Feeling Discouraged...

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Sublimize23

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So I've been studying for my DAT now since the end of May, taking the Kaplan course, studying 3-5 hours a day most days of the week, but I'm still not doing well on practice exams. I just took the Kaplan midterm and got a 17 Bio, 16 GChem 18 Ochem, 18RC, 21PAT (93%), 12 QR, 17TS, 16AA. Not very good. I've struggled with math my entire life and I feel like it's not only completely irrelevant to dentistry or dental school, but really unfair. But there's nothing I can do to change that. I haven't quite finished my studying but I'd say I'm at about 80% as far as the material goes. I have a 3.35 GPA (screwed up freshman year... but have a really strong upward trend) and a 3.67 science. I have a lot of really good extracirriculars and manual dexterity examples, including volunteer firefighter for 3+ years, and a lot leadership experience. What are my chances, and what did you all do to overcome this slump and what can I do to try and improve, short of not leaving my house for the next month until the exam.

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So I've been studying for my DAT now since the end of May, taking the Kaplan course, studying 3-5 hours a day most days of the week, but I'm still not doing well on practice exams. I just took the Kaplan midterm and got a 17 Bio, 16 GChem 18 Ochem, 18RC, 21PAT (93%), 12 QR, 17TS, 16AA. Not very good. I've struggled with math my entire life and I feel like it's not only completely irrelevant to dentistry or dental school, but really unfair. But there's nothing I can do to change that. I haven't quite finished my studying but I'd say I'm at about 80% as far as the material goes. I have a 3.35 GPA (screwed up freshman year... but have a really strong upward trend) and a 3.67 science. I have a lot of really good extracirriculars and manual dexterity examples, including volunteer firefighter for 3+ years, and a lot leadership experience. What are my chances, and what did you all do to overcome this slump and what can I do to try and improve, short of not leaving my house for the next month until the exam.

Dont leave your house for the next month until your exam.

Buy these two things: DAT destroyer (for ochem and gchem) and crack PAT/MATH.

Go to barnes and nobles and use Cliffs AP bio.

Use Topscore or DAT acheiver for practice tests.

Read journal articles everyday.

With those items and your time and commitment. you will be golden
 
honestly... i think if you score a 18 or 19 AA and 20 PAT, you'll be a strong applicant.

like the poster said above. give up your life until you take your test. study non stop.

and don't stress out too much about your scores on your practice tests. you'll be fine.
 
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Dont leave your house for the next month until your exam.

Buy these two things: DAT destroyer (for ochem and gchem) and crack PAT/MATH.

Go to barnes and nobles and use Cliffs AP bio.

Use Topscore or DAT acheiver for practice tests.

Read journal articles everyday.

With those items and your time and commitment. you will be golden

i agree all the suggested materials except for topscore. i really didn't like their tests except maybe the sciences.
 
I've struggled with math my entire life and I feel like it's not only completely irrelevant to dentistry or dental school, but really unfair. But there's nothing I can do to change that.

That darned math, who needs it anyway?
 
Any particular Journal site? Method of reading? I am new to the DAT and bought the Kaplan book, which does not have any techniques for reading comp. Are there any methods for reading comp that work?
 
Hey, don't stress too much, I got like a 16AA on my Kaplan midterm and I ended up getting a 22 on the real thing. I think the Kaplan Diagnostic and Midterm are just a bit harder than they should be to encourage you to study more, thus being able to show that you improved through the class.

For QR are you going over EVERY answer explanation? That's the only way that I got to understand that stuff. There are a limited number of question types they can ask, and if you read enough of those explanations, you'll get to know every type, and get good at it.

As for a RC method asked for above, here's the method that I used to get a 30 - it's not for everybody, but try it and see if you like it, worked for me.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=615852

Good luck, and don't stress! I improved the most in my last 3 weeks before the test, just make it game time!
 
Thanks guys. I will be going over the Kaplan online videos for the math and reading the explanations. I'll be so happy after Aug 3 when this is all over, regardless of if I get a good score or not.
 
3 to 5 hours daily? I remember studying a minimum of 8 hours a day for the last two months before my DATs. Anything less than 5 hours is ridiculously not enough.
 
I had the same problem with QR. I hate Math and have been bad at it since day 1. but the more I talked about hating it, the more i wasn't pushing myself to learn and get better at it. So, I just worked my butt off. I ordered DAT destroyer, DAT MATH destroyer, and CRACK DAT MATH. Worked on every single problem, erased my answer and worked on it again. I just kept practicing and practicing, and practicing.

Also, I would use math in my every day life, so whenever I went shopping, and there was something on sale, I would find out what the price would be after the discounted %. I just kept using math whenever possible. The the more I did that, the more it was helpful for me, and the more I got faster at understanding problems and answering them correctly.


I hope this helps. Just try to find a strategy, and you will eventually figure it out :)

Good luck!
 
Can anyone share their daily routine for studying? Do you study all the same thing at once? Or jump around? Take practice tests? If so, how often? When do you start? When do you stop? This would really help me too.
 
I made a large number of flashcards for the sciences and QR. Probably spent about an hour a day memorizing those. Other than that I would just study using review books or destroyer and keep making flashcards as I went along. The flashcards helped me immensely in remembering everything. But they're not everyone's cup of tea.
 
Don't be discouraged, becoming a dentist requires persistence and if you give up now you won't be able to acheive those dreams of yours. Take the time to fix your studying methods. I'm taking mine soon as well and I also use to be weak in math, 17, but I've improved greatly on it by using destroyer's math section and just memorizing the common formulas. I've went through destroyer and got a 20/21 and I feel that it's enough as it is.

doc smile's post is pretty much spot on, cliff's ap bio, destroyer for ochem, gchem, math. kaplan's chem is pretty good but lacks questions, that's where destroyer comes in. As for reading, just read often and you'll improve your reading comprehension skills.
 
Any particular Journal site? Method of reading? I am new to the DAT and bought the Kaplan book, which does not have any techniques for reading comp. Are there any methods for reading comp that work?

maybe topscore would have some good practice reading comps. but i never found a huge resource of passages to practice on. i borrowed my friend's mcat exam cracker reading comp. books, which has a lot to practice with, BUT the real DAT RC is NOTHING like the MCAT RC.

The real DAT RC section for me was bascially finding fact after fact in the passage. Fortunately, I did well to find the info in the passages. 21 RC, fyi.
 
If you have a 3.67 sGPA, you're intelligent enough to do well on the DAT. Be honest with yourself. When you're studying, how hard are you really studying? I don't know if this is a problem or not but make sure you're on a regimented, focused study program and you should see improvements. Find your gaps and fill them. If you're slow at math, work to make yourself faster. Work on doing multiplication and division very quickly. The DAT math is not challenging but it's time limit is. If you study a sufficient amount, you shouldn't encounter more than 1-2 questions you flat out don't know how to do (with enough studying, none will stump you).

I'm setting up to retake the test. And it's mostly because I studied a good amount for my first take, but didn't truly work to plug all my gaps and completely cover myself. I still had holes in science knowledge and wasn't quick enough on the QR. Your PAT is pretty good and will only get better with practice. With work, I'm confident you could get 17 or 18 minimums and see your QR, Gchem, and even orgo shoot up dramatically. Those really are simple sections. I'd say the bio and PAT and maybe even the RC are the hardest to master/most inconsistent.
 
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