- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
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- 142
- Reaction score
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Hope this helps anyone who is studying to take their DAT or for anyone who is planning to retake their DAT! Feel free to message me or post with any questions you have.
Scores
AA: 20 --> 23 (+3)
TS: 18 --> 22 (+4)
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BIO: 16 --> 21 (+5)
GC: 23 --> 24 (+1)
OC: 17 --> 23 (+6)
PAT: 18 --> 22 (+4)
RC: 21 --> 25 (+4)
QR: 22 --> 22
Background: I just finished my master’s program this past May and studied for my DAT through this summer when I had nothing to do but study and find a job. It was the best time for me to study with 0 distractions and I think anyone who takes their DAT should NOT take it during a school semester. I took my first DAT in 2016 in the middle of my last semester of college and was also involved in a major accident turning into the parking lot of the exam (wish I made it up) but fortunately still scored a 20 on my first attempt. I was never the strongest student in college with an undergrad GPA of 3.2 and so I completed an SMP this past year and achieved a 3.6 GPA so by no means have I ever been top of my class or anything. I really set a goal to get a 23 when I first started and would always just tell myself anything was possible if you put the time in. SET THE BAR HIGH
Studying Strategy
I followed Ari’s schedule for all of my studying almost exactly how he has it written but changed a few things
Chad’s Video (9.5/10)
Cliffs AP Bio (8/10)
Quizlet: used the DAT Bootcamp pages to help review
Wikipedia: for anything that I needed to lookup
Bootcamp Scores (Full-length exams 1-5)
BIO: 26, 26, 30, 25, 26 (26.6 avg.)
GC: 23, 22, 26, 25, 20 (23.2 avg.)
OC: 30, 22, 24, 30, 22 (25.6 avg.)
PAT: 20, 21, 21, 22, 20
RC: 20, 20, 20, 23, 21 (20.8 avg.)
QR: 22, 20, 24, 20, 22 (21.6 avg.)
PAT (test 6-10): 19, 18, 19, 20, 20
· These were beyond difficult and are way more difficult then you will ever probably see on the real DAT. I would use test 1-5 to see if you are prepared for the real PAT section. As everyone always says on SDN the angles were nothing like I saw on the real DAT and the cube counting was significantly easier too.
2007 Scores
AA 25
TS 26
BIO 24
GC 26
OC 27
PAT 25
RC 21
QR 27
2009 Scores
AA 23
TS 24
BIO 25
GC 25
OC 22
PAT 26
RC 23
QR 22
Timeline: mid-May 2017 – mid-July 2017
Section Breakdown
Bio
Note: I would recommend prepping your laminated charts when the screen comes up saying you ran out of time and before you hit OK for the next section (it’s a popup screen). I didn’t realize once I hit next and freaked out because I wasted 2 minutes doing this. In the end, it didn’t matter because I had 2-3 extra minutes.
QR
Miscellaneous/Tips
Scores
AA: 20 --> 23 (+3)
TS: 18 --> 22 (+4)
-------
BIO: 16 --> 21 (+5)
GC: 23 --> 24 (+1)
OC: 17 --> 23 (+6)
PAT: 18 --> 22 (+4)
RC: 21 --> 25 (+4)
QR: 22 --> 22
Background: I just finished my master’s program this past May and studied for my DAT through this summer when I had nothing to do but study and find a job. It was the best time for me to study with 0 distractions and I think anyone who takes their DAT should NOT take it during a school semester. I took my first DAT in 2016 in the middle of my last semester of college and was also involved in a major accident turning into the parking lot of the exam (wish I made it up) but fortunately still scored a 20 on my first attempt. I was never the strongest student in college with an undergrad GPA of 3.2 and so I completed an SMP this past year and achieved a 3.6 GPA so by no means have I ever been top of my class or anything. I really set a goal to get a 23 when I first started and would always just tell myself anything was possible if you put the time in. SET THE BAR HIGH
Studying Strategy
I followed Ari’s schedule for all of my studying almost exactly how he has it written but changed a few things
- I copied his schedule onto an excel spreadsheet and reorganized it for days I knew that I couldn’t study and to account for days that I unexpectantly wouldn’t be able to study. I think his schedule is roughly 76 days but you should tailor it to yourself. Also, add in a few days throughout for catch up I found this was really useful when I was feeling behind or just overwhelmed one day here and there.
- The first two weeks is a lot of QR/GC review which were my best subjects so I would do 2 days of studying in 1 day for the first 2 weeks (12-14 hours a day). After this I followed it pretty closely aside things such as holidays (4th of July, Birthday, etc.) If you don’t have breaks you will go nuts; there’s a reason you never study more than 6 days on his schedule.
- For bio and ochem I spent the most time reviewing and studying since these were my lowest sections before so I set extra time to study these
- I did all 10 Bootcamp exams for these sections
- I tried focused on what I got wrong and the material and not as much as my score (as hard as that can be sometimes)
- I would review my own hand-written bio notes and fill in if something was missing.
- I would also review my ochem notes and the mechanisms every day and would quiz myself
- Ari’s schedule also has you only go over Destroyer BIO 1 time but I did more per day so I did it 1 time thru and the other time thru question 250
- I would do it twice if you can fit it in it’s worth it
- His schedule is missing PAT practice every day but I would do 15 min of the sections I was not very good at (aka everything aside cube counting and hole punching) ADD THIS to your schedule à Ari mentions it in his study guide but it’s never explicitly listed on his schedule
- Study Hours
- Minimum – 6-7 hours (always spend extra time reviewing)
- Max hours: 15 (beginning when I did 2 days of studying in one day)
- Average hours/day = 10
- I usually took 2-30 min breaks for lunch and dinner (meal prepped my food every morning)
Chad’s Video (9.5/10)
- Has pretty much everything you need to know for ochem and genchem. His videos are amazing and should not be ignored. The only thing he missed were a few ochem reactions (i.e. sandmeyer reaction etc.) and his gen chem videos missed a few topics that came up when I was doing destroyer and bootcamp
- Without this and Ari’s schedule I would have never scored as well as I did. Ari is quick to answer questions and Mikes video provide additional ochem support. This is by far the #1 resource in my opinion for anything studying for their DATs
- A lot of people talk about having the newest version on here but I used the 2011 version and thought it worked great. There wasn’t much it missed and if you are tight on money you could probably buy as far back as 2013. Mine was a little old but this was a huge help and completely necessary.
- I used an older version and even though I did them all twice I think it hurt me because I wasn’t exposed to the newer comprehension questions. I would recommend buying the newest version of this with the changes to the DAT the past few years.
Cliffs AP Bio (8/10)
- Good resource but bio is all over the place at this point and this lacks a lot of random information. I would 100% use this for initial review but after you do what is on Ari’s schedule I wouldn’t bother looking at this too much.
- These notes are 100% necessary and have a lot of random info that you see on the bio section. I thought this was also great to review when you got something wrong or needed to review specific topics you got wrong on a subject test. Also, the taxonomy excels that he has are amazing and really help pull information in one central location
Quizlet: used the DAT Bootcamp pages to help review
Wikipedia: for anything that I needed to lookup
Bootcamp Scores (Full-length exams 1-5)
BIO: 26, 26, 30, 25, 26 (26.6 avg.)
GC: 23, 22, 26, 25, 20 (23.2 avg.)
OC: 30, 22, 24, 30, 22 (25.6 avg.)
PAT: 20, 21, 21, 22, 20
RC: 20, 20, 20, 23, 21 (20.8 avg.)
QR: 22, 20, 24, 20, 22 (21.6 avg.)
PAT (test 6-10): 19, 18, 19, 20, 20
· These were beyond difficult and are way more difficult then you will ever probably see on the real DAT. I would use test 1-5 to see if you are prepared for the real PAT section. As everyone always says on SDN the angles were nothing like I saw on the real DAT and the cube counting was significantly easier too.
2007 Scores
AA 25
TS 26
BIO 24
GC 26
OC 27
PAT 25
RC 21
QR 27
2009 Scores
AA 23
TS 24
BIO 25
GC 25
OC 22
PAT 26
RC 23
QR 22
Timeline: mid-May 2017 – mid-July 2017
Section Breakdown
Bio
- I was scoring pretty high on my practice tests but this section was extremely random. Some questions were extremely straightforward and 1 or 2 I had 0 clue what the answer was. I had mostly embryology and physiology and nothing on habitats. I would recommend Ferali’s notes and probably TyJacobs biology notes. Cliffs AP Bio didn’t seem like nearly enough unless you haven’t take bio classes before
- DAT Destroyer helped a lot for this section with a lot of small random details
- Extremely straightforward and easy. I thought I knew every question on this section and Chadd’s videos were key for this section; by far my strongest section prior to taking the exam
- DAT Destroyer also was a huge help and would 100% recommend going thru every question twice
- Very easy and straightforward. Do EVERY bootcamp test and DAT Destroyer twice and you should be fine
- I had 3 NMR/IR questions which I find very easy so I thought that helped a ton
- Again, Chad’s videos are key for this section and without them I would have been lost
Note: I would recommend prepping your laminated charts when the screen comes up saying you ran out of time and before you hit OK for the next section (it’s a popup screen). I didn’t realize once I hit next and freaked out because I wasted 2 minutes doing this. In the end, it didn’t matter because I had 2-3 extra minutes.
- Keyholes: pretty easy, not much I did now; there were probably 5 rock keyholes on this so don't skip them thinking you wont get them!
- TFE: also pretty easy, do Bootcamp and you should be fine
- Angle Ranking: very easy compared to Bootcamp
- Hole Punch: same level of difficulty as Bootcamp
- Cube Counting: WAY easier than Bootcamp
- Pattern Folding: also, much easier than Bootcamp
- The highlighting feature for this was amazing. I pretty much solely used that and search and destroy. To help me organize more efficiently I used the paper format method found at this youtube link and otherwise seemed way easier than the last time I took it. Also, my sections were about stuff that I had previously studied during my master’s so it helped me a ton
QR
- By far the hardest section aside from Bio. I thought this was way harder than the 1st time I took the DAT and honestly didn’t think I was going to earn the same score. I am naturally pretty good at math and I think if you struggle with math you will generally have a difficult time with this. #1 piece of advice I would say is look at the new types of questions early and practice them a lot. I had 2-3 questions that I had never seen before and completely guessed on. I would definitely recommend buying the newest destroyer and doing it at least twice (once untimed and once timed)
Miscellaneous/Tips
- I used bootcamp the first time I studied for my DAT but I really halfa** it and didn’t follow it how he has it written so I did see a lot of the question before so I knew going into the DAT that my scores on bootcamp were probably slightly elevated due to that reason
- STAY OFF SDN the 2-3 days before your exam – all you will do is psych yourself out
- Get enough rest the day of your exam: my exam was right before noon so I had plenty of time to get there and not rush
- I would recommend scheduling your exam around lunchtime I felt that I was the most awake around there but it’s really all personal preference
- If I could have I would have taken every Bootcamp section test even if they aren’t included on the schedule. I did this for Ochem and found it extremely useful and good extra practice
- Organization is KEY
- You should have notes for everything in your own handwriting
- When you get something wrong write it down and review it in your notes. If it’s missing in your notes then add it and review again
- Keep your notes as concise as possible and don’t waste time writing down stuff you already know prior to reviewing it’ll help you focus on what you get wrong and the topics (not just the answer to the question)
- I found Bootcamp exams 6-10 for any of the topics way harder and more in depth than 1-5 so just keep that in mind when you do them…. again, focus on the material and less on your score
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