Important note**After having taken so many of the QR tests, I noticed a trend. Many times the first 2 or 3 problems can be tough ones. I think they put them at the beginning on purpose to waste your time. It's very helpful to just skip those and move because many times there are easier problems at the end. This happened on the real DAT. I started it and didn't know how to do the first 2 or 3 problems. I put a guess down and moved on. This allowed me to get through the test and sure enough questions 30-40 were relatively easy. I had enough time to go back to those first 3 problems and I think I figured them out. So don't get bogged down and keep moving!
Reading Comprehension:
This section is hard! Lol It's also a time crunch section. I used to try the method my Kaplan teachers taught me by taking notes on keywords. For me this did NOT work! Just skimming through a passage looking for keywords will not give you any understanding of the passage, so when a question comes that asks you to comprehend the passage (it is reading comprehension right?), it will be very difficult to answer those. My method was to just read through the passage righting a few words about each paragraph. I would try to do this in 8-9 min for each of the three sections and spend the rest of the 20 minutes answering the questions.
Bio: (23)
I highly recommend Cliff's bio for this section. I only made it through the book once (barely). If you read it through 2-3 times you'd be in way better shape than I was! If you read cliffs and don't understand something or think it needs to be more detailed, pull out your textbooks or wikipedia. I felt the test was random yes but very doable.
Gen Chem (21)
Considering at the beginning of the summer, I barely knew any GC, I'm very happy with this score. I thought DAT destroyer and CHad's videos prepared me the best for it. However, the real DAT was much much easier than destroyer. For both GC and OC I watched Chad's videos and took notes in a notebook. Every example and thing he mentioned, I recorded in that notebook. Even though that meant pausing the video many times to write additional notes, etc. I also would pull out my GC and OC textbooks. If I saw a helpful diagram or chart, I would photocopy it and tape it into the notebook. His videos more than prepared me for the real test.
O. Chem. (21)
I'm happy with this score although I wish I did do better. I did not study very much for this because I just took O. chem this past year and worked hard to make good grades in it. The last topscore test I took before my DAT I scored a 25 in this section. Chad's videos and destroyer are once again the way to go.
Topscore: Definitely get it! Really helpful and most like real thing. It is slightly harder. I did not do much studying between 8/22 and 8/25 and my scores went up on the real thing.
Topscore Tests:
Test 1 (8/11) Test 2 (8/18) Test 3 (8/22)
AA: 19 AA: 20 AA: 21
Bio: 18 Bio: 21 Bio: 19
GC: 19 GC: 18 GC: 19
OC: 18 OC: 19 OC: 25
PAT: 21 PAT: 23 PAT: 23
QR: 19 QR: 19 QR: 24
RC: 22 RC: 21 RC: 20
TS: 19 TS: 20 TS: 20
Achiever: I would maybe get it again. If you want to take something to motivate you to study harder it might be good. Achiever test 1 was my first full-length practice test I ever took and I got a 15
My opinion about Kaplan. I did the online version. I would not recommend it at all to anyone. My Kaplan course ended on July 23 or so. I didn't improve too much with Kaplan. My main improvement happened when I quit using Kaplan materials and started focusing on Crack, Cliff's bio, and destroyer. Another thing to think about is you will pay ~$1400 to hear someone "teach" you all of GC in 6 hours OC in 6 hours, etc etc. Why not buy a Chad's subscription for like $70 and slowly go through GC and OC but actually learn it along the way. I used thinkwell and didn't make it through much of it, but it was very good and he broke it down well.
**In summary, if I had to do it all over again. I would buy thinkwell, chad's gc and oc, Cliff's ap bio, DAT destroyer, math destroyer, and odyssey.(i hear people say that odyssey is too hard, but there were definitely questions on my test today that he covered similarly in Odyssey). I would also get Crack math pat and reading. If you use all this to study and use topscore tests and achiever tests, you'll be in great shape.**
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