Depressed!....please offer any advice...or hope

[Charlie2010]

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I am currently an engineer who works 40-50 hours per week. I graduated college last year, which means most of my courses are a little rusty but I studied for the DAT for the past two months after work for 2 hours and about 12 hours on the weekends. I used Cliffs, Kaplan BB, Destroyer, and Topscore. I only had time to go over everything once. I know my scores are very low which I plan for a retake in late August. I talked with the dean of admissions of one of the schools I was applying to and he said I basically need a AA 20 to be competitive. Is getting to that even realistic?


PAT 18
RC 19
BIO 16 🙁
GC 18
OC 15 🙁
QR 16
TS 16
AA 17

The problem I had is that I am normally very good at biology, but I found this test to be extremly random and I spent nearly 1 hour on just this section....which left me 30 mins for GC and OC. I only got to 15 out of the 30 OC questions (and I didnt even have time to guess an answer) . I know I need to work on my pacing which I will do. I am also very good at math, but working those problems so fast isn't my stong point. So I feel like if I work on my pacing for math and the TS section I could bring my score up.....but I am afraid of getting another crazy random bio section. I will try taking more practice test over the next three months but with limited amounts of time how and what should I focus on? How should I study for this again? I am starting part time at work July 1st which means I will study 4 days a week for approx 6 hours a day. Is that enough study time to be ready for August 26? I am just looking for any kind of advice, help, or guidance......

 

[dfymarine]

What I would suggest is that :

Try to learn everything slowly, and get the basics down cold.

After that, start doing the problems in destroyer.

At last, do more practice test two weeks from the exam.

For Bio, just the cliffs' Ap Bio

 

[4thMolar]

I think this time around you should focus more on practice exams. Since you just took the DAT, most of the material should still be fresh in your mind and you can do light review. I would get additional review material as well and go through your textbooks (which is the best material - although you will go through a lot of unnecessary material). But I honestly think that if you do a lot more practice exams and time yourself, you'll do a lot better.

 

[nze82]

I am currently an engineer who works 40-50 hours per week. I graduated college last year, which means most of my courses are a little rusty but I studied for the DAT for the past two months after work for 2 hours and about 12 hours on the weekends. I used Cliffs, Kaplan BB, Destroyer, and Topscore. I only had time to go over everything once. I know my scores are very low which I plan for a retake in late August. I talked with the dean of admissions of one of the schools I was applying to and he said I basically need a AA 20 to be competitive. Is getting to that even realistic?
It's very feasible and indeed realistic for one to improve his/her scores, after a retake. Why? You've simply seen the material once, so you're more familiar with the exam this time around, which normally means you should do better.


PAT 18
RC 19
BIO 16 🙁
GC 18
OC 15 🙁
QR 16
TS 16
AA 17

The problem I had is that I am normally very good at biology, but I found this test to be extremly random and I spent nearly 1 hour on just this section....which left me 30 mins for GC and OC. I only got to 15 out of the 30 OC questions (and I didnt even have time to guess an answer) . I know I need to work on my pacing which I will do. I am also very good at math, but working those problems so fast isn't my stong point. So I feel like if I work on my pacing for math and the TS section I could bring my score up.....but I am afraid of getting another crazy random bio section. I will try taking more practice test over the next three months but with limited amounts of time how and what should I focus on? How should I study for this again? I am starting part time at work July 1st which means I will study 4 days a week for approx 6 hours a day. Is that enough study time to be ready for August 26? I am just looking for any kind of advice, help, or guidance......

Bio is generally the most random section of the DAT! No matter how hard you study and how many resources you use, at the end you'll end up seeing few random bio questions on your exam. So, personally I think the best way to end up with an AA of 20+ is to improve your chem scores as much as possible by trying to do lots and lots of problems. Then, you can earn a 19 on Bio and still end up with 20-21 AA.