DAT scores?

[Ree123]

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Hey everyone, I just finished my DAT yesterday. So glad it is over!!!

I was just curious about how important the QR score is. I did pretty well on every section but that one. Here are my scores:

PA: 20
Bio: 23
RC: 21
OC: 22
GC: 18
QR: 16 🙁
TS: 21
AA: 20

Also, I recently returned to school (I graduated in 05). Before going back I studied art and had an overall GPA of about 3.3. Since I started school a year ago I've worked my butt off and now have a science gpa of 3.97. Should I be worried about my QR score at all? I've heard some rumors about how some schools will cut you if you don't get at least an 18 in every section. Is there any truth in that rumor or am I just being unnecessarily paranoid? Thanks for the advice!!!

 

[glk2101]

nice scores
alot of people here say qr is least important..maybe call the schools with the cutoff if your worried
are you a postbacc?

 

[Ree123]

yep, postbacc

 

[glk2101]

im a postbacc too..your scores look really good and considering how well your doing in your science classes you shouldn't have any trouble getting in..

 

[Orgodox]

great scores! Dont worry about the qr, where you applying? Did you already submit your application?

 

[Ree123]

thank you! 🙂 i've applied to michigan, detroit mercy, penn, pitt, temple, BU, tufts, columbia, nyu, maryland, u conn, washington and nova. i submitted my application at the beginning of august.

 

[Ree123]

hey orgodox, i just read your linked thread about your DAT score breakdown, and i noticed that i got the same RC passages as you! wasn't it crazy!?!?!? so hard!!!!

 

[klutzy1987]

QR is not important at all. A 16 is good enough so that you should be ok at basically all schools. I have a friend who got into Upenn with a 16 QR and 21 AA.

 

[Ree123]

that's great to hear! makes me feel a lot better about that score 🙂

 

[gentile1225]

nice, solid scores. how much does that qr suck? i think thats the most annoying part of the test, especially since its the last section and your brain is half way fried by then.

 

[gentile1225]

what did you use to study? destroyer, kaplan, schaums, topscore? im asking cause im doing a retake and im not sure my study ethics were too effective the first time. any advice?

 

[Ree123]

thank you! yeah, the QR is pretty horrible! i'm kind of at a disadvantage too since i am a returning post-bacc student and i haven't taken a math class in a LONG time (sr. year of high school!). i should probably be pretty thankful i didn't do any worse on it!

i studied like a maniac for the DAT, pretty much all day everyday for the entire month of august and the first two weeks of september. i took the kaplan class during june-july, then after that did most of the kaplan tutorials and subject tests online, went through the entire kaplan blue book review notes (the one they give you when you sign up for the class), did the entire destroyer, read most of schaum's bio outlines, and also used topscore (did only about half of the sections, though).

the other thing i did was make TONS and TONS of flashcards for the information i didn't know or had a hard time remembering. i keep finding them all over the house and in all my bags, purses, etc now! 😀 i didn't even really use them very much to review, but i think just the process of making them by identifying the material you don't know then writing that out on notecards is helpful in and of itself.

for RC, i didn't really study all that much. i've always been a voracious reader, so i decided to spend most of my time on the other subjects. for the few practice test i did take for that section, i think kaplan was better than topscore. on my actual DAT i had A LOT of questions where i had to infer what the author's position was, or determine how to end the passage, or describe the tone of the article, etc. it was pretty ridiculous. that was the one section where i thought the practice tests i took didn't prepare me well enough. i was getting really high scores on my practice tests, but when it came to the actual DAT, i felt the questions were ten times as difficult. i thought topscore's questions were way too straight forward and didn't make you do much analysis to answer them. kaplan was a little better, but still not great. in my opinion, if you have the time, just go and read as much as you can on your own (over the summer i would buy the economist, the new yorker and discover magazine every time i was at the bookstore). practice reading difficult material and get used to analyzing the articles that you read. after that, do some practice tests to get used to the timing of the exam. had i known how bad it was going to be, i would have done a lot more of this!

let me know if this helps or if you've got any other questions! 🙂