DAT Next week. Any advice is appreciated!

[joshthebear]

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Hey Everyone!
I am scheduled to take my DAT next week and wanted to share my progress and practice scores.

I have been studying for the DAT for almost 2 months utilizing:

DAT Bootcamp
Chad's videos
Mike's videos on questions I struggle with
Cliff's AP Biology 3rd Edition
Crack DAT
DAT Destroyer
and Math Destroyer

My PAT scores have ranged from 20-23 since I have started studying. My QR average on BootCamp has been improved from 17 to 19. My Gen Chem and O Chem have been brought to life from ashes. QR is slowly improving, and I am mainly worried about Biology and RC. I just took the 2009 Practice DAT and scored:

Bio - 19
GC - 26
OC - 19
PAT - 24
RC - 20
QR - 18 (The QR was... odd to say the least)

I am pretty confident I will do well on PAT on the real DAT as long as I keep practicing. I am also pretty confident I can improve my QR within this last week. I don't know what to think of my 2009 scores, because OC is lower than I usually get, but I have also heard that the 2009 DAT is an atrocity.

Any and all advice is appreciated!!

Thanks again 😀

 

[FeralisExtremum]

Keep hitting that biology content review leading up to the test - there's a lot of ground you can cover in a week if you really commit to it. For OC, review all the reactions from Chad's videos and those you got wrong in practice questions. How did you do on 2009's RC?

 

[joshthebear]

Keep hitting that biology content review leading up to the test - there's a lot of ground you can cover in a week if you really commit to it. For OC, review all the reactions from Chad's videos and those you got wrong in practice questions. How did you do on 2009's RC?

I took the science section extremely late last night, so I am taking the 2009 PAT, Reading, and QR today, but my reading scores on Bootcamp have ranged from 19-20. I tend to do better when I read a few paragraphs at a time and then look at the questions, because the search and destroy method doesn't seem consistent for me. I will be utilizing the rest of the Bootcamp tests by doing 1-2 passage/ question sets a day within the time I give myself (no more than 20 minutes a passage). I feel like my RC score will somewhat come down to luck on the real DAT depending on the difficulty of the questions. I will use this time before the exam to make sure I want to keep with my method.

 

[Ari Rezaei]

Yeah I would be comfortable with more than one strategy for the RC section. I started off by looking at a couple questions, and just reading the passage and answering as I went. About halfway through I realized the answers were kinda in order of the passage for passage 2, so I went to search and destroy and it worked, but for the third passage it was more abstract and I went back to reading the whole passage and answering the questions. Just have the flexibility in mind, when you're doing the test you'll get a feel for what will work and what to try. Keep up the studying!

 

[joshthebear]

Yeah I would be comfortable with more than one strategy for the RC section. I started off by looking at a couple questions, and just reading the passage and answering as I went. About halfway through I realized the answers were kinda in order of the passage for passage 2, so I went to search and destroy and it worked, but for the third passage it was more abstract and I went back to reading the whole passage and answering the questions. Just have the flexibility in mind, when you're doing the test you'll get a feel for what will work and what to try. Keep up the studying!

Thanks for the insight, I think I will take that approach. By the way I plan on writing a full review of DAT Bootcamp after my DAT, because I sincerely believe it is the best prep source out there! You and everyone involved have done a wonderful job with the program. The Biology and QR tests with their explanation alone have improved my understanding of those subjects drastically. You saved me bro!