- Joined
- Jan 25, 2013
- Messages
- 38
- Reaction score
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Hey SDN! This is my first post so I'm sorry if it seems a bit disorganized. But I just wanted to shout out a HUUUGE thank you to everyone on SDN who provided lots of extremely useful resources! Glimmer1991 and the slew of people included in her Ultimate Breakdown Collection were all sososo helpful! I've been a longtime lurker here as well and know that every bit of information and feedback helps to those who are getting ready to take the DAT! So this is my two cents on that dreaded test...
To start however, I may not sound as excited as most because my scores were a bit under-par for this application cycle. I already know that I will be retaking the DAT in September which is 90 days after my first test but I just wanted to give back a little bit before I went back to hitting the books!
Scores:
PAT 22 (93.8%)
QR 17 (76.6%)
RC 18 (52.2%)
BIO 18 (72.1%)
GC 21 (91.6%)
OC 20 (84.4%)
TS 19 (82.8%)
AA 19 (85.4%)
oGPA 3.53
sGPA 3.56
As you can see I was kinda all over the place on my scores. The worst is my BIO which i know i need to bring up if i even want a shot at any of the schools that I want to get into! My main top choices (since I'm a California resident) are UOP, UCSF, UCLA and then some out of states.
Study Material:
DAT Destroyer
Math Destroyer
Top Score Pro
Cliffs AP Bio
Barron's AP Bio
Chad's Videos: Ochem, Gchem, and QR
Scsc7211's biology notes
StudyBlue
DAT destroyer was definitely very helpful in terms of drilling the concepts into your head. You are literally forced to think and apply every concept you know to figure out the questions because each question is rather tricky I would have to say. I didn't complete the Bio or Orgo sections, but Gchem I finished completely (which may be indicative of my Gchem score being the highest in my TS). If I could do it again (which I will be!) I would finish all of the questions in Destroyer more than once even to make sure the concepts really stick!
Cliffs AP and Barron's AP were both pretty helpful. Cliffs definitely covered all of the topics that were on the BIO portion of the test. A lot of it was application however, not much of the simple knowing the term and matching it to one of the answer choices. I had an entire BIO section basically about genetics and heredity which threw me off since I didn't think there would have been that much in terms of finding how many percent of kids will be color-blind or hemophiliac or be a dwarf and so on and so forth. I was reading through Barrons and then realized that the concepts were somewhat just brushed over. They didn't have much detail and relied mainly on examples to get the point across, not a true explanation of the term you are trying to learn. I'm going to stick to Cliff's for the second time around and just read through it a couple times. Doing the end-of-chapter questions also is a good practice to make sure you know how to apply the concepts for each topic!
Chad's Videos were a lifesaver! Seriously. I know that everyone on SDN knows about Chad but I can honestly say I owe my Gchem and Ochem scores to him! I had taken Gchem over a year ago and seriously EVERYTHING left my head! I just finished two semesters of Ochem so that was still fresh and didn't need much reviewing but Gchem I was freaking out over! If there's any resource to invest in for the chemistry part of the DAT definitely go for Chad's videos! For the second time around, I would say going through the videos more than once will be good because I mean Gchem and Ochem are 15 and 12 hours of video respectively so something is bound to escape over the course of watching them and watching them more than once will just prepare you that much more!
Top Score Pro I think is a little out of date, and some of their questions were formatted in a way that cut off some of the responses! The science sections overall were fairly accurate, but I just felt like the program itself was falling out in terms of the way it was organized and how you check your answers and all that jazz. I believe I cleared my scores to try and retake some portions, but my initial scores were generally around the 18-19 range all around. With that said I guess the real DAT is easier, but those scores of TSP did make me panic a little bit.
Scsc7211's notes were pretty helpful in the last final hours of studying, and definitely the most helpful for anatomy of the ear, bones and eyes! Also I saw on pdog's breakdown that he used StudyBlue which is something I looked into and started using. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to go over the flashcards I made so it was a bit of a waste of time. If you can maintain your discipline and really go over each flashcard then StudyBlue can really be a great resource!
Timeline:
There isn't much to post on here except that you should START EARLY and if you have to reschedule then RESCHEDULE! So basically I started at the beginning of Spring Break which is in April. I studied off and on watching Chad's videos but focusing mainly on school. When May came around, finals approached and I moved onto the Ochem videos which was perfect because they helped me study for my Ochem final. After finals I had 2 weeks until my original test (june 7th) and as the day quickly approached I ordered TSP 3 test version and took the first test. I got something like 17's on TS and started to freak out! I quickly contemplated rescheduling and then gave myself an extra week to review everything and take the test. To be honest, I guess I gave myself a complete two weeks of actual hardcore studying, which as you can see will get you decent scores but I personally will need to input a lot more time to pull these scores up.
All in all, it was a great experience! I'm glad that I took it once and got the whole hype out of my system. When I take it again in September I'll post a new breakdown and hopefully my scores will reflect all the things I would have done differently! For any questions regarding specific sections (since I know I didn't go over QR and RC, but I figured the sciences is what people want to hear about and I didn't want to keep this post too long) just leave a comment and I'll be sure to elaborate on any of those sections!
I'm just about to submit my app anyways though and hopefully some of the schools I applied to will hold a seat open. But only time will tell. To all of you who are about to take the DAT or have taken it and are finishing your applications GOODLUCK! Enjoy the rest of your summers!
To start however, I may not sound as excited as most because my scores were a bit under-par for this application cycle. I already know that I will be retaking the DAT in September which is 90 days after my first test but I just wanted to give back a little bit before I went back to hitting the books!
Scores:
PAT 22 (93.8%)
QR 17 (76.6%)
RC 18 (52.2%)
BIO 18 (72.1%)
GC 21 (91.6%)
OC 20 (84.4%)
TS 19 (82.8%)
AA 19 (85.4%)
oGPA 3.53
sGPA 3.56
As you can see I was kinda all over the place on my scores. The worst is my BIO which i know i need to bring up if i even want a shot at any of the schools that I want to get into! My main top choices (since I'm a California resident) are UOP, UCSF, UCLA and then some out of states.
Study Material:
DAT Destroyer
Math Destroyer
Top Score Pro
Cliffs AP Bio
Barron's AP Bio
Chad's Videos: Ochem, Gchem, and QR
Scsc7211's biology notes
StudyBlue
DAT destroyer was definitely very helpful in terms of drilling the concepts into your head. You are literally forced to think and apply every concept you know to figure out the questions because each question is rather tricky I would have to say. I didn't complete the Bio or Orgo sections, but Gchem I finished completely (which may be indicative of my Gchem score being the highest in my TS). If I could do it again (which I will be!) I would finish all of the questions in Destroyer more than once even to make sure the concepts really stick!
Cliffs AP and Barron's AP were both pretty helpful. Cliffs definitely covered all of the topics that were on the BIO portion of the test. A lot of it was application however, not much of the simple knowing the term and matching it to one of the answer choices. I had an entire BIO section basically about genetics and heredity which threw me off since I didn't think there would have been that much in terms of finding how many percent of kids will be color-blind or hemophiliac or be a dwarf and so on and so forth. I was reading through Barrons and then realized that the concepts were somewhat just brushed over. They didn't have much detail and relied mainly on examples to get the point across, not a true explanation of the term you are trying to learn. I'm going to stick to Cliff's for the second time around and just read through it a couple times. Doing the end-of-chapter questions also is a good practice to make sure you know how to apply the concepts for each topic!
Chad's Videos were a lifesaver! Seriously. I know that everyone on SDN knows about Chad but I can honestly say I owe my Gchem and Ochem scores to him! I had taken Gchem over a year ago and seriously EVERYTHING left my head! I just finished two semesters of Ochem so that was still fresh and didn't need much reviewing but Gchem I was freaking out over! If there's any resource to invest in for the chemistry part of the DAT definitely go for Chad's videos! For the second time around, I would say going through the videos more than once will be good because I mean Gchem and Ochem are 15 and 12 hours of video respectively so something is bound to escape over the course of watching them and watching them more than once will just prepare you that much more!
Top Score Pro I think is a little out of date, and some of their questions were formatted in a way that cut off some of the responses! The science sections overall were fairly accurate, but I just felt like the program itself was falling out in terms of the way it was organized and how you check your answers and all that jazz. I believe I cleared my scores to try and retake some portions, but my initial scores were generally around the 18-19 range all around. With that said I guess the real DAT is easier, but those scores of TSP did make me panic a little bit.
Scsc7211's notes were pretty helpful in the last final hours of studying, and definitely the most helpful for anatomy of the ear, bones and eyes! Also I saw on pdog's breakdown that he used StudyBlue which is something I looked into and started using. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to go over the flashcards I made so it was a bit of a waste of time. If you can maintain your discipline and really go over each flashcard then StudyBlue can really be a great resource!
Timeline:
There isn't much to post on here except that you should START EARLY and if you have to reschedule then RESCHEDULE! So basically I started at the beginning of Spring Break which is in April. I studied off and on watching Chad's videos but focusing mainly on school. When May came around, finals approached and I moved onto the Ochem videos which was perfect because they helped me study for my Ochem final. After finals I had 2 weeks until my original test (june 7th) and as the day quickly approached I ordered TSP 3 test version and took the first test. I got something like 17's on TS and started to freak out! I quickly contemplated rescheduling and then gave myself an extra week to review everything and take the test. To be honest, I guess I gave myself a complete two weeks of actual hardcore studying, which as you can see will get you decent scores but I personally will need to input a lot more time to pull these scores up.
All in all, it was a great experience! I'm glad that I took it once and got the whole hype out of my system. When I take it again in September I'll post a new breakdown and hopefully my scores will reflect all the things I would have done differently! For any questions regarding specific sections (since I know I didn't go over QR and RC, but I figured the sciences is what people want to hear about and I didn't want to keep this post too long) just leave a comment and I'll be sure to elaborate on any of those sections!
I'm just about to submit my app anyways though and hopefully some of the schools I applied to will hold a seat open. But only time will tell. To all of you who are about to take the DAT or have taken it and are finishing your applications GOODLUCK! Enjoy the rest of your summers!
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