Done With Dat

[hoss19]

I am off for a ride on my roadie (and then straight to a waterfront tiki bar!), but before i go i wanted to throw out a quick summary and BIG thanks to everyone on SDN for the support over the last few months.

First...my DAT scores (relative to achiever #1, #2, #3, topscore #1, #2)

PAT 21,19,18,19,23,23
QR 19, 20,22,21,18,17
RC 18, 21,20,22,20,21
OC 22, 19,22,18,23,19
GC 21 18,16,18,17,21
BS 22 20,17,17,17,18
TS 21 19,18,18,NA,NA
AA 20 20,19,20,19,20

(i didnt use topscore #3; was too stressed out to take the last exam this past sunday!)

As you can, my scores are really whacked, ie there is no real pattern. I scored really well in RC preparing for the exam (20's) and ended up getting a 18 on the exam. I scored relatively low on the practive tests for biology, but ended up doing well on the real thing. weird.

Bio - the only way i can describe it is that it was straightforward and fair. Be prepared to get some nitty-gritty questions though, there are a few of them. The much talked about FRAP question came up, also there were some math-involved questions. 1 diagram as well.

Gen Chem - very few calculations, maybe 5-6 that i actually needed my board for. Very staighforward, nothing i didnt know was on the exam.

Ochem - i cant believe i didnt ace this section. there was one problem that was tricky...but i thought i nailed it. I must have made some careless bleunders in there.

QR - Honestly, i think this section was easy. I had a few word problems that were cryptic in describing the situation, so i just skipped those. the rest was really easy and i am pissed i didnt do 20 on this section.

RC - Ethics, magnesium, and ????? (my brain is shot, sorry). The ethics one was a bear and was full of inference and tone questions. magnesium was easy, comparable to achiever/topscore. I dont know what happened on this section. i think i lost time and got frustrated on the ethics passage which was first.

PAT - EASY. The only ones that were difficult were TFE. There was one aperture that had answer selections that were exactly the same. I finished w/ 5 minutes left and spent nearly 3 of those extra minutes staring at the two answer choices. I lambasted the ada for this in my comments section.

Overall i was not happy with score, as i was aiming for 21 AA and at least a 20 with the RC. I cant complain too much though....

The marker / dry erase is BS too. My eraser barely worked and then fumes may have left me with permanent brain damage. Plus the damn markers dry out quickly....I killed them on this in comments section. i wont be surprised if they rethink this policy if everyone else out there had the same problems with it as me.

I also think it is BS that you cannot jump around from sub-section (within a section) to sub-section. For example, there is no way to start with the ochem in natural sciences or cube-counting in PAT without clicking through all the questions. BS if you ask me.

Thats all. Good luck to all future test takers..

Oh...i used drestroyer (gold!),acheiver, topscore, crack PAT, kaplan MCAT (for body systems), Cliffs (awesome), and class notes. the most valuable source was this forum. contribute and learn from it everyday.

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[tamkhan]

Good, consistent scores!

 

[hannah999]

Good job!

 

[doc3232]

Good job.
Did you take your practice tests mostly after you were done studying?

 

[Mamona]

Congrats nice scores

 

[playa2652]

Hey. I see that your practice tests scores for topscore and achiever. Do you feel that topscore and achiever were harder than the actual test when you were taking it? Especially the gchem and math sections? and out of destroyer, topscore, and achiever, which one was the most valuable asset. I have a week left until my test and I got Bio 18, Gchem 18, Ochem 18, PAT 21, RC 21, QR 16 on my 1st topscore practice test. What do u think i should do?

 

[jay47]

Okay guys, everyone seems to be freaking out about the FRAPs question so I searched and did a little research. Here is the basics...I also looked on old threads posted by Wirednerve and a few other guys, thanks to them for this info.

1. Cells will "fluoresce" when exposed to UV light. If you expose them to high intensity blue UV light, this will stop them from fluorescing (spelling?)

2. You can utilize this property to determine a. how fast molecules can diffuse (lateral diffusion within the membrane I suppose) b. which molecules will diffuse

3. First, examine outer membrane with a regular fluorescent microscope, and on the graph everyone sees, this is the "standard" or initial reading, the X value. It is highest b/c almost all of the membrane will fluoresce. Then flash the membrane with high intensity UV light, which will render all of that part of the membrane incapable of fluorescing.

4. Now, b/c none of that part of the membrane will fluoresce, it will be dark, which is the low reading on the gaph, (2 in the website below)

5. As molecules diffuse within the membrane, newer ones will show up that will fluoresce b/c they have not been "flashed"yet. As these show up, the "recovery" of the fluorescence will increase. This is "Y" in the graph in the website at the bottom of this post. Positions 3 and 4 show increasing recovery.

6. You can determine several things from this, how fast the molecules diffuse, and whether the protein/membrane component can diffuse. Obviously, a protein that does not diffuse will remain dark as the surrounding membrane diffuses around it and begins to fluoresce.

Go to this website for more, its very good.

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Courses/Molbio/FRAPx/FRAP.html

Hope this helps.

 

[userah]

very clear and concise...gonna have to read it over a few times but i get the basic jist. thanks =)

 

[hoss19]

Hey. I see that your practice tests scores for topscore and achiever. Do you feel that topscore and achiever were harder than the actual test when you were taking it? Especially the gchem and math sections? and out of destroyer, topscore, and achiever, which one was the most valuable asset. I have a week left until my test and I got Bio 18, Gchem 18, Ochem 18, PAT 21, RC 21, QR 16 on my 1st topscore practice test. What do u think i should do?

i know what the "one-week to-go" feeling is like, but try to focus on your weaknesses from now until a few days away, then focus on your strengths to build up that confidence. i think confidence is huge on these tests. i went into the exam full of it, then panicked a little when i saw tfe's on the exam, then panicked a lot when i saw that ethics passage.

as for your scores, they are more/less about what i got on my first go-round w/ topscore. id advise you to take one exam every other day and in between use those exams to target what your weaknesses are and work hard to shore those up. Getting hit with a question that you are not certain about but know that you could have gotten if you had worked a little harder is utterly deflating. I had a few of those on gchem which took some wind out of the ol' sail.

overall i thought science section wasnt bad, and, see my previous post, i must have made some careless errors on ochem b/s there was nothing that i did nt know point blank. however i was a little miffed by the rc as i was scoring consistent 21,22's on practice tests, then ended up with a 18. For QR, focus on word problems, there were a ton of those.

 

[allstardentist]

great job.

 

[jigabodo]

I haven't seen someone with AA less than 20 in a while. Wow, just wow.

 

[mikeyc2040]

hoss19,
thanks for the post, its info like this that really helps get ready for the test. I am taking the test in under a week, and my achiever scores seem to be very similiar to yours. What did u do about that gchem? I keep scoring 16 and 17 and its really scaring me since my bio and ochem are 19s.

thanks