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So I took the DAT on 9/8/08, going in I knew that I wasnt ready, but I also knew that it was late in the cycle, needless to say I talked to a few people and decided to go for it anyways.
To give you guys and idea of my experience, I woke up at 5.30 am my test time was at 9 am, but the lady at the prometric center had told me that even if I came at 8 am it would be ok. So I decided to be there around 8. The testing center was a good 30 min away, so I had breakfast, didnt fast that day, grabbed a redbull and hit the road. I cruised up the 5 freeway, with the top down on my convertible, listening to MUSE, totally excited, literally ripping my ear drum a new one. But I wanted to keep my spirits high and the energy going! On the way back I switched up, went from Muse to Dariush, for those of you who dont know who Dariush is let me explain. He is a Persian singer that sings ballads, ballads known to make you wanna cut your wrists, beautiful lyrics, but veryyyy sad. So you can guess how my scores were. I am extremely disappointed, which is why im not posting my scores and I will explain why, and I hope you all dont make the same mistake.
Here is my breakdown.:
Time studied: roughly 3 months, while in school and while working.
Materials used: Mainly Destroyer and Kaplan, skimmed through Shuams, old Chem textsbooks, and an old Cambells Bio. Achiever and Topscore.
Bio: not that hard, very random, a few questions made me laugh because they were so easy, some required a lot of thought, and some were downright impossible, I dont care how many times you read Shuams or Cliffs or whatever else out there, you will still not be prepared for some of those off the wall questions. But here is the trick, if you do read all the materials listed above and them some, then even if you dont know the answer you can deduce the right answer anyways. Oh for my Destroyer lovers out there, Destroyer Bio was absolutely useless for my version.
Gchem: I cannot tell you how basic this section was, it was very very very basic, like everyone else says, Destroyer is an absolute overkill, but very good practice, I absolutely recommend it. There was not one problem on there that came as a surprise to me.
Ochem: a tiny bit more challenging, but again extremely basic, I dont think destroyer is overkill, I think it is a great practice tool, so definitely go over it a few times, and you will be confident enough and you will do great.
I did well in the sciences, the only problem here was time, I had a few calculations and I dont know what the heck came over me, I kept working the problems out, even though all I needed to do was to just set it up. I did that for quite a few problems and it cost me time, so I had to rush through ochem, but still I did well.
My science scores on the DAT was higher than my practice exams.
PAT: very fair, I never did Crack DAT PAT but I still did ok, I think it was very comparable to Topscore.
Now for the sections that killllllllllllllllllllllllllllllled me RC and QR. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of RC and QR practice.
QR: impossible within the time given. However, if you dont practice it will totally kill your AA, as it did mine. Now, I am veryyy bad in math, I have a 3.0 science GPA because of math, wo math my science gpa would be my BCP which is 3.3. NOW, with that, please practice, I was so silly that I didnt even go through all the math problems in Destroyer or Kaplan. Thinking that I would be able to wing it. My low score here did not come as a surprise, and I have only myself to blame.
Now to the most unfair section of all. Let me tell you about RC. YOUR SCORES ON YOUR PRACTICE EXAMS, mean S***!!!!!!!!🙁
I took about 7 practice exams, lowest RC was 19 on one, the rest were all 21s and 20s. I also got my 21s and 20s while I got interrupted repeatedly by coworkers or my boss. But on the real DAT I got a realllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy bad score😡, this is the main reason for my retake. Oh my god, my second passage was so impossible, I wasted time on it, so that when I got to the last passage, which just happened to be the easiest passage, I completely ran out of time and guessed on the last 5 questions. I was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo mad about this section. I mean if it was at least close to the scores on my practice exams then I wouldnt have been as mad. But it was nooooooo way near, o well, you live and you learn I suppose.🙁
Although I have to say, Im happy to have gone through this experience, I think that we should count our blessings every day. All of us going through this process have been lucky enough to find our passion in life, dentistry. We should be grateful that we have the capacity and potential to follow through with this dream. The DAT is the first of many steps required to reach that ultimate goal and we r lucky enough that we have the means possible to take the exam and retake the exam if necessary. So Im not going to complain, I learned a lot over these last 3 months and I grateful for discovering this site and meeting all of you incredible ppl.🙂 Good luck everyone and dont give up, just practice for RC and QR for the love of god so you dont get disappointed like I did.
Let me know if you guys have any questions, oh and sorry to disappoint!😳
To give you guys and idea of my experience, I woke up at 5.30 am my test time was at 9 am, but the lady at the prometric center had told me that even if I came at 8 am it would be ok. So I decided to be there around 8. The testing center was a good 30 min away, so I had breakfast, didnt fast that day, grabbed a redbull and hit the road. I cruised up the 5 freeway, with the top down on my convertible, listening to MUSE, totally excited, literally ripping my ear drum a new one. But I wanted to keep my spirits high and the energy going! On the way back I switched up, went from Muse to Dariush, for those of you who dont know who Dariush is let me explain. He is a Persian singer that sings ballads, ballads known to make you wanna cut your wrists, beautiful lyrics, but veryyyy sad. So you can guess how my scores were. I am extremely disappointed, which is why im not posting my scores and I will explain why, and I hope you all dont make the same mistake.
Here is my breakdown.:
Time studied: roughly 3 months, while in school and while working.
Materials used: Mainly Destroyer and Kaplan, skimmed through Shuams, old Chem textsbooks, and an old Cambells Bio. Achiever and Topscore.
Bio: not that hard, very random, a few questions made me laugh because they were so easy, some required a lot of thought, and some were downright impossible, I dont care how many times you read Shuams or Cliffs or whatever else out there, you will still not be prepared for some of those off the wall questions. But here is the trick, if you do read all the materials listed above and them some, then even if you dont know the answer you can deduce the right answer anyways. Oh for my Destroyer lovers out there, Destroyer Bio was absolutely useless for my version.
Gchem: I cannot tell you how basic this section was, it was very very very basic, like everyone else says, Destroyer is an absolute overkill, but very good practice, I absolutely recommend it. There was not one problem on there that came as a surprise to me.
Ochem: a tiny bit more challenging, but again extremely basic, I dont think destroyer is overkill, I think it is a great practice tool, so definitely go over it a few times, and you will be confident enough and you will do great.
I did well in the sciences, the only problem here was time, I had a few calculations and I dont know what the heck came over me, I kept working the problems out, even though all I needed to do was to just set it up. I did that for quite a few problems and it cost me time, so I had to rush through ochem, but still I did well.
My science scores on the DAT was higher than my practice exams.
PAT: very fair, I never did Crack DAT PAT but I still did ok, I think it was very comparable to Topscore.
Now for the sections that killllllllllllllllllllllllllllllled me RC and QR. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of RC and QR practice.
QR: impossible within the time given. However, if you dont practice it will totally kill your AA, as it did mine. Now, I am veryyy bad in math, I have a 3.0 science GPA because of math, wo math my science gpa would be my BCP which is 3.3. NOW, with that, please practice, I was so silly that I didnt even go through all the math problems in Destroyer or Kaplan. Thinking that I would be able to wing it. My low score here did not come as a surprise, and I have only myself to blame.
Now to the most unfair section of all. Let me tell you about RC. YOUR SCORES ON YOUR PRACTICE EXAMS, mean S***!!!!!!!!🙁
I took about 7 practice exams, lowest RC was 19 on one, the rest were all 21s and 20s. I also got my 21s and 20s while I got interrupted repeatedly by coworkers or my boss. But on the real DAT I got a realllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy bad score😡, this is the main reason for my retake. Oh my god, my second passage was so impossible, I wasted time on it, so that when I got to the last passage, which just happened to be the easiest passage, I completely ran out of time and guessed on the last 5 questions. I was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo mad about this section. I mean if it was at least close to the scores on my practice exams then I wouldnt have been as mad. But it was nooooooo way near, o well, you live and you learn I suppose.🙁
Although I have to say, Im happy to have gone through this experience, I think that we should count our blessings every day. All of us going through this process have been lucky enough to find our passion in life, dentistry. We should be grateful that we have the capacity and potential to follow through with this dream. The DAT is the first of many steps required to reach that ultimate goal and we r lucky enough that we have the means possible to take the exam and retake the exam if necessary. So Im not going to complain, I learned a lot over these last 3 months and I grateful for discovering this site and meeting all of you incredible ppl.🙂 Good luck everyone and dont give up, just practice for RC and QR for the love of god so you dont get disappointed like I did.
Let me know if you guys have any questions, oh and sorry to disappoint!😳
