I'll start by saying I have been a crammer my entire life. All throughout undergrad, I don't think I've ever studied more than 2 days before a midterm. For a final, I will start 4 days before.
The DAT is obviously something you do not want to be cramming for; nonetheless, I obviously ended up doing that. Also, I did not take any full-length tests before my real DAT.
I would estimate I spent a total of 130 hours preparing for the exam, with a large part (~15%) of my studying occurring the last 2 days before the exam (my mother drove me and I was in a study frenzy on the drive there, as well).
PAT (20 hours):
Took a CDP exam to get a diagnostic score. I think I got a 14. Then, I watched the tutorials, figured out all the rules and basic strategy and tried again. I did a total of 5 CDP exams, the last one being 2 days before my exam. I made sure to view explanations and try to understand what I got wrong. Using CDP, I was good with keyholes, cube counting, hole punching, decent at pattern folding, TFE, and was AWFUL at angle ranking
CDP: 14 (diagnostic), 17 (after tutorial), 19 (untimed--90 minutes), 21, 23
Real DAT: 19
Holy **** the keyholes were hard! I have never struggled with keyholes on CDP (usually miss 1 or 2) and on the real DAT, I "marked" almost all of them. So much more about very slight differences in proportions than any identifying notches/marks. TFE is usually pretty rough for me, but by the 4th and 5th CDP, I was able to visualize most figures. Though this was always my slowest section, I would get 13-15 right consistently. The TFE was REALLY hard on the real DAT. I marked about half of them. Angle ranking was a breeze. On CDP, I couldn't even discriminate between 6 degrees apart and was always just guessing, so I'm guessing the DAT has angle differences >6degrees. I improved most on hole punching using CDP and once I got the hang of it, I usually got 14-15 right. Real DAT was similar in difficulty. I usually have no trouble with cube counting. Real DAT had more of the "illusion"-type structures, but haven't had difficulty with those, so this section was fine for me. The real DAT had pattern folding questions that were slightly easier than CDP and slightly harder than CDP.
Quantitative Reasoning (12 hours):
Really surprised by this score. I've always been very good at math, so I barely put any time into this section. Watched Chad's videos and took notes, then did 40 problems in Math Destroyer and 2 qVault tests.
Math Destroyer: 30/40 questions
qVault: 36/40, 34/40
Real DAT: 20
Word problems were ridiculously long. Took other's advice and marked a problem and skipped if I couldn't figure out a solution immmediately. Went back to marked questions and tried to solve them, but ran out of time. This section was much more difficult that qVault. I'm pretty good at algebra, but still struggled with the test. Lots of trig.
Reading Comprehension (2 hours):
I cannot believe I did this poorly on RC. I took 1 CDP exam to get a sense of a basic strategy and scored a 23. I reviewed my answers/explanations and then called it quits, because I didn't anticipate much trouble on the real thing.
CDP: 23
Real DAT: 18
Didn't do enough practice to get my timing down. Spent too much time on the first passage and ran out of time to go back to the marked questions. I wish there were more tone/inference questions (I think I had maybe 2) because those would have been much easier for me than trying to use search and destroy to find the details. I left a whole bunch blank, meaning to go back to them, but ran out of time. ARGHHH.
Biology (25 hours):
Read the first half of Cliff's and took notes. Got to the taxonomy chapter and thought "this is !@#%#@$", so I stopped reading from that point on. Took 4 full qVault tests. Did 100 problems of Cell Biology qVault because I'm good at cell bio and didn't need the practice. Did 80 problems of Physioloy in qVault (again, a strength). Did about 20 Taxonomy qVault problems (weakness). Did 20 Developmental qVault problems (weakness). Does it make sense to do more problems in an area you're good at, and hardly any in an area you're weak at? Nope. Is it more fun that way? Yep. Knew next to nothing on taxonomy, ecology, evolution, genetics besides stuff I remembered from elementary/middle/high school days. Knew a crap-ton on cell bio, biochem, physiology. Crammed in a skim-over of Alan's notes in the car ride to my test.
QVault: 29/40, 26/40, 35/40, 34/40
Real DAT: 20
qVault scores were pretty much spot on. I "marked" pretty much every other question in this section, as expected from my study methods.
General Chemistry (40 hours):
I took general chemistry the first semester of my freshman year. I remembered hardly anything and didn't even do well in the class. I watched Chad's videos and took notes. This took up the majority of my time. I went through and "solved" all of the Destroyer problems. I put that in quotes because I really mean that I didn't know how to do any of those problems, and just copied the answers from the back of the book. Do NOT use Destroyer. What an effing waste of time.
Destroyer: 0/273(?) I didn't even count because I didn't put in the effort in trying to solve the problems because I'm lazy. Copied answers from back of book.
Real DAT: 25
This section was a joke. Every time I clicked "next" my heart would stop, because I thought there was no way for all of the questions to be so easy and I was anticipating a streak of ridiculously hard problems. That said, I must have gotten something(s) wrong, since I didn't get a perfect score. Don't know what I got wrong. DO NOT USE DESTROYER. Overkill to the max. You really only need the basics. And by basics, I mean really freaking basic.
Organic Chemistry (30 hours): I was nervous about preparing for this section on DAT. I watched Chad's and took notes. Started to do Destroyer, but again, I was pretty much copying straight from the answers in the back. Got 1/3 of the way through this pointless copying and stopped.
Real DAT (23):
I will second exactly what I said for the General Chemistry section.
Before all of this, I knew my study habits and work ethic were awful. Taking/having to study for the DAT definitely reaffirmed this. I always tell myself I will improve and study a little bit each day, rather than cramming, but I can never actually stick with the motivation to do that. Anyone have any tips for me? I think it's because I've always managed to just skim by and do well enough. This is a horrible mindset. How do I get out of it?!
