DAT done!

[every1cheer]

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Well, just took the DAT! I am soooo happy to be done and I'm super happy with my scores:

Bio 22
GC 26
OC 24

PAT 19

RC 30
QR 18

TS 23
AA 24

I still can't believe how well it went! I was soooo worried that I was seriously considering doing a last minute cancellation and losing all my money because I didn't think I was prepared yet... and I'm not an overly worrisome person, its just that my practice test scores were nowhere near these! I couldn't finish any of the sections on the practice tests to save my life!! Maybe all the adrenaline cranked up my speed 😀

What I find the funniest is that I got a perfect in RC because I didn't have to "comprehend" anything or even read a single passage... I used search and destroy all the way through and for a lot of questions only had to read like 1 sentence. By the time I was done with the questions for a passage I don't think I had even read half the words on the page Even the tone type questions I got were really specific and focused on just 1 paragraph or were just super obvious from reading ANY of the passage.

The main struggle for QR was time.. compounded by the fact that the calculator had a TERRIBLE lag. Like so bad that keystrokes wouldn't even register if I clicked them too quickly and I had to retype the number... needless to say, EXTREMELY irritating. Too bad it was still so necessary for me to use it. 🙄

On the PAT section the biggest shock for me was hole punching. I had never had a problem with hole punching in practice, but on the real DAT the papers were folded into the most awkward shapes in the world! lol Keyhole actually seemed easier than I thought it would be. Pattern folding is... well... pattern folding. I went in not expecting too many points from that.

It feels so good to be posting this! Kinda feared that I would be posting a what do I do now thread lol! Good luck to anyone taking it! I'm certainly no expert but if you have any questions I'll help all I can.

 

[2PacClone23]

Damn you 22+AA students! How do you guys do it? Hopefully in 1.5 months, I'll be posting these exact same scores.

But good EFFIN job! 👍👍👍👍👍

 

[Huskk]

Wow congrats on those scores!

Would you mind posting the scores to your practice tests if you have them?

 

[savpat0119]

what kind of materials did u use for each section?! great scores!!

 

[Troyvdg]

great scores, congrats!
now go celebrate!!

 

[Tooth1]

Congrats! Great scores! Enjoy the rest of ur summer 🙂

 

[darkwalk]

Awesome scores! For me I thought both the angle matching and the hole punching were tougher than my practice exams.

 

[thanksd]

...

 

[Spartan812]

Congrats on your amazing scores! I take my DAT July 15th and was wondering if you could share your study strategies and materials? I feel a nervous breakdown coming on within a few days lol

 

[dentallover]

OMG! I have never seen 30 on RC! Where did you study from? I can not get more than 18 in Kaplan and Topscore practice tests.

 

[every1cheer]

First of all thank you so much everyone for the congratulations! For those of you that are saying how nervous you are I can totally relate! Don't freak out! I'm soooo glad I didn't move my date.

For materials, I thought that the Kaplan Review notes were very helpful for all the sciences as long as you know the notes well and they pretty much covered most of the topics you need to know. I also had Cliff's AP bio but spend less time with that than the review notes. It was great for expanding on topics I wanted a better understanding of though. For the both of the chemistrys destroyer is great practice. I recommend getting access to Kaplan's online material because there are a ton of subject tests, quizzes, and a few full-length tests which were great practice for me! I know there are quite a few Kaplan bashers out there but I thought the material was great preparation. Class wasn't that necessary but I don't know if its much cheaper to buy online access without it. Top-score is nice to have for additional full-length practice tests and getting used to pacing yourself.

For o chem one thing that really helped me was making flash cards of the reactions (generic versions). On 1 side I put the reactant and over the arrow I put the reagent(s) and solvent. On the other side I put rectants ----> products. I made sure I knew the flashcards from both sides, meaning I knew what the reactions produced and I knew what reagents it took to get there. Sorry if that was confusing but it's kind of hard to explain unless you can see the flashcards. If anyone wants me to I can list the reactions I covered on my flashcards. Only a few of them actually showed up on my test but I'm sure it varies. There weren't a ton of questions on reactions though, most of the O chem questions were more on concepts like resonance, stereochemistry, and basic SN1/SN2/E1/E2 stuff.

Huskk my practice test scores were generally around AA 19 or so. I know that's not terrible but the reason I was so nervous is because I feared the real DAT would be harder but that was not the case. Plus my PAT average on practice tests was 17-18 and that really scared me. I think the main reason I did so much better is because on the real test I was actually able to finish all the sections except QR (guessed on like the last 10) and PAT (guessed through most of pattern folding but my pattern folding ability is little better than a guess anyway lol). Best advice I can give is don't waste your time second guessing yourself because not finishing will hurt you worse than a mistake or two from not double checking. If you come up with an answer choose it and move on and mark it for review if you feel like you need to.

dentallover, actually I didn't study RC much at all! Only in the full-length practice tests I did. I just read the question and scrolled through the passage until i saw the same words and the answer was right there! 😀

Studying-wise I didn't really do anything overkill. I worked hard (6+ hours a day) but only for a few weeks. I had a really good foundation from classes, though (including anatomy, physiology, biochem, which helped in the bio sections). If you don't remember much from classes you'll need to make up for it by studying longer.

Thanks Tooth1 and troyvdg, I do plan to celebrate and enjoy the rest of my summer! I am acually leaving for Europe next week! Never really been out of the country so I'm extremely excited!!

I'll be happy to answer any other questions if they will help people. I know exactly how it feels to be anxious and uncertain about the DAT, and I had support from some great people! Good luck all!

 

[jirotrom]

I'm really happy for you! fantastic job and thanks for the pointers 😀

 

[mprs]

congrats 🙂 gluck with your applications