DAT Terminado 7/17/08

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billythekid

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I am a sophomore at a small liberal arts school on the east coast. This forum helped me a ton in terms of what to get, what to study, and how to study. Whoever started this website is a genius and I hope I thank him/her personally one day. I am here to help you direct your studying. So feel free to ask me questions.

Study Materials:
~Kaplan Blue Book: Buy it and go over it first. This gives you good background knowledge about what you need to know overall. It is definitely not enough, but it is necessary. Yeah, the bio section sucks.
~Schaum's Bio: Overrated. I am a very visual learner and the pictures are not only scarce but they are also terrible. It was too dense for me to grasp the overall message of the chapter. Get Campbell's instead if you can.
~Campbell's Bio: Awesome. It takes a lifetime to get through, but it is worth it. Try buying it used. Fortunately, I had it from AP Bio. Does a fantastic job of explaining the concepts you need to know. Just read the sections that pertain to the DAT.
~Destroyer: Overrated but decent. OC and GC were definite overkill. The best part about this book for me was the fact that it pointed out my weak spots in bio, then I rad about them in Campbell. Truthfully, a lot of the orgo was useless, and I knew they wouldn't ask about it on the DAT.
~Achiever: Great for timing; awful at predicting your actual score. I would definitely buy this.
~Crack DAT PAT: Incredible. Buy it. I started out getting scores of 21, then I worked my way up to scores of 23 and 25.
~Crack DAT Math: Great for timing. TERRIBLE EXPLANATIONS. I was so pissed about the way they explained it.

I have posted the scores of my practice tests below. Needless to say, they freaked me out and made me study harder. The PAT on Achiever is ridiculous and the keyhole questions are nothing like the real thing. The main thing that was different about the DAT overall was the ranging level of difficulty. Each section on each practice test had questions that were all about the same level of difficulty. However, on the DAT you would get a question you had no idea about, then you would get a question a 2nd grader could answer. There were questions with a wider range of difficulty.

Kaplan Blue Book CD Test (I took this in May):
Bio 16
GC 18
OC 18
PAT 23
RC 19
QR 21

Achiever 1 (I took this two weeks before the DAT):
AA 20
PAT 20
QR 20
RC 21
Bio 17
GC 19
OC 20
TS 19

Achiever 2 (I took this one week before the DAT):
AA 18
PAT 18
QR 21
RC 19
Bio 16
GC 17
OC 18
TS 17

Achiever 3 (I took this two days before the DAT):
AA 21
PAT 21
QR 22
RC 26
Bio 17
GC 17
OC 23
TS 19


Here is my section by section breakdown of the test:

PAT: Straightforward. If you can handle Crack DAT, you can handle the real deal.
QR: You gotta be stupid fast.
OC: Know the basics.
GC: Conversions were huge.
Bio: I have only taken 2 bio classes and it was all molecular stuff, so I had no background in ecology, human physiology, or plants. It should be no surprise that I thought the hardest part was bio by far. I bet I directed 90% of my studying towards it, and there was still stuff I had never seen before.
RC: Very comparable to achiever, however there were more tone questions. Don't search and destroy; do yourself a favor and read the passage. Here's my strategy (and it works because I am a slow reader): give yourself 5-6 minutes to read the passage, then answer the questions in 14-minutes. Therefore, you have 20 minutes per passage. I used to do search and destroy and I sucked at RC. Then I started reading the whole thing and I knew the answers to most of the questions without even having to glance back down at the passage. Plus, tone questions are way easier. Make sure you stay on schedule in terms of timing though.


FINALLY, here are my scores:

PAT: 25
QR: 19
RC: 21
Bio: 19
GC: 21
OC: 26
TS:21
AA:21



Let me know what you think my chances are. My top choices are North Carolina, Colorado, Tufts, Creighton, and Case Western.

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Thanks for the pleasant write up!

I think you have VERY solid scores. Shouldn't have a problem landing interviews!
 
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awesome, awesome, awesome! Question; How similar were the questions from crack dat math compared to the real dat? I'm considering to purchase it.
 
awesome, awesome, awesome! Question; How similar were the questions from crack dat math compared to the real dat? I'm considering to purchase it.

They were pretty similar. If you are having trouble with math, I would buy it. The hardest part about the math on the DAT is timing, and Crack DAT math makes you realize that you need to skip questions to do well on it. However, in the explanations and some of the questions, it seems like whoever wrote Crack DAT MATH was truly on Crack. I you get 22 or higher on Math on your practice tests I would not get it, but if you are getting 21 or below I would get it. It really sticks out in a bad way if you get all 20's then get a 15 or a 16 on math. Good luck.
 
Awesome job! How good were you at ochem before you started studying? Right now i'm still having trouble getting through the destroyer questions although I do pretty good on the kaplan ochem....

What's your opinion for the best way of studying for it?
 
Awesome job! How good were you at ochem before you started studying? Right now i'm still having trouble getting through the destroyer questions although I do pretty good on the kaplan ochem....

What's your opinion for the best way of studying for it?

I was pretty good. My profs were amazing. The best thing for orgo is to review the basics from your class notes. I outlined my notes, which helped me grasp the overall picture. Besides practice problems, I didn't study that much for it.
 
congrats on your fabulous scores!

Just wanted to ask you, if the Achiever difficulty is much higher than the actual DAT, then what is the main benefit of Achiever? Is it primarily the timing?

I ask because I have less than 2 weeks left until the test and need to know if Achiever is a must.

I also have Topscore as well.

Thanks and congrats again...
 
congrats on your fabulous scores!

Just wanted to ask you, if the Achiever difficulty is much higher than the actual DAT, then what is the main benefit of Achiever? Is it primarily the timing?

I ask because I have less than 2 weeks left until the test and need to know if Achiever is a must.

I also have Topscore as well.

Thanks and congrats again...

Achiever is not a must. As long as you get one of the practice test programs you are good. Achiever is not an accurate representation of the DAT , it is much more difficult and it really hurts your confidence.
 
congratulations on the great scores! how did you go about studying for general chemistry? I had a horrible teacher for chem II and really don't feel like i left that class with much knowledge of the subject.
 
Shouldn't your total science be a 22? Im not saying you are lying about your scores. Im just want to make sure that the total science is calculated as i thought OC+BIO+GC/3 right?
 
Shouldn't your total science be a 22? Im not saying you are lying about your scores. Im just want to make sure that the total science is calculated as i thought OC+BIO+GC/3 right?

Total science is NOT an average. AA is an average. your TS has to do with how many questions you got right in the sciences section. since there are 40 questions in bio if you get a higher score in that section your TS could be higher than what the average would be...
 
congrats on your fabulous scores!

Just wanted to ask you, if the Achiever difficulty is much higher than the actual DAT, then what is the main benefit of Achiever? Is it primarily the timing?

I ask because I have less than 2 weeks left until the test and need to know if Achiever is a must.

I also have Topscore as well.

Thanks and congrats again...

If you already have topscore, I think that's enough. I do think Achiever is a great source because it gives you a reality check and doesn't give you a false sense of confidence. If you do get it, expect your scores to go up about two points in everything except QR.
 
Achiever is not a must. As long as you get one of the practice test programs you are good. Achiever is not an accurate representation of the DAT , it is much more difficult and it really hurts your confidence.

I think the fact that Achiever makes you nervous is a good thing. It makes you focus on your weaknesses and gives you an extra incentive to study more. Overall I thought much of it was VERY similar to the DAT. Although it is more difficult overall, it allowed me to relax when I got to the actual test. After doing the problems in Achiever and Destroyer, I knew there couldn't be problems much harder than that.

Would you rather get practice tests that falsely boost your confidence? Or would you rather take something more difficult than the real thing so that when you actually take the test it seems like a breeze? I'll take the latter.
 
congratulations on the great scores! how did you go about studying for general chemistry? I had a horrible teacher for chem II and really don't feel like i left that class with much knowledge of the subject.

If you had a horrible teacher, I would start reviewing your textbook. I went over all my class notes, then I skimmed each chapter in the text book to make sure I had a firm grasp on everything. If I were you I would do the same, except I would pay special attention to the topics covering chem II in your text. I hope that helps. Good luck.
 
Shouldn't your total science be a 22? Im not saying you are lying about your scores. Im just want to make sure that the total science is calculated as i thought OC+BIO+GC/3 right?

What incentive would I have to lie about my scores? I am here to help people studying for the DAT; many people on this forum helped me, and I would like to return the favor. Also, TS is the total points you scored correctly overall in the science section divided by 100 (the total number of questions). TS is not weighted equally between the three sciences because there are 40 bio questions, 30 GC questions, and 30 OC questions.
 
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