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- Apr 10, 2015
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DONE! WOOT!
I read this forum daily in the month or so leading up to my test for reassurance and inspiration. I know how stressful it is to study so it's awesome that I'm finally done and can post my own breakdown! For those about to take your test, relax, YOU CAN DO IT!
Overall I found all the science practice tests (except a couple of the bootcamp orgo tests) to be tougher than the real thing. If you are scoring 20+ in practice you are going to do great! The only section I did worse than in practice was PAT which sucks but I can't be too upset because I didn't study much for it compared to the other sections. I studied about 2-3 months on and off but really crammed the last couple weeks.
PAT 17:
All I can say for this section is try and get your timing down, move quickly, and use the mark feature. I was averaging 19 on bootcamp so I'm sort of disappointed but I ran out of time and had to guess on all the TFE. I wish I had practiced more but nothing I can do now. I was kind of peeved that some of my images seemed to be smudged (angles) or out of proportion (holepunch). For how much we have to pay the images actually look worse than the practice material.
QR 18:
Ran out of time here again but there were only a couple questions I don't remember seeing from Destroyer or Chad's. I scored around what I scored on the few bootcamp tests I took. I studied very little for the section because it seems to be the least important and I felt my time could be better spent elsewhere.
RC 23:
I thought the RC was pretty easy especially compared to Bootcamp. I remember running out of time a couple times on bootcamp but I had ~5 minutes to spare on the real thing. There were a couple technical/anatomy words you had to know but I actually found some of the questions to be common sense. I quickly skimmed the articles and highlighted what looked important. After that I just used search and destroy.
Bio 23:
I was the most worried about Bio going in because there is so much that can be tested on. I was especially worried about A&P questions because I've only taken Bio 1/2. I had to learn a LOT of hormones and parts of the body in the last couple weeks. In the end I only saw a couple questions that had me scratching my head. My test was definitely breadth over depth so I was happy I hit most of the main topics. I got through most of Barrons and Tyjacob's notes and studied all the explanations on the bootcamp tests. I found Destroyer to be too soul-crushing and quit about 1/3 of the way through. I watched a lot of khanmedicine/academy, crashcourse, and bozeman videos.
GC 21:
I was also worried about GC because I took gen chem 2 last summer during a 6 week semester so I didn't remember basically anything on acid/bases or electrochemistry. In the last week I almost had a panic attack when I scored a 17 on a bootcamp practice test. I messaged Ari and he told me that it was possible to improve your score quickly if you honed in on your weaknesses. I mostly watched Chads videos, read Tyjacob's notes and watched the solution videos on bootcamp (great). Again I found destroyer to be way too hard. My DAT was not nearly as calculation heavy (maybe 1/3) and there was only one problem I didn't know how to do. My test seemed to focus on concepts and your knowledge of the periodic table trends.
Orgo 23:
I studied the least out of the sciences for Orgo because I just finished both semesters and felt pretty confident going in. This is the section I found destroyer to be the most helpful and the 25 must know reactions in the beginning are gold. I thought bootcamp was on par to slightly easier. To review I took notes on Dr. Christiansen's videos (the guy from bootcamp). Honestly this guy is awesome, his videos go over pretty much everything you would need to know and he responded quickly to any question I had.
My final advice would be to have confidence in your abilities and know that if you've put the hours in you are going to do well. Make sure you are well rested the day of, bring a snack, and your math notes if you want to review during the break. I'm glad to be finally done and even though I tanked PAT I'm happy with my scores. Good luck to everyone applying this cycle!
Btw I scored a 19 Bio / 21 Gen Chem / and 18 Orgo on the 2009 DAT practice test two days before my test.
I read this forum daily in the month or so leading up to my test for reassurance and inspiration. I know how stressful it is to study so it's awesome that I'm finally done and can post my own breakdown! For those about to take your test, relax, YOU CAN DO IT!
Overall I found all the science practice tests (except a couple of the bootcamp orgo tests) to be tougher than the real thing. If you are scoring 20+ in practice you are going to do great! The only section I did worse than in practice was PAT which sucks but I can't be too upset because I didn't study much for it compared to the other sections. I studied about 2-3 months on and off but really crammed the last couple weeks.
PAT 17:
All I can say for this section is try and get your timing down, move quickly, and use the mark feature. I was averaging 19 on bootcamp so I'm sort of disappointed but I ran out of time and had to guess on all the TFE. I wish I had practiced more but nothing I can do now. I was kind of peeved that some of my images seemed to be smudged (angles) or out of proportion (holepunch). For how much we have to pay the images actually look worse than the practice material.
QR 18:
Ran out of time here again but there were only a couple questions I don't remember seeing from Destroyer or Chad's. I scored around what I scored on the few bootcamp tests I took. I studied very little for the section because it seems to be the least important and I felt my time could be better spent elsewhere.
RC 23:
I thought the RC was pretty easy especially compared to Bootcamp. I remember running out of time a couple times on bootcamp but I had ~5 minutes to spare on the real thing. There were a couple technical/anatomy words you had to know but I actually found some of the questions to be common sense. I quickly skimmed the articles and highlighted what looked important. After that I just used search and destroy.
Bio 23:
I was the most worried about Bio going in because there is so much that can be tested on. I was especially worried about A&P questions because I've only taken Bio 1/2. I had to learn a LOT of hormones and parts of the body in the last couple weeks. In the end I only saw a couple questions that had me scratching my head. My test was definitely breadth over depth so I was happy I hit most of the main topics. I got through most of Barrons and Tyjacob's notes and studied all the explanations on the bootcamp tests. I found Destroyer to be too soul-crushing and quit about 1/3 of the way through. I watched a lot of khanmedicine/academy, crashcourse, and bozeman videos.
GC 21:
I was also worried about GC because I took gen chem 2 last summer during a 6 week semester so I didn't remember basically anything on acid/bases or electrochemistry. In the last week I almost had a panic attack when I scored a 17 on a bootcamp practice test. I messaged Ari and he told me that it was possible to improve your score quickly if you honed in on your weaknesses. I mostly watched Chads videos, read Tyjacob's notes and watched the solution videos on bootcamp (great). Again I found destroyer to be way too hard. My DAT was not nearly as calculation heavy (maybe 1/3) and there was only one problem I didn't know how to do. My test seemed to focus on concepts and your knowledge of the periodic table trends.
Orgo 23:
I studied the least out of the sciences for Orgo because I just finished both semesters and felt pretty confident going in. This is the section I found destroyer to be the most helpful and the 25 must know reactions in the beginning are gold. I thought bootcamp was on par to slightly easier. To review I took notes on Dr. Christiansen's videos (the guy from bootcamp). Honestly this guy is awesome, his videos go over pretty much everything you would need to know and he responded quickly to any question I had.
My final advice would be to have confidence in your abilities and know that if you've put the hours in you are going to do well. Make sure you are well rested the day of, bring a snack, and your math notes if you want to review during the break. I'm glad to be finally done and even though I tanked PAT I'm happy with my scores. Good luck to everyone applying this cycle!
Btw I scored a 19 Bio / 21 Gen Chem / and 18 Orgo on the 2009 DAT practice test two days before my test.
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