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- May 15, 2013
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So I took my DAT for the second time on 7/19 and I scored aa/ts/oc/gc/bio/rc/qr/pat 20/20/21/22/19/21/19/20. The scores aren't 99th percentile but I am proud of them and think I will be a pretty competitive applicant. I can't stand when people ask if they have to retake when they are 20+. I am all for people asking for opinions but it just bothers me that people can spend all the money and time on studying for it but can't spend $10 to buy the guide to dental schools or even just look at a school's website. I think I am going to start telling people that post stuff like that, that they need 30's in at least 2 sections to get into dental school. Oh well now that the rant is over I'll post this long breakdown so hopefully I help some people out.
Background
I am going to be a senior and am a personal finance major at a 4 year university and I have been pursuing dentistry since high school. I am really happy about my major choice because it has done 3 things for me. 1) Kept my gpa pretty high (although business and finance comes pretty natural to me and it was definitely not the easiest of majors). 2) Most dental schools do not spend a lot of time on the business side of dentistry so I think it will be very beneficial to me in the future. 3) It has helped me better plan for my finances/loans going into dental school. However, going this route I think made the DAT significantly harder for me because I was not able to take a lot of science courses. I covered the prereqs to about 80% of dental schools but not having anatomy, cell bio, genetics was definitely felt while studying for this exam.
First Test
The first test my aa was a 16 I don't remember the actual break down of the scores but I got destroyed. I took it after my sophomore year and still had not taken orgo 2. I had a pretty good gpa and I thought I would be able to make up for not taking orgo 2 yet and possibly get into dental school a year early, boy was I wrong. In addition to not taking orgo 2 I had a lot of things piled up against me that made studying for the test pretty difficult and my overall plan was just terrible in retrospect. I moved back home and worked as a server around 30 hours a week and my schedule always changed. So I decided I would just study a little bit every day and take the test in august. I even bought most of the good studying materials, chad's, destoryer, bootcamp, cliffs, etc. However, I reviewed over a long period of time and I just took notes and really did not retain anything. I only made it through a few chapters of cliffs because at the time it was so dry to me so I just used the kaplan book. Also during the whole time I was at home studying with a ton of distractions and I absolutely hated every minute of studying which made it even more difficult. I went on doing this with adding in destoryer eventually and I cut back my hours a few weeks before the exam and tried to cram. I knew going into the exam I would be lucky to get an 18-19 and didn't even get that. I was really bummed and for the first time I doubted myself because in the past I was usually pretty confident about anything I set my mind to. I knew I took it a year early so I would have another shot about it but it really weighed on me for the whole year and I think some of my grades during the year were even hurt by it.
Second Test
Going into the second test I started studying on 4/28 and decided to stay up at school and not work. However, I did decide to take physics at a community college which was 4 days a week. The biggest change this time around was my attitude. I knew I could do well if I just set my mind to it and I just had to understand that it was going to take more studying for me than the average person. I had some time during the year to reflect on it and it made me come up with a few things. One is that a lot of my college professors were just flat out bad. My molecular cellular biology teacher was so terrible that I had a 58% and ended up with an A-. There is no way percentages should be that low in a biology class. Also my chem teachers were bad but luckily I had a great high school chem teacher so I had somewhat of a base. I had a really good orgo teacher but he put a lot of weight on different areas than the DAT. However, I did have a great organismal biology teacher which did not make me grown as much about ecology/taxonomy questions as other people on here. That being said I knew I had to be very diligent in reviewing a lot of stuff that should of been basic but was my first time truly learning it. Another thing I realized was that I had always been terrible at timed and comprehensive tests ( I always do terrible on finals but great on tests through out the year.) Once I realized that it was just going to take longer for me to do well than other people on here is when my attitude really changed and I was determined to do well. I just want to tell anyone in my situation to just keep at it and this test is not the only indicator to how well you will do in dental school and especially how good of a dentist you will be. Some of the people that score 26's might have terrible people skills, shaky hands (you might be able to remember all your trig functions but I don't think your patient will care when you stab them 10 times trying to give them anesthetic) or some other faults or they could even be great at everything but that has nothing to do with how well you will do.
Studying
Biology
I easily spent the most time studying bio and it ended up being my worst score but it is so random and my bio background is so weak that I wasn't surprised. However, I do think my studying method was pretty effective. I started out going through cliffs reading slow and making a ton of note cards even on topics that I thought I knew. I would take the quiz in the back of the chapter the following morning to see how well I understood it and I would also go through my notecards after. I would package the notecards from each chapter in a bag and would pull out a bag every once in awhile and go through them. After cliffs I started destroyer and went through it making sure I read every explanation no matter if I got it right or wrong. There is a ton of good information in those explanations. Also while I was going through destroyer I found crashcourse biology videos which REALLY helped me out it bio. They connected a lot of concepts that weren't coming together well for me. When I first started watching them I would jump around to the ones I needed and would watch it one time all the way through and a second time watching it slow and taking screen shots and notes in a word document. This ended up taking a lot of time so I stopped but if I had to do it again I would watch the corresponding topics with cliffs and do these type of notes and a few less note cards. I went through destroyer a second time and this time I made note cards for anything I did not know or I thought I would want to remember. I did not wait until the end to take my bootcamp tests. I took one before my first round of destroyer, one after my second round of destroyer and spread the other 3 over a few week period. I also used qvault biology and went through every exam. In the last week and a half I went back through all of the bootcamp tests and a few of the qvault exams and took more note cards on anything I thought I would need to know.
Cliff's (10/10)
Crashcourse (10/10)
Bootcamp (9/10) Only because bio is random and there isn't really anything that can gauge how the real DAT will be
Qvault (8/10) A little to heavy in physiology
Bootcamp scores: (for some reason my first round scores got deleted out of my excel document but I averaged around a 19)
Second round of bootcamp:
26 22 20 21 26
Qvault:
16 19 18 18 19 15 17 19 17 18
2nd time:
19 22 27
Chems
I studied for both about the same way so I'll combine them. I started out with chad's and took good notes and took every quiz. I also did destroyer 2.5 times through out my studying while mixing in bootcamp. Every few weeks I would go take all of chad's quizzes again which helped exponentially. His quizzes are easily the best representation of the actual DAT and it is easy to forget simple problems if you stop doing them. Bootcamp is also great and I think the best part about bootcamp is Ari. He is active on these forums which is awesome. I thought his tests were a tad on the harder side but were also essential. My big problem in both subjects were conceptual stuff. So I made a lot of note cards for those type of topics and would go through all of them every day before I started practice questions. I also made copies of all of the destroyer roadmaps and whited out the answers and would run through a few of those a day.
Chads:
10/10
Bootcamp:
10/10
Destroyer:
9/10
Bootcamp GC:
18 18 20 18 20
2nd time:
19 23 26 23 20
OC:
16 19 17 21 20
2nd time
22 20 19 24 21
PAT
I didn't go overboard studying for this section but I studied it last year so I had some background. I did 5 crack dat tests, 10 bootcamp tests and their generators. I used most of the common techniques but if anyone has any questions just let me know.
RC
I have always sucked at these because I am a pretty slow reader and search and destroy never works for me. I took all of the bootcamp tests and a few other practice exams and tried different strategies. The mapping strategy is what I ultimately went with. I would go through the first couple of questions and then map the passage. I wrote down more key words rather than trying to summarize. I would also try to move through the questions as I was answering the questions and would skip any tone questions or if I didn't find it in a few paragraphs. When I started to skip questions it helped me a lot.
QR
This was a tough section to study for but I think the best thing to do is just plenty of practice tests with different sources. Timing is the biggest key my test wasn't that hard but I was moving slower than I usually did on practice tests. I probably should of done better but it is what it is. I used math destroyer, destroyer, chads bootcamp and other free tests.
Random Extra Stuff
here are some other test scores
KBB 2012 full length: Bio:21 Gc:19 Oc: 19
DAT 2009 BIO 34/40 Gchem:26/30 Ochem: 22/30 PAT: 67/90 RC: 31/50 QR 27/40
Topscore 2 AA: 18 Bio: 18 GC: 19 OC: 20 TS: 19 PAT: 19 RC: 20 QR: 18 AA: 18
Figure out how you study and do what works for you.
Try to set a time that you will get on student doctor network it can be a double edged sword. It is very helpful but can be very distracting.
Don't worry about the practice test scores and try to take them more than once.
I have my destroyer percentages if anyone wants me to post those or any other questions you guys have go ahead and ask me.
Last thing sorry this was so long and not well organized but I am selling my study materials. I really want to package all my stuff so pm me and we will try to work out a deal.
I have DAT destroyer 2013, math destroyer 13, KBB 2012, cliffs, a bunch of notecards a few thousand and a binder full of my notes desotyer results and ferallis notes in the back , 4 laminated sheets of paper and a few markers to use like the boards they give you.
Background
I am going to be a senior and am a personal finance major at a 4 year university and I have been pursuing dentistry since high school. I am really happy about my major choice because it has done 3 things for me. 1) Kept my gpa pretty high (although business and finance comes pretty natural to me and it was definitely not the easiest of majors). 2) Most dental schools do not spend a lot of time on the business side of dentistry so I think it will be very beneficial to me in the future. 3) It has helped me better plan for my finances/loans going into dental school. However, going this route I think made the DAT significantly harder for me because I was not able to take a lot of science courses. I covered the prereqs to about 80% of dental schools but not having anatomy, cell bio, genetics was definitely felt while studying for this exam.
First Test
The first test my aa was a 16 I don't remember the actual break down of the scores but I got destroyed. I took it after my sophomore year and still had not taken orgo 2. I had a pretty good gpa and I thought I would be able to make up for not taking orgo 2 yet and possibly get into dental school a year early, boy was I wrong. In addition to not taking orgo 2 I had a lot of things piled up against me that made studying for the test pretty difficult and my overall plan was just terrible in retrospect. I moved back home and worked as a server around 30 hours a week and my schedule always changed. So I decided I would just study a little bit every day and take the test in august. I even bought most of the good studying materials, chad's, destoryer, bootcamp, cliffs, etc. However, I reviewed over a long period of time and I just took notes and really did not retain anything. I only made it through a few chapters of cliffs because at the time it was so dry to me so I just used the kaplan book. Also during the whole time I was at home studying with a ton of distractions and I absolutely hated every minute of studying which made it even more difficult. I went on doing this with adding in destoryer eventually and I cut back my hours a few weeks before the exam and tried to cram. I knew going into the exam I would be lucky to get an 18-19 and didn't even get that. I was really bummed and for the first time I doubted myself because in the past I was usually pretty confident about anything I set my mind to. I knew I took it a year early so I would have another shot about it but it really weighed on me for the whole year and I think some of my grades during the year were even hurt by it.
Second Test
Going into the second test I started studying on 4/28 and decided to stay up at school and not work. However, I did decide to take physics at a community college which was 4 days a week. The biggest change this time around was my attitude. I knew I could do well if I just set my mind to it and I just had to understand that it was going to take more studying for me than the average person. I had some time during the year to reflect on it and it made me come up with a few things. One is that a lot of my college professors were just flat out bad. My molecular cellular biology teacher was so terrible that I had a 58% and ended up with an A-. There is no way percentages should be that low in a biology class. Also my chem teachers were bad but luckily I had a great high school chem teacher so I had somewhat of a base. I had a really good orgo teacher but he put a lot of weight on different areas than the DAT. However, I did have a great organismal biology teacher which did not make me grown as much about ecology/taxonomy questions as other people on here. That being said I knew I had to be very diligent in reviewing a lot of stuff that should of been basic but was my first time truly learning it. Another thing I realized was that I had always been terrible at timed and comprehensive tests ( I always do terrible on finals but great on tests through out the year.) Once I realized that it was just going to take longer for me to do well than other people on here is when my attitude really changed and I was determined to do well. I just want to tell anyone in my situation to just keep at it and this test is not the only indicator to how well you will do in dental school and especially how good of a dentist you will be. Some of the people that score 26's might have terrible people skills, shaky hands (you might be able to remember all your trig functions but I don't think your patient will care when you stab them 10 times trying to give them anesthetic) or some other faults or they could even be great at everything but that has nothing to do with how well you will do.
Studying
Biology
I easily spent the most time studying bio and it ended up being my worst score but it is so random and my bio background is so weak that I wasn't surprised. However, I do think my studying method was pretty effective. I started out going through cliffs reading slow and making a ton of note cards even on topics that I thought I knew. I would take the quiz in the back of the chapter the following morning to see how well I understood it and I would also go through my notecards after. I would package the notecards from each chapter in a bag and would pull out a bag every once in awhile and go through them. After cliffs I started destroyer and went through it making sure I read every explanation no matter if I got it right or wrong. There is a ton of good information in those explanations. Also while I was going through destroyer I found crashcourse biology videos which REALLY helped me out it bio. They connected a lot of concepts that weren't coming together well for me. When I first started watching them I would jump around to the ones I needed and would watch it one time all the way through and a second time watching it slow and taking screen shots and notes in a word document. This ended up taking a lot of time so I stopped but if I had to do it again I would watch the corresponding topics with cliffs and do these type of notes and a few less note cards. I went through destroyer a second time and this time I made note cards for anything I did not know or I thought I would want to remember. I did not wait until the end to take my bootcamp tests. I took one before my first round of destroyer, one after my second round of destroyer and spread the other 3 over a few week period. I also used qvault biology and went through every exam. In the last week and a half I went back through all of the bootcamp tests and a few of the qvault exams and took more note cards on anything I thought I would need to know.
Cliff's (10/10)
Crashcourse (10/10)
Bootcamp (9/10) Only because bio is random and there isn't really anything that can gauge how the real DAT will be
Qvault (8/10) A little to heavy in physiology
Bootcamp scores: (for some reason my first round scores got deleted out of my excel document but I averaged around a 19)
Second round of bootcamp:
26 22 20 21 26
Qvault:
16 19 18 18 19 15 17 19 17 18
2nd time:
19 22 27
Chems
I studied for both about the same way so I'll combine them. I started out with chad's and took good notes and took every quiz. I also did destroyer 2.5 times through out my studying while mixing in bootcamp. Every few weeks I would go take all of chad's quizzes again which helped exponentially. His quizzes are easily the best representation of the actual DAT and it is easy to forget simple problems if you stop doing them. Bootcamp is also great and I think the best part about bootcamp is Ari. He is active on these forums which is awesome. I thought his tests were a tad on the harder side but were also essential. My big problem in both subjects were conceptual stuff. So I made a lot of note cards for those type of topics and would go through all of them every day before I started practice questions. I also made copies of all of the destroyer roadmaps and whited out the answers and would run through a few of those a day.
Chads:
10/10
Bootcamp:
10/10
Destroyer:
9/10
Bootcamp GC:
18 18 20 18 20
2nd time:
19 23 26 23 20
OC:
16 19 17 21 20
2nd time
22 20 19 24 21
PAT
I didn't go overboard studying for this section but I studied it last year so I had some background. I did 5 crack dat tests, 10 bootcamp tests and their generators. I used most of the common techniques but if anyone has any questions just let me know.
RC
I have always sucked at these because I am a pretty slow reader and search and destroy never works for me. I took all of the bootcamp tests and a few other practice exams and tried different strategies. The mapping strategy is what I ultimately went with. I would go through the first couple of questions and then map the passage. I wrote down more key words rather than trying to summarize. I would also try to move through the questions as I was answering the questions and would skip any tone questions or if I didn't find it in a few paragraphs. When I started to skip questions it helped me a lot.
QR
This was a tough section to study for but I think the best thing to do is just plenty of practice tests with different sources. Timing is the biggest key my test wasn't that hard but I was moving slower than I usually did on practice tests. I probably should of done better but it is what it is. I used math destroyer, destroyer, chads bootcamp and other free tests.
Random Extra Stuff
here are some other test scores
KBB 2012 full length: Bio:21 Gc:19 Oc: 19
DAT 2009 BIO 34/40 Gchem:26/30 Ochem: 22/30 PAT: 67/90 RC: 31/50 QR 27/40
Topscore 2 AA: 18 Bio: 18 GC: 19 OC: 20 TS: 19 PAT: 19 RC: 20 QR: 18 AA: 18
Figure out how you study and do what works for you.
Try to set a time that you will get on student doctor network it can be a double edged sword. It is very helpful but can be very distracting.
Don't worry about the practice test scores and try to take them more than once.
I have my destroyer percentages if anyone wants me to post those or any other questions you guys have go ahead and ask me.
Last thing sorry this was so long and not well organized but I am selling my study materials. I really want to package all my stuff so pm me and we will try to work out a deal.
I have DAT destroyer 2013, math destroyer 13, KBB 2012, cliffs, a bunch of notecards a few thousand and a binder full of my notes desotyer results and ferallis notes in the back , 4 laminated sheets of paper and a few markers to use like the boards they give you.
