DAT Today (7/21/06)

[thehipster]

Finally I'm done and can actually enjoy the rest of my summer the way I'm supposed to. Okay, so I'll start from the beginning. I started my DAT studying in the first week of June. I didn't take the Kaplan course, but I used the Kaplan Blue Book found in the bookstore. I spent about 1-4 hours a day studying (usually around 1 hour...was a little lazy, what can I say). I started by summarizing the Kaplan book into my own notes in a notebook. I spent about 3 weeks doing this. After I finished that, I was pretty lazy the next week and probably spent only 7 hours total studying the next week. After that, I went back to the usual 1-4 hours a day of studying. I studied each section separately, and then did a quick review the last two days before the test. I took the Topscore and DAT Achiever tests every other day the week before my test. The last week before the DAT I hardly studied, I basically only took the practice tests, I was so sick of studying since I usually only study the day before for exams in school.

Overall, I thought the DAT wasn't that bad. I just finished Biochemistry and Comparative Animal Physiology this last semester, so a lot of bio was still fresh in my head. If you know Kaplan for General Chemistry and Organic, I think you'll be set for the real DAT. Math came back pretty quick as I was studying and was very similar to Topscore and DAT Achiever. I don't know why my Quant score was so low (I was pretty pissed about it) I was very sure that I got every question right, but can't do anything about it now. I finished the science section a little over 20 minutes early, but spent another 10 min and went through all of the gen chem and organic sections again (found 1 mistake i made). Reading Section sucked, I half guessed on 3 questions, I didn't pace my self enough and dwelled on certain questions. PAT was close to Topscore, angles were tough, tougher than of the practice tests (as everyone has said). Kaplan's PAT is a joke, it was way too easy compared to the real DAT. Biology was very broad. I read Kaplan and Schaum's. Kaplan is not enough. I think I had one Taxonomy question, which I was mad about, I was hoping for at least 5 of those, I can't believe I wasted time studying it, but it all depends on what test you take. Don't let your practice test scores scare you. I only broke a 20 on 1 science section (organic-topscore 3) out of the 6 practice tests, but look at my scores. Like everyone says, the DAT is not a hard test.

If you're curious about my GPA or the schools I'm applying to, check out my predents profile link in my signature. Post or PM any questions.

Topscore 1 Topscore 2 Topscore 3
Biology 18 / 17 / 18
Chem 18 / 19 / 17
Organic 16 / 19 / 28
PAT 21 / 21 / -
Reading - / - / -
Quant 21 / 21 / 22


Achiever 1 Achiever 2 Achiever 3
Biology 16 / 18 / 15
Chem 17 / 15 / 17
Organic 18 / 17 / 19
PAT 16 / 18 / -
Reading 21 / - / -
Quant 21 / 19 / 22



REAT DAT

Biology 23 (98.5%)
Chem 25 (97.5%)
Organic 25 (98.0%)
PAT 20 (88.2%)
Reading 21 (76.5%)
Quant 22 (93.8%)

TS 24 (99.3%)
AA 23 (98.4%)

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[thehipster]

I don't think my signature is showing up, so here's the predents profile link about where I'm applying. http://predents.com/?page=user&user_id=979

 

[armorshell]

Nice scores!

 

[KiTmAn]

wow great inspiration ...!!!!!!!!

 

[Notoriousjae]

nice scores hipster. Did you reference any college textbooks for the sciences?
I was planning on using my old college text for bio and schaums bio but i might have to just go with schaums because im running out of time. good luck with the application process

 

[thehipster]

nice scores hipster. Did you reference any college textbooks for the sciences?
I was planning on using my old college text for bio and schaums bio but i might have to just go with schaums because im running out of time. good luck with the application process

I didn't look at any textbooks at all. I think Kaplan is enough for both of the chem's, and Schaum's is helpful for plants, taxonomy, photosynthesis, but Kaplan leaves a lot of bio info out in my opinion. If you've taken classes like genetics, biochem, or physiology and remember the stuff, it'll help out a lot. Personally, I needed more than Kaplan for bio simply because I never learned one thing in my bio classes in my first 2 yrs of college, but everyone is different.

 

[thehipster]

Correction, I took the DAT on July 31st, not 21st.

 

[allstardentist]

man GOOD JOB. I WOULD LOVE TO BE IN YOUR POSITION RIGHT NOW.

 

[RockstarDMD]

Congrats now start filling out those secondaries.

 

[Yeyyy]

I had about the same orgo scores as you did for the first two topscore exams...
How'd you get that huge jump from 16 topscore to 28? any studying/cramming techniques that might be helpful?

my test is in a few weeks, and i'm still a little clueless about the orgo section, so any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[xdesigninc]

Great scores by the way, what was your taxonomy question about?

 

[thehipster]

I had about the same orgo scores as you did for the first two topscore exams...
How'd you get that huge jump from 16 topscore to 28? any studying/cramming techniques that might be helpful?

my test is in a few weeks, and i'm still a little clueless about the orgo section, so any advice would be greatly appreciated

I'm not sure why my first 5 organic scores were so much lower than Topscore 3. I actually didn't study anything more, but I knew that I could do better. Most of the mistakes I made weren't from not knowing the material, but because I didn't read the question right. Like, it would ask what the stereochemistry of the enantiomer of a compound and I would put the stereochemistry of the compound instead (I always make dumb mistakes like that, but I made sure to read the questions carefully on the real thing). My organic studying was pretty basic, I wrote all of the Kaplan organic reactions onto flashcards and memorized those in ~4 days and then reviewed them all again the last day before the test.

 

[thehipster]

Great scores by the way, what was your taxonomy question about?

I can't even remember the taxonomy question, everything is a real blur, maybe something on arthropods.

 

[thehipster]

I got some PM's about the quant section that I thought I'd answer. I only had 3 probability problems, two were fairly easy, and one where I had to use the combinations formula. I didn't have that much trig or geometry, but I had more word problems than I anticipated. The word problems weren't very lengthly though. Also, make sure to know your conversions, like liters, gallons, pints, quarts, miles, feet, ounces. Any other questions, just let me know.

 

[thehipster]

To answer some more questions, my RC topics were on calcium, aging, and antibiotics

 

[lifeisgood]

To answer some more questions, my RC topics were on calcium, aging, and antibiotics

Did you read through all of schaums? or just sections on plants and taxonomy?

 

[thehipster]

Did you read through all of schaums? or just sections on plants and taxonomy?

I read sections about plants, taxonomy, ecology, and parts of genetics

 

[thehipster]

Ok, I got some more questions a few days ago that I thought I'd answer. For the reading section, I just searched for the answers to the questions. The main reason I did so badly on the reading was b/c I wasn't willing to move on from some questions (don't do that obviously). I remember I had one question, which I know would be easy to answer, but I just couldn't find the word in the passage for a while. I think going straight to the questions is the best strategy for RC. I had some opinion questions, but weren't too difficult, along with questions that asked, "what would the author add after a certain paragraph"? Understand theory stuff for both chems, I was surprised how much of that there was. Pace yourself on the PAT, I think that was my mistake on that section. Know Kaplan well for chem & organic. I don't really think you need any more for those 2 sections except for a few name reactions like Diels-Alder and a couple others i forget now. Again, it's not a hard test. Only use practice scores as a guide, not as a hindrance.

 

[nir1009]

Were the angles harder than Achiever?

 

[thehipster]

Were the angles harder than Achiever?

Yes the angles were harder than achiever. Only about 3 or 4 on the real dat i knew for sure, the rest was kind of a 50/50 shot, but on achiever's angles, i usually only missed one.