I have been checking out this site for quite some time now....I am really pleased to see that we still have people in our society that are willing to help others....Maybe thats why we want to become doctors! So this is what my experience has been like:
Today was "The Day". The day was off to a great start when all of a sudden my GPS led me to a deserted street and said "destination reached". I was like what.....So i called the prometric center and they were like yea "we're not on GPS/Mapquest" so I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out where i was suppose to go...Its not like i was lost lost..just lost...SO the moral of this ministory=Since i left my house 1 hr 15 mins before my test (only a 30 min drive) I still got there in time despite having issues finding the place...So LEAVE EARLY!!!
As I sat down to take the test i was like "o no.....this is my life determining test i gotta do well on it"....probably not the best thing to think about....but hey it is what it is...
Bio: Random is an understatement, but you have to remember that random doesn't mean hard....The questions were actually fairly easy since the question topics were soo broad....I think TS/Achiever/even Barrons all give you a good broad question base... I used mainly KBB to study. I supplemented KBB's weak areas with 5 steps to a 5 on AP BIO, Campbells, and an MCAT book. I studied for this section the most...Of course what i studied wasn't on the test lol
GC: I did quite well in GC when i took the course, but something happend in the past 2 years lol... It was fairly straight forward..only a couple of tricky ones... I would say 60/40 concepts/calc.... I got a little stumped on some of the questions where they set up the calculations for you...This was probably b/c TS/achiever/barrons don't really give you a lot of questions like that...Mainly KBB, Chad was pretty helpful, and i think i even looked at my GC textbook a couple of times. I was really concerned about this portion of the exam...
OC: This section was a joke! Yes orgo a JOKE!.....Reactions were straight forward....Very Fair section...KBB was more than enough....However, i got scared after reading all the previous DAT tacker's posts and so i skimmed through my Orgo text book (helped in that i relearned some stuff...but the stuff that i relearned wasn't really on the DAT)...However, my only disclaimer for this is that I did really well in Orgo this year past year so it was still fresh in my mind....I studied for this section the least...
PAT: It was straightforward no crazy tricks/illusions that they pull in CDP/Achiever.... Holes were similiar to TS/CDP, TFE=TS, Angles=Crazy hard, Cube=TS, Folding=TS.....So i think all in all TS was the best in terms of the level of difficulty...But CDP was great for just getting that extra pracice...
RC: I'm happy to say that i didn't get pianoed or Frapped....I got stuff relating to DNA, Brain, and I think genetics...i forgot....The passages were really short...I think they ranged from like 9-12 paragraphs...So they weren't too bad....I did the S&D method...Which i'm not to happy about doing (but it worked out in the end). I didn't like the method b/c you are really gambling with your score....I only got 1 tone question....but a lot of the questions were worded really weird and as a result the S&D held me back a bit....But I guess Achiever/TS are good for this...I would suggest trying to at least skim through the paragraphs ( i tried to do this but would only get through like 4 paragraphs)...
QR: People have really been saying a lot about the % of word problems on this test....I would say out of the 40 questions a good 20+ were word problems...and a good 5+ were like 6 sentence word problems....You can't really study for this section, just prepare....KBB is good for this as well as Achiever, and TS....There weren't really any crazy trig or probability questions on it....As a result of the time issue..i woud say that I made educated guesses on about 10-15 of problems (closer to the latter now that i think about it)....TIME IS AN ISSUE!!! I remember being on question 3 and i had already lost 6 minutes of so...That was when i shifted my strategy to educated guessing lol....And I couldn't really do the skip the word problems and come back to them...cuz there were just soo many...All you can do is when you pray that you don't get the piano passage in RC just pray that you don't get a lot of word problems either.
I'm really sorry that this is a long post...but i just wanna try to give everyone my point of view...I started studying during the end of May... I spent a solid 2 weeks (approx2-5 hrs/day) going thorugh KBB and filling in the holes with my MCAT book). Then i kind of went into cruise mode with maybe an hour a day of studying. Then about 2 weeks before the exam i went all out (6+ hours a day). During this time: I saw that a lot of people recomend Barron's for PAT so i got that (wasn't too great...but it was alright...also had some info in the NSciences that KBB lacked). I also got DAT achiever but it was overkill (a lot harder than the real thing...Except for QR of course). I also got CDP (5 tests are more than enough) it was alright... it was helpful I would say a bit harder than the real thing...I would say that all in all TS was the best/most accurate to the real thing....I also watched Chad's GC videos, his OC videos wouldn't work on my comp so i didn't watch them... I spent most of my time going through KBB (its a great book!) probably went through it cover to cover 5 times (its a must if you want to do well). Oh and before i forget...Barrons has a ton of mistakes in it (especially QR) and this was very frustrating for me....So if you want to pass out Barrons you should be alright...
I was kinda upset that i didn't get destroyer cuz a lot of people have said great things about it...But it would have been over kill anyway....
Wow that was a long post.....I guess its time for stats....
Practice:
BIO/GC/OC/PAT/RC/QR
ADA 22/21/30/18/17/19
Kaplan (book) 22/17/23/18/18/19
Kaplan (CD) 19/17/20/20/18/20
Barron (book) 20/18/18/18/20/19
Barron (book) 20/19/21/18/18/20
Barron (CD) 19/19/20/18/19/22
Barron (CD) 22/19/18/20/19/19
DAT A 1 19/16/18/16/21/19
DAT A 2 17/16/16/17/20/18
DAT A 3 18/17/19/16/22/20
TS1 18/19/20/20/21/18
TS2 21/18/20/21/21/18
TS3 21/18/20/21/21/18
CDP:19/18/18/19/22
THE REAL THING:
BIO: 24 (98.7)
GC: 20 (81.3)
OC: 30 (100)
PAT:20 (85.4)
RC: 22 (90.3)
QR: 17 (65.7)--As upset as i am about QR....I'm just glad that i managed to get at least a 17 ( i believe that makes the cut off for a majority of schools?....I was def expected lower..QR was HARD!!!!! (says the guy that ace'd Calc in college)
TS: 23 (98.2)
AA: 23 (98.2)
When my scores came up...I was shocked...I thought i did a lot worse....I guess all my studying paid off...These scores are doable for just about anyone...All you have to do is work hard....I'm not the smartest guy...but I am the guy that works the hardest..
Just some stuff about me:
sGPA is approx 3.85, cGPA is approx 3.95
NY resident, decent LOR's, 2 summers worth of research (no publications),decent amount of dental shadowing, hospital shadowing,good EC
I don't apply until next summer.....But since i'm a NY resident my top choice is Stony Brook. Then Buffalo,UMDNJ, UPenn, Pit, case, Columbia,and maybe i'll just apply to Harvard for fun....
I hope this helps some people out...Good luck guys!
Today was "The Day". The day was off to a great start when all of a sudden my GPS led me to a deserted street and said "destination reached". I was like what.....So i called the prometric center and they were like yea "we're not on GPS/Mapquest" so I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out where i was suppose to go...Its not like i was lost lost..just lost...SO the moral of this ministory=Since i left my house 1 hr 15 mins before my test (only a 30 min drive) I still got there in time despite having issues finding the place...So LEAVE EARLY!!!
As I sat down to take the test i was like "o no.....this is my life determining test i gotta do well on it"....probably not the best thing to think about....but hey it is what it is...
Bio: Random is an understatement, but you have to remember that random doesn't mean hard....The questions were actually fairly easy since the question topics were soo broad....I think TS/Achiever/even Barrons all give you a good broad question base... I used mainly KBB to study. I supplemented KBB's weak areas with 5 steps to a 5 on AP BIO, Campbells, and an MCAT book. I studied for this section the most...Of course what i studied wasn't on the test lol
GC: I did quite well in GC when i took the course, but something happend in the past 2 years lol... It was fairly straight forward..only a couple of tricky ones... I would say 60/40 concepts/calc.... I got a little stumped on some of the questions where they set up the calculations for you...This was probably b/c TS/achiever/barrons don't really give you a lot of questions like that...Mainly KBB, Chad was pretty helpful, and i think i even looked at my GC textbook a couple of times. I was really concerned about this portion of the exam...
OC: This section was a joke! Yes orgo a JOKE!.....Reactions were straight forward....Very Fair section...KBB was more than enough....However, i got scared after reading all the previous DAT tacker's posts and so i skimmed through my Orgo text book (helped in that i relearned some stuff...but the stuff that i relearned wasn't really on the DAT)...However, my only disclaimer for this is that I did really well in Orgo this year past year so it was still fresh in my mind....I studied for this section the least...
PAT: It was straightforward no crazy tricks/illusions that they pull in CDP/Achiever.... Holes were similiar to TS/CDP, TFE=TS, Angles=Crazy hard, Cube=TS, Folding=TS.....So i think all in all TS was the best in terms of the level of difficulty...But CDP was great for just getting that extra pracice...
RC: I'm happy to say that i didn't get pianoed or Frapped....I got stuff relating to DNA, Brain, and I think genetics...i forgot....The passages were really short...I think they ranged from like 9-12 paragraphs...So they weren't too bad....I did the S&D method...Which i'm not to happy about doing (but it worked out in the end). I didn't like the method b/c you are really gambling with your score....I only got 1 tone question....but a lot of the questions were worded really weird and as a result the S&D held me back a bit....But I guess Achiever/TS are good for this...I would suggest trying to at least skim through the paragraphs ( i tried to do this but would only get through like 4 paragraphs)...
QR: People have really been saying a lot about the % of word problems on this test....I would say out of the 40 questions a good 20+ were word problems...and a good 5+ were like 6 sentence word problems....You can't really study for this section, just prepare....KBB is good for this as well as Achiever, and TS....There weren't really any crazy trig or probability questions on it....As a result of the time issue..i woud say that I made educated guesses on about 10-15 of problems (closer to the latter now that i think about it)....TIME IS AN ISSUE!!! I remember being on question 3 and i had already lost 6 minutes of so...That was when i shifted my strategy to educated guessing lol....And I couldn't really do the skip the word problems and come back to them...cuz there were just soo many...All you can do is when you pray that you don't get the piano passage in RC just pray that you don't get a lot of word problems either.
I'm really sorry that this is a long post...but i just wanna try to give everyone my point of view...I started studying during the end of May... I spent a solid 2 weeks (approx2-5 hrs/day) going thorugh KBB and filling in the holes with my MCAT book). Then i kind of went into cruise mode with maybe an hour a day of studying. Then about 2 weeks before the exam i went all out (6+ hours a day). During this time: I saw that a lot of people recomend Barron's for PAT so i got that (wasn't too great...but it was alright...also had some info in the NSciences that KBB lacked). I also got DAT achiever but it was overkill (a lot harder than the real thing...Except for QR of course). I also got CDP (5 tests are more than enough) it was alright... it was helpful I would say a bit harder than the real thing...I would say that all in all TS was the best/most accurate to the real thing....I also watched Chad's GC videos, his OC videos wouldn't work on my comp so i didn't watch them... I spent most of my time going through KBB (its a great book!) probably went through it cover to cover 5 times (its a must if you want to do well). Oh and before i forget...Barrons has a ton of mistakes in it (especially QR) and this was very frustrating for me....So if you want to pass out Barrons you should be alright...
I was kinda upset that i didn't get destroyer cuz a lot of people have said great things about it...But it would have been over kill anyway....
Wow that was a long post.....I guess its time for stats....
Practice:
BIO/GC/OC/PAT/RC/QR
ADA 22/21/30/18/17/19
Kaplan (book) 22/17/23/18/18/19
Kaplan (CD) 19/17/20/20/18/20
Barron (book) 20/18/18/18/20/19
Barron (book) 20/19/21/18/18/20
Barron (CD) 19/19/20/18/19/22
Barron (CD) 22/19/18/20/19/19
DAT A 1 19/16/18/16/21/19
DAT A 2 17/16/16/17/20/18
DAT A 3 18/17/19/16/22/20
TS1 18/19/20/20/21/18
TS2 21/18/20/21/21/18
TS3 21/18/20/21/21/18
CDP:19/18/18/19/22
THE REAL THING:
BIO: 24 (98.7)
GC: 20 (81.3)
OC: 30 (100)
PAT:20 (85.4)
RC: 22 (90.3)
QR: 17 (65.7)--As upset as i am about QR....I'm just glad that i managed to get at least a 17 ( i believe that makes the cut off for a majority of schools?....I was def expected lower..QR was HARD!!!!! (says the guy that ace'd Calc in college)
TS: 23 (98.2)
AA: 23 (98.2)
When my scores came up...I was shocked...I thought i did a lot worse....I guess all my studying paid off...These scores are doable for just about anyone...All you have to do is work hard....I'm not the smartest guy...but I am the guy that works the hardest..
Just some stuff about me:
sGPA is approx 3.85, cGPA is approx 3.95
NY resident, decent LOR's, 2 summers worth of research (no publications),decent amount of dental shadowing, hospital shadowing,good EC
I don't apply until next summer.....But since i'm a NY resident my top choice is Stony Brook. Then Buffalo,UMDNJ, UPenn, Pit, case, Columbia,and maybe i'll just apply to Harvard for fun....
I hope this helps some people out...Good luck guys!
