Hello everyone,
I just registered so I can post here, and I have used this forum as a resource quite a bit for the last few months so I wanted to thank everyone who contributes!
I took the DAT on 8/16 and my scores were:
PAT: 20
RC: 20
QR: 19
Bio: 19
GChem: 19
OChem: 21
TS: 19
AA: 20
A quick summary:
QR and Gchem were deceptively hard. I say this because I felt good about the test, and felt good about my answers, yet I got 19's in both of them. I'm sure QR can be explained by being the last section, and having plenty of little details you can screw up without noticing. My advice on this section is: do a LOT of practice with word problems. Specifically, work with percentages, chances, triangles, rates (velocity, filling a pool, etc), and the unit circle. Even if you are very comfortable with these concepts, make SURE you do a practice exam on this section within a few days of the real test so you can get your timing down perfectly and so you can pinpoint any silly errors you will undoubtedly commit.
I say gchem was deceptively hard because the difference between a great score and a 'decent' score is pretty small. I thought I possibly got 100% on this section, then when I went back through my study materials I realized I had goofed on a vapor pressure conceptual question, and made an idiotic math error on a simple dilution problem. Both this section and the QR section are filled with easy material, but the difficulty lies in minimizing silly mistakes!
Bio felt difficult, but it always felt that way in my practice exams and there isn't a lot of advice I can give except to study study study. I didn't like Schaum's - it's filled with a ton of extraneous info that will clog you up. Stick with Barron's, then supplement each section with Kaplan, then supplement that with class notes or online resources. If I were allowed to retake this section in one week, I would focus my time on memorizing the names and functions of all STEPS, COMPONENTS, and PHASES of any important biological process, including cellular respiration, embryological development, all physiological body systems, and basically any other process or multi-step system you read about.
Ochem was fairly easy - about 20 of the 30 problems were automatic for me, and of the remaining 10 there were only a few I wasn't sure about. Again, I looked through my ochem notes right after the test because I wanted to check a few answers and I found one or two silly mistakes, but if you are stressing about this section I would like to reassure you - just know the major reactions and know which conditions favor them.
RC was pretty stupid, in my opinion. I have always despised reading comprehension on standardized tests, because the questions like "What is the tone of..." or "How would you best describe the point of..." are so subjective. I would recommend you immeidately click to the first question, and began scanning the whole passage to get an idea of its layout. Hopefully you will locate the answer to the first question during this period, and as soon as you do, skip to the next question and continue skim-reading where you left off. I tend to read very quickly, and I had more than 5 minutes remaining when I answered the last question. Unfortunately, the major factor determining your score will be how well you do on the "subjective" questions involving tone, interpreting the author's meaning behind certain statements, or choosing the best descriptor for a given excerpt, paragraph, or passage.
Finally, the PAT. First, DO NOT USE KAPLAN TO STUDY FOR ANGLE RANKING. Use Barron's, or use the one on the AADSAS site. I never used CDP so I won't comment on that, but I would like to stress that this is one section where you MUST do a ton of practice problems.
-Apertures were EASIER than Barron's / Kaplan. Just locate the most noticeable features on the silhouettes and use those to eliminate obvious choices.
-Top / Front / End views were SIMILAR to Barron's / Kaplan, possibly a bit EASIER. Whatever strategy works for you in practice exams should do well here; just make sure you eliminate obviously wrong choices immediately!
-Hole punching was SLIGHTLY HARDER than Barron's / Kaplan (13 of them were simple, and the last 2 had some odd folds... I can't explain it since I thought this would be a free 15 points, but they managed to make a couple of them hard).
-Angle ranking was MUCH HARDER than Kaplan's and SLIGHTLY HARDER than Barron's. The good news is the screens have a much clearer picture than textbooks. The bad news is you waste precious time on this section if you were planning on blowing through it in a couple minutes - there are probably 4-5 questions where you have a real hard time choosing between two close angles.
-Cube counting was VERY SIMILAR TO / EASIER THAN Kaplan and Barron's. This section, along with hole punching, is where you benefit most by doing practice problems. Just do practice problems over and over until you develop a good system. You need to be able to write down the number of sides in one pass. If you go through the whole figure for each question you'll probably waste too much time. Make sure your final tally for each number of sides adds up to the total number of cubes. Be careful because this section can take a lot of time if you aren't careful.
-Pattern folding was VERY SIMILAR to Kaplan / Barron's. This was always my worst section, and it seemed the toughest on the real test. Additionally, there's a psychological factor working against you as time begins to run out since this is the last section of the PAT.
-Do not be afraid to skip apertures / pattern folding questions and come back to those later. However, I wouldn't recommend skipping cube counting, angle ranking, or hole punching because those sections require you to get into a rhythm. So, I would try to do all 15 angle rankings, all 15 cube countings, and all 15 hole punchings, in one pass. On the other hand, apertures and
I was expecting to do much better on the QR section - I was acing all my practice exams (Kaplan, Barron's, AADSAS site) in that section. But, at least I showed consistency in my scores, right? I wish I could have gotten a 20 in TS, then I could have gotten a 20/20/20, but what's done is done. Overall, I feel good about my scores, but still apprehensive for a couple reasons:
1. I am submitting my AADSAS app. tomorrow. I realize this is later than normal, but my question to people with experience in this is whether it will severely affect my chances of getting into dental school.
2. My GPA is 3.44, in Biomedical Engineering at UC Irvine. I believe this is very close, possibly a bit lower, than the average for most applicants.
With these types of stats, do I have a decent chance of getting into dental school this cycle? I applied to all California schools, as well as Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. I *could* add more, though I would much prefer to stay on the west coast and save some money in the process.
Opinions? Advice? General comments? I hope this helps - I know my write up is pretty disjointed but I just wrote anything that came into my head. Feel free to ask me anything about the test and I'll do my best to answer. I feel like I now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to do well on the DAT, and if I were to retake it (I don't plan on it...) I feel very confident I could get low to mid 20's in every section except RC. Taking the real test for the first time was a huge test of nerves, and I wasn't surprised to see my scores drop a few points in each section compared to what I was doing on my practice exams. Remember - take practice tests, get a feel for your timing, and CHECK EVERY ANSWER SO YOU DON'T MAKE ARITHMETIC ERRORS ON EASY PROBLEMS!
I just registered so I can post here, and I have used this forum as a resource quite a bit for the last few months so I wanted to thank everyone who contributes!
I took the DAT on 8/16 and my scores were:
PAT: 20
RC: 20
QR: 19
Bio: 19
GChem: 19
OChem: 21
TS: 19
AA: 20
A quick summary:
QR and Gchem were deceptively hard. I say this because I felt good about the test, and felt good about my answers, yet I got 19's in both of them. I'm sure QR can be explained by being the last section, and having plenty of little details you can screw up without noticing. My advice on this section is: do a LOT of practice with word problems. Specifically, work with percentages, chances, triangles, rates (velocity, filling a pool, etc), and the unit circle. Even if you are very comfortable with these concepts, make SURE you do a practice exam on this section within a few days of the real test so you can get your timing down perfectly and so you can pinpoint any silly errors you will undoubtedly commit.
I say gchem was deceptively hard because the difference between a great score and a 'decent' score is pretty small. I thought I possibly got 100% on this section, then when I went back through my study materials I realized I had goofed on a vapor pressure conceptual question, and made an idiotic math error on a simple dilution problem. Both this section and the QR section are filled with easy material, but the difficulty lies in minimizing silly mistakes!
Bio felt difficult, but it always felt that way in my practice exams and there isn't a lot of advice I can give except to study study study. I didn't like Schaum's - it's filled with a ton of extraneous info that will clog you up. Stick with Barron's, then supplement each section with Kaplan, then supplement that with class notes or online resources. If I were allowed to retake this section in one week, I would focus my time on memorizing the names and functions of all STEPS, COMPONENTS, and PHASES of any important biological process, including cellular respiration, embryological development, all physiological body systems, and basically any other process or multi-step system you read about.
Ochem was fairly easy - about 20 of the 30 problems were automatic for me, and of the remaining 10 there were only a few I wasn't sure about. Again, I looked through my ochem notes right after the test because I wanted to check a few answers and I found one or two silly mistakes, but if you are stressing about this section I would like to reassure you - just know the major reactions and know which conditions favor them.
RC was pretty stupid, in my opinion. I have always despised reading comprehension on standardized tests, because the questions like "What is the tone of..." or "How would you best describe the point of..." are so subjective. I would recommend you immeidately click to the first question, and began scanning the whole passage to get an idea of its layout. Hopefully you will locate the answer to the first question during this period, and as soon as you do, skip to the next question and continue skim-reading where you left off. I tend to read very quickly, and I had more than 5 minutes remaining when I answered the last question. Unfortunately, the major factor determining your score will be how well you do on the "subjective" questions involving tone, interpreting the author's meaning behind certain statements, or choosing the best descriptor for a given excerpt, paragraph, or passage.
Finally, the PAT. First, DO NOT USE KAPLAN TO STUDY FOR ANGLE RANKING. Use Barron's, or use the one on the AADSAS site. I never used CDP so I won't comment on that, but I would like to stress that this is one section where you MUST do a ton of practice problems.
-Apertures were EASIER than Barron's / Kaplan. Just locate the most noticeable features on the silhouettes and use those to eliminate obvious choices.
-Top / Front / End views were SIMILAR to Barron's / Kaplan, possibly a bit EASIER. Whatever strategy works for you in practice exams should do well here; just make sure you eliminate obviously wrong choices immediately!
-Hole punching was SLIGHTLY HARDER than Barron's / Kaplan (13 of them were simple, and the last 2 had some odd folds... I can't explain it since I thought this would be a free 15 points, but they managed to make a couple of them hard).
-Angle ranking was MUCH HARDER than Kaplan's and SLIGHTLY HARDER than Barron's. The good news is the screens have a much clearer picture than textbooks. The bad news is you waste precious time on this section if you were planning on blowing through it in a couple minutes - there are probably 4-5 questions where you have a real hard time choosing between two close angles.
-Cube counting was VERY SIMILAR TO / EASIER THAN Kaplan and Barron's. This section, along with hole punching, is where you benefit most by doing practice problems. Just do practice problems over and over until you develop a good system. You need to be able to write down the number of sides in one pass. If you go through the whole figure for each question you'll probably waste too much time. Make sure your final tally for each number of sides adds up to the total number of cubes. Be careful because this section can take a lot of time if you aren't careful.
-Pattern folding was VERY SIMILAR to Kaplan / Barron's. This was always my worst section, and it seemed the toughest on the real test. Additionally, there's a psychological factor working against you as time begins to run out since this is the last section of the PAT.
-Do not be afraid to skip apertures / pattern folding questions and come back to those later. However, I wouldn't recommend skipping cube counting, angle ranking, or hole punching because those sections require you to get into a rhythm. So, I would try to do all 15 angle rankings, all 15 cube countings, and all 15 hole punchings, in one pass. On the other hand, apertures and
I was expecting to do much better on the QR section - I was acing all my practice exams (Kaplan, Barron's, AADSAS site) in that section. But, at least I showed consistency in my scores, right? I wish I could have gotten a 20 in TS, then I could have gotten a 20/20/20, but what's done is done. Overall, I feel good about my scores, but still apprehensive for a couple reasons:
1. I am submitting my AADSAS app. tomorrow. I realize this is later than normal, but my question to people with experience in this is whether it will severely affect my chances of getting into dental school.
2. My GPA is 3.44, in Biomedical Engineering at UC Irvine. I believe this is very close, possibly a bit lower, than the average for most applicants.
With these types of stats, do I have a decent chance of getting into dental school this cycle? I applied to all California schools, as well as Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. I *could* add more, though I would much prefer to stay on the west coast and save some money in the process.
Opinions? Advice? General comments? I hope this helps - I know my write up is pretty disjointed but I just wrote anything that came into my head. Feel free to ask me anything about the test and I'll do my best to answer. I feel like I now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to do well on the DAT, and if I were to retake it (I don't plan on it...) I feel very confident I could get low to mid 20's in every section except RC. Taking the real test for the first time was a huge test of nerves, and I wasn't surprised to see my scores drop a few points in each section compared to what I was doing on my practice exams. Remember - take practice tests, get a feel for your timing, and CHECK EVERY ANSWER SO YOU DON'T MAKE ARITHMETIC ERRORS ON EASY PROBLEMS!
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