DAT Gen Chem and Orgo

[Dentalstu02]

For those of you that have taken the dats, i have a couple q's about the chemistry...

1) FOr organic chemistry on the actual dat, are there a lot of reactions ...or concept questions, and do we need to know specific synthesis definitions (i.e. given a reaction, know that it is a claisen condensation, or michael addition etc..)

2)FOr gen chem on topscore there is a lot of calculating, is there a lot of calcualtions on the actual dat gen chem section??

I know that nothing is guaranteed, but some info would really be helpful....thanks

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[ItsGavinC]

My DAT (May 31) had very few calculations on the gen. chem. section when compared to TopScore or even Kaplan. I recall that a large number of the questions were periodic trend questions -- I think I had 8 or 9 of them out of 30! The questions that did involve calculations were simple, and the majority of them were the kind where the answers included all the numbers in the formula, you just had to know which answer was set up correctly. There was one question that I couldn't understand (I felt dyslexic looking at it) so after 7 minutes on it I just gave up and guessed.

Organic chem was pretty easy, and that's always been a favorite subject of mine, however I only got a 21 on that section. My test didn't require me to know the names of any reactions (Claisen, etc.). Most of the questions were very straightforward and simple to answer.

TopScore is a great practice for the real exam, however. Although it may be harder (generally?) than the real deal, if you study as though it is the real deal then you'll come out far ahead on the actual DAT.

Good luck!

 

[Dentalstu02]

Thank You ItsGavinC...That was really helpful! Does anyone else have any comments, or information??

 

[Dentalstu02]

Anyone else???????

 

[ohgee]

I just took it yesterday..so i remember some questions...

go over what kind of reaction "MgBr" (Grignard rxn??) can't proceed.

I got stuck in 2 of these Ochem questions.

Other Ochem questions, I got some acidity trend questions, aromatic trends etc, pretty similar to the Topscore test.

G chem for DAT is wayyyyy easier than Topscore, in actual DAT there are only a few plug in questions, and simple Ksp question.

Watch out for the PAT, it screwed me over..... it's much harder than Kaplan and Topscore... in these practices I got 20~22 but in the actual DAT I only got 17!!!!!!

Know the conversion formula for degree C and F.
and for lbs to oz....
formuals for means, mode, median, etc....
they don't go over those in Kaplan...

go over some probability too....you can learn it from the math section of GRE books

good luck

 

[Dentalstu02]

Thanks Ohgee!
How did you do overall on the exam? Well it sounds like you did pretty well. I am taking the dat next week. I am trying to improve my gen chem and orgo, thanks for the info..

 

[bres]

Ohgee...

I heard lots of students saying PAT part is really hard.


How was RC?

Was it long and hard?

 

[ohgee]

i got 21 on bio, 23 on G chem, 21 on o-chem, 19 on RC and 20 on QR

I wasn't expecting PAT to be that hard. To me the angle test was okay, the hardest probably the top-front-end test, the structure is more complex. The key hole test was harder because the choices were not obvious. I spent too much time on these two sections (30+ min those!!!) so i had to speed my way through the rest of the sections..which was bad....

RC wasn't what I expected too....I wasted my time focusing on the details (like how i study for Topscore and Barron), I think pretty much if you understand the passage, you are fine. Take FEW main key words down is fine. I had the wrong strategy...so I could of done better. The passage was fine. I got a cancer passage, a how to read and analyze stock passage and nervous system passage.


Good luck studying...

 

[bres]

Thanks for your info. Ohgee.


You did very well. don't worry about PAT.

 

[vixen]

ohgee,

thanks for sharing with us, I appreciate it!