Finally Done!...8/10/06

[KingChris]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Well, I've been observing sdn all summer and it's been a tremendous help. I just took the DAT today and it feels incredibly good to be done. I've found this site to be very useful and I look forward to helping out others who are preparing for this test. The core of my studying was done in the past 5 weeks for about 7-8 hrs a day. Here are my scores:

PA: 19 (91.2%)
QR: 20 (91.2%)
RC: 22 (91.7%)
BIO: 25 (99.8%) 🙂
Gchem: 21 (92.4%)
Ochem: 21 (93.9%)
TS: 23 (99.4%) 🙂
AA: 22 (98.7%) 🙂

I used kaplan blue book,topscore, achiever, and mcat bio book. Bio was really easy, very similar in format to achiever but easier questions. I would say, achiever was the biggest help for bio! If you know all of kaplan, and go through achiever and topscore a couple times I would say you're good to go! I also used cambells to supplement and found it very useful, but slight overkill. I finished in 15 minutes. I'm also a bio major which made this section a lot easier I'm sure.

Gchem was very easy (thought I did better than 21), a lot easier than Kaplan and achiever, most similar to topscore, maybe slightly easier. I had approx 4 calculation questions and then questions that involved manipulating formulas and what not. Nothing I hadn't seen before.

ochem was very straighforward, mostly rxns, easier than anything else, but understand why things happen, I had a few concept q's. and I had one question about lab tecnniques.

All in all i finished the sciences with 20 minutes to spare and went back to look for errors, I think i changed one answer. But the sciences as a whole wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

PAT: Not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, angles are def doable, a couple of tricky ones though. Keyhole and top-front end weren't too bad, I thought paper folding was the worse, I think thats where I lost points

RC: I had some long passages! I didnt pace mysef too well and am a slow reader so I'm kinda shocked with my score. I spent a little over 20 min on 1st passage, then 15 on the next and the last one I actually knew the topic pretty well from my bio classes, and didnt even read the passage, I knew most of the answers already, a very nice surprise! For this entire section I never read the passages straight up, I just loooked for the answers.

qr: what a great way to finish the test, although I was almost sure I did alot better than a 20, i foound this section to be a breeze. One easy probability, a couple of trig and the rest were word problem and algebra

As for my practice exams, I erased my topscore scores and retook every test numerous times, but my most recent scores were mostly 19's and 20's in science, 20 in rc, and 18 in quant and 19 in pat. Achiever is a diff story:

bio gchem ochem pat rc qr
ac1 19 19 19 15 - 19
ac2 16 15 16 17 - 17
ac3 18 16 18 15 20 16


It can be done! check out my diagnostic!

Kaplan diagnostic:

aa: 13
ts: 14
bio: 15
gchem: 13
ochem 12
rc: 12
qr: 13
pat: 20 (how about that, i went down from my diagnostic! lol)

I was freaked out about this test and to be honest i never got scores nearly as high on my practice exams as i did on the real thing. Nothing replaces hard core studying, i definately put in the time, no tricks or shortcuts. I just want to say that if you're like me and your doing everything you can and still feel shaky, don't worry, the real thing isn't bad at all, just take it and you'll see for yourself! Thanks to all you have posted, and feel free to ask me plenty of questions, I'm here for ya.

 

[ConfusedOne]

thanks for posting your scores. I found it really helpful 🙂 Congrats and enjoy your summer 👍

 

[aranjuez]

Congratulations, Chris. You definitely deserve what your worked for. Thanks for the words of encouragement.

aranjuez

 

[IzzyMarieDMD]

Great scores, Congrats!

 

[RING12]

hi

iam wonder can you help me for PAT iam taking the test on 21st of AGUEST. and i have problem with pattern folding and keyholes. iam scare because keeping getting 17,16 on kaplan and top score.

 

[KingChris]

hi

iam wonder can you help me for PAT iam taking the test on 21st of AGUEST. and i have problem with pattern folding and keyholes. iam scare because keeping getting 17,16 on kaplan and top score.

Well, first of all, the PAT section is most comparable to Top Score, Kaplan is slightly easier. I think the best way to approach keyholes is to look for the parts of the figure that are not so obvious at your initial glance, this is waht they will try to trick you on (i.e. most of the answers only differ by wether a side is slightly curved or straight, or the size of the angle made in part of the figure), so initially most answers seem right. I used the process of elimination to solve most of the PAT questions. As for paper folding, again, hone in on a particular side of the figure and picture what the sides will be adjacent to it when folded up. This is the best technique, I should stress that the paper folding section, in my mind was the hardest, i didnt find keyholes to be hard, angles were actually doable (I used the "7" method, and found the angles to be easier than what everyone else says). The tope-front end is def doable, but its similar to top score, and at times is quite invoilved, so have a good understanding of how to view those projections. Hole-punching was a joke, cube counting was also very very easy. If you get your PAT to a 19 on top I think you could score 19 on the real thing. I just kept redoing my exams. I got 18's my first time, then worked until I got 19's and 20's. The real PAT is very similar to topscore, take advantage of that piece of advice!