DAT exam 2 months away

[UCLA808]

Hello all,

I just wanted to see if anyone has any suggestions or guidance I should do to improve before I take my exam in march. (Particularly my biology and organic sections, as I am really struggling with the broad information covered in bio.)

Currently after averaging my practice test results I am at:
Biology: 15.66
Chemistry: 19.2
O Chem: 17.25
Reading: 21.8
QR: 18.33
PAT: 19.2

What I am currently using to study:

Mainly using Bootcamp and Ari's study guide
Have a copy of the 2019 destroyer and math destroyer but haven't really gone through it.

I've heard reviews on PATbooster but is it worth it? I am mainly getting everything correct (14/15 avg) on angle ranking, cube counting, hole punching, and pattern folding but I am getting 6/15 on keyhole and TFE.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

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[deleted936472]

Hello all,

I just wanted to see if anyone has any suggestions or guidance I should do to improve before I take my exam in march. (Particularly my biology and organic sections, as I am really struggling with the broad information covered in bio.)

Currently after averaging my practice test results I am at:
Biology: 15.66
Chemistry: 19.2
O Chem: 17.25
Reading: 21.8
QR: 18.33
PAT: 19.2

What I am currently using to study:

Mainly using Bootcamp and Ari's study guide
Have a copy of the 2019 destroyer and math destroyer but haven't really gone through it.

I've heard reviews on PATbooster but is it worth it? I am mainly getting everything correct (14/15 avg) on angle ranking, cube counting, hole punching, and pattern folding but I am getting 6/15 on keyhole and TFE.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

for two months left you’re doing fine. I however wouldn’t be taking any of the practice tests with so much time left before your test. You need to study the content of the exam before you do practice tests. The practice tests are there to help with identifying weak spots and also to help with timing (this is especially important with the PAT section).

If I were you I wouldn’t touch another practice exam and would instead go through the DAT destroyer and do about 40 gen chem and 40 ochem questions a day. Understand the concepts behind the questions and write down the number for each question you have difficulty with (make sure you understand why you got them wrong). When you’re all done then go through the GC and Ochem sections again, and focus on the ones you got wrong or had difficulty with the first time (don’t waste time doing easy questions you don’t need practice with).

Personally I didn’t find the Bio portion of the destroyer to be helpful, I actually thought it was a waste of my time (that’s my opinion, I might’ve just spent too much time doing the bio portion). It’s up to you though if you want to do the bio questions, again this is my opinion, they could be really helpful to you.

To study for the bio portion I looked through a ton of resources including the destroyer bio notes which you can find online for free, the DAT bootcamp notes (the short and long versions) and the old feralis notes. I ended up using the old feralis notes which were amazing and are the reason I got a 25 in the bio section.

I hope this helps, and I think it’s a good idea to make your own study guide. I tried following Ari’s but I didn’t like how had you taking the practice tests so early on in your studying. I focused on learning as much as I could then took the full length tests to get timing down.

Edit: continue to do PAT generators for all of the different PAT sections. Having a strategy for PAT is really important, if you know TFE and keyhole are the most difficult for you then do them at the very end of the PAT test. Look on YouTube to find strategy for solving TFE and keyholes.

 

[UCLA808]

for two months left you’re doing fine. I however wouldn’t be taking any of the practice tests with so much time left before your test. You need to study the content of the exam before you do practice tests. The practice tests are there to help with identifying weak spots and also to help with timing (this is especially important with the PAT section).

If I were you I wouldn’t touch another practice exam and would instead go through the DAT destroyer and do about 40 gen chem and 40 ochem questions a day. Understand the concepts behind the questions and write down the number for each question you have difficulty with (make sure you understand why you got them wrong). When you’re all done then go through the GC and Ochem sections again, and focus on the ones you got wrong or had difficulty with the first time (don’t waste time doing easy questions you don’t need practice with).

Personally I didn’t find the Bio portion of the destroyer to be helpful, I actually thought it was a waste of my time (that’s my opinion, I might’ve just spent too much time doing the bio portion). It’s up to you though if you want to do the bio questions, again this is my opinion, they could be really helpful to you.

To study for the bio portion I looked through a ton of resources including the destroyer bio notes which you can find online for free, the DAT bootcamp notes (the short and long versions) and the old feralis notes. I ended up using the old feralis notes which were amazing and are the reason I got a 25 in the bio section.

I hope this helps, and I think it’s a good idea to make your own study guide. I tried following Ari’s but I didn’t like how had you taking the practice tests so early on in your studying. I focused on learning as much as I could then took the full length tests to get timing down.

Edit: continue to do PAT generators for all of the different PAT sections. Having a strategy for PAT is really important, if you know TFE and keyhole are the most difficult for you then do them at the very end of the PAT test. Look on YouTube to find strategy for solving TFE and keyholes.

Thanks for your reply!
I think i am going to hold off on the full length practice tests until the end of next month so I can actually learn all the material first and do incorporate your suggestions

 

[ChemistryDentist]

I thought the biology and organic chem sections in the Destroyer were way more than sufficient for me when combined with the free Destroyer biology notes online. Ended up with a 25 in BIO using the Destroyer and those notes alone, so I'm glad I did not really waste time on other resources. I briefly looked at other ones, but they did not seem adequate imo. I've yet to hear of anyone using the Destroyer resources and doing poorly, likely because how useful they truly are.



Your scores are looking okay, but please know they may not represent what you may get on the real test! I definitely recommend putting your head into the Destroyers to practice as much as you can, especially for those two sections. The books were unbelievably helpful for me and I think you would see your scores jump up a bunch if you go through them once or twice.