hey guys, thanks for your opinions, I hope i will be a dental student somewhere in tx in 2010
but for those of you wondering, i guess it doesn't really matter since my scores weren't the best
🙁 but heres a breakdown of my study materials and how i spent my time... ( i know i liked to see how people were studying and what helped and what didn't. )
I took a kaplan course over this past summer and found that i really didn't learn a whole lot.. The materials provided were great! but the actual class (and the price tag to go along with it...) not so much...
During the semester i found it difficult to study just because biochem was taking up alot of my study time, and EC's as well. I now know that, that time would have been better spent preparing for the DAT.
NEway, hardcore studying began at the end of the semester and i studyed ALL WINTER BREAK!! it sucked
🙁 but i usually spent 8-10 hrs in the library a day. I took a practice test 6 days before and then 3 days before the actual test, and the last day i reviewed and chilled...
heres the "by subject" breakdown
BIO: boy is there alot of bio out there!!! I went thru kaplans white book ( from the class...i think the blue book are the same/similar) and after going thru it once i realized that it was very elementary compared to the actual questions i was to encounter. I supplemented studying with SHAUM'S outline, which was ok, the explanations were good but there was way too much detail so i just read about the parts that i was confused on or needed additional resources for. DAT DESTROYER was a good resource when it came to practice...There were alot of "wth is this" questions on there but they def prepared me for the actual test...kaplan note cards....dont bother, and i didnt use the online materials as much as i should have :/
GCHEM : There were quite a few conceptual questions on the actual test..I was thinking there would be a lot more calculation problems, but it was whatever...KAPLAN was a good resource for GC, almost everything tested can be found in the white/blue book. DESTROYER was also a good tool here....except there were not as many calculation questions on the real thing.
OCHEM: this area was my weakest, all through out college as well, I had to retake OC2 and its def been my kryptonite! but i sat down with the KAPLAN book and took my time w/ each seperate rxn and seperating them into classifications (nucleophilic addition....etc) and then also concentrated on SN1VSN2!! there was quite a bit on that. this section was ok, nothing too out of the ordinary
RC: .... I hate it when people say "i went in with no practice and blew it outta the water!" ...maybe just cuz that didnt happen with me...lol. It was definitly difficult and i couldnt get my mind to get "in the groove" which i had found taking previous practice tests... i recommend reading a passage a day, perhaps from a scientific journal and def use kaplans method of jotting down notes while skimming, so you can reference them later... i hate reading...btw
QR: just know your basic math i guess...DESTROYER was ok at giving practice with this but there were alot of word problems...:/ KNOW YOUR TRIG!!! i thought i could sneak by with just knowing SOH CAH TOA... WRONG!!
PAT: i was upset with this score...I went thru and thought I did well but apparently NOT! I practiced with kaplans PAT material, which as everyone says was way to easy. the actual test : hole punching and angle ranking....holy WOW!! soo hard!! i've never seen HP like that and didn't even think it was possible....and angle ranking...almost all 15 of them, the angles were less then 5degrees of difference...
Oh well, anyway hope this helps, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
also i would still like any input on my score and how you think i fared. I still don't think they will be enough but let me know if i need to retake!
I have many EC's btw.... service fraternity (too many hours of volunteer service to count...for now anyway) which i will be VP of next yr, work at a pedi-dentists office for 4.5 yrs now, acapella group, master of dance..
😀, and a few others i'm sure im forgetting..
anyway again hope this helps and let me know what my chances are!!
thanks!
