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First of all, I want to thank all of you here at SDN for offering encouragement and advice for others! Every other day I would come here to read about people's DAT stories which inspired and encouraged me (most of the time).
So today I took my DAT today at noon. For the past few days I was extremely nervous and did not feel ready at all. I hardly got any sleep last night, I was so nervous. Let me rewind a bit. I just graduated from UCSB this past June and had a chance to travel through Europe (which I highly recommend) till the end of July, which left me about a month to study for the DAT. I've read how most people spend several months studying for the DAT, which made me feel like I didn't have enough time to prepare. Regardless of my anxiety, I went in today and walked away with these scores:
PA: 22
QR: 18
RC: 21
Bio: 19
GC: 22
OC: 18
TS: 20
AA: 20
Before the scores popped up on the screen, I felt like I failed several sections and was bracing myself for the worst. Then I was pleasantly surprised to see the scores I'm holding right now! I know they aren't the highest scores but I'm happy and relived just to be done.
Study Materials: Kaplan Blue Book, Destroyer, Crack DAT PAT, and Chad's Videos😍.
Breakdown
Bio: I was a Bio Major and felt relatively comfortable with the knowledge I had from classes. Regardless, I spent some time going through the Kaplan BB. The questions on the test were hit or miss for me. Some of the concepts I've never even come across before. In hindsight, I probably should have spent more time studying for this section.
GC: Holy crap Chad's Videos were a life saver. It had been a long time since I studied Gen Chem so Chad was EXTREMELY helpful. I went through Destroyer once but I'll have to agree with the rest of you; it is a bit of overkill, especially the calculations (way more complicated than the real thing). Actually I don't remember being that many calculations on the real thing, mostly concepts.
OC: Ah, my weakest subject. I did poorly in O-chem in college and was expecting it to carry over for the DAT. Chad's Vids were also helpful on this section. Went through Destroyer once. I think the Destroyer is much more helpful for O-chem than it is for Gen Chem.
PA: For this section I think it's just about practice. The more you do, the better you get. And Crack DAT PAT was good for practice.
RC: I was expecting to fail this since I didn't do any prep for it. I didn't bother reading the passages first, I just went straight for the questions. Once I read the question, I just did what I do when I'm reading things on my computer and used my mouse to highlight each individual paragraph as I read it (for some reason I find it makes things easier to read and scan). I had a passage on Epidemiology, the Spinal Cord, and Floating Bridges. Epidemiology and Floating Bridges weren't too bad, but the Spinal Cord was a BITCH to scan through because of all the terms.
QR: Another section I hardly prepped for. I was too worried about the OC and GC so I didn't divert much energy elsewhere. The biggest problem for me was TIME. I knew going in that time was a big factor for this section so I just did the questions I could do quickly and skipped the ones that I knew would take time. Then once I finished the questions I could do, I went back and started to work on the ones I left blank. I still ran out of time so I had to guess on 2 or 3 problems.
And now it's time to enjoy a well deserved beer.
So today I took my DAT today at noon. For the past few days I was extremely nervous and did not feel ready at all. I hardly got any sleep last night, I was so nervous. Let me rewind a bit. I just graduated from UCSB this past June and had a chance to travel through Europe (which I highly recommend) till the end of July, which left me about a month to study for the DAT. I've read how most people spend several months studying for the DAT, which made me feel like I didn't have enough time to prepare. Regardless of my anxiety, I went in today and walked away with these scores:
PA: 22
QR: 18
RC: 21
Bio: 19
GC: 22
OC: 18
TS: 20
AA: 20
Before the scores popped up on the screen, I felt like I failed several sections and was bracing myself for the worst. Then I was pleasantly surprised to see the scores I'm holding right now! I know they aren't the highest scores but I'm happy and relived just to be done.
Study Materials: Kaplan Blue Book, Destroyer, Crack DAT PAT, and Chad's Videos😍.
Breakdown
Bio: I was a Bio Major and felt relatively comfortable with the knowledge I had from classes. Regardless, I spent some time going through the Kaplan BB. The questions on the test were hit or miss for me. Some of the concepts I've never even come across before. In hindsight, I probably should have spent more time studying for this section.
GC: Holy crap Chad's Videos were a life saver. It had been a long time since I studied Gen Chem so Chad was EXTREMELY helpful. I went through Destroyer once but I'll have to agree with the rest of you; it is a bit of overkill, especially the calculations (way more complicated than the real thing). Actually I don't remember being that many calculations on the real thing, mostly concepts.
OC: Ah, my weakest subject. I did poorly in O-chem in college and was expecting it to carry over for the DAT. Chad's Vids were also helpful on this section. Went through Destroyer once. I think the Destroyer is much more helpful for O-chem than it is for Gen Chem.
PA: For this section I think it's just about practice. The more you do, the better you get. And Crack DAT PAT was good for practice.
RC: I was expecting to fail this since I didn't do any prep for it. I didn't bother reading the passages first, I just went straight for the questions. Once I read the question, I just did what I do when I'm reading things on my computer and used my mouse to highlight each individual paragraph as I read it (for some reason I find it makes things easier to read and scan). I had a passage on Epidemiology, the Spinal Cord, and Floating Bridges. Epidemiology and Floating Bridges weren't too bad, but the Spinal Cord was a BITCH to scan through because of all the terms.
QR: Another section I hardly prepped for. I was too worried about the OC and GC so I didn't divert much energy elsewhere. The biggest problem for me was TIME. I knew going in that time was a big factor for this section so I just did the questions I could do quickly and skipped the ones that I knew would take time. Then once I finished the questions I could do, I went back and started to work on the ones I left blank. I still ran out of time so I had to guess on 2 or 3 problems.
And now it's time to enjoy a well deserved beer.
