Im taking my exam on the 16th and im freaking out. im running out of time is almost every section. Anyone has any tips on taking timed exams? How did you guys do for the DAT? I find it impossible to answer all the questions with the time given. For instance the Natural sciences section! There are a lot of calculation for gen chem and no calculator!!! how did you guys do it? should I skip the questions that are taking me more than 1 minute? ahhh help please!
Help!! time is killing me ;'(
- Thread starter wawis26
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2011
- Messages
- 287
- Reaction score
- 4
I haven't taken many practice tests yet but I am a very slow test taker and I haven't had a problem so far with gen chem. You should be able to give yourself less time for bio and OC during the natural sciences so you can give GC, say, 40-45 minutes or so. Also with GC, anything that requires a big calculation will usually be given in the form of the plugged-but-not-chugged equation. I would recommend Chad's videos for tips on how to quickly estimate logs and for shortcuts with acid/base concentration problems and buffers.
As far as QR, I am just as terrified as you. I can usually figure out any math problem if I'm given a decent amount of time, but we can't be spending 5 minutes per question. My plan is to just practice as many problems as I can and eventually patterns in the questions asked will be evident. If you can determine quickly what the question is asking of you and know, based on your tons of practice, how to approach that problem, I think you'll be fine. Good luck!
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2010
- Messages
- 465
- Reaction score
- 3
I'm on the same boat as you right now (writing DAT on the same day as well...) but QR is more of a concern to my right now. I'm also running alittle over for GC as well.. I need time to process things out but apparently we don't have that privilege
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2007
- Messages
- 391
- Reaction score
- 2
How gave you been scoring on the practice exams youve taken?
Have you done many practice problems? Do you have the destroyer?
You can probably complete the DAT destroyer in 2.5 days. If you do it through completely twice in 5 days, you can spend your 6th day making study sheets on the problems. Common bio themes, and then the major repetitive gen chem math based problems, with the steps on how to solve each one. If you learn that study sheet, once you see that chem problem, the steps to solve should click so you can immediately tackle it efficiently. The more familiar you become with the problems and repetitive manner in which theyre presented to you, you will increase in speed while at the same time learning the material.
You can perhaps decide that when you see a problem you had practiced before, and know it will take a while you might want to MARK it, and leave it untill later. I wouldn't recommend spending one minute, and then skipping it and forgetting that minutes worth of work you had done. Also, the reverse to this is you may know it will take a little while to solve the problem because you know how the problem works, but on the same note you will be likely to solve this problem and get a better grade because of it.
As mentioned before, most of the math problems are figure out the solution in terms of the formula, not the numerical answer.
i.e. you woiuld see "A) 2x4/2" as opposed to "A) 4"
The best you can do is take as many timed practice tests and work on balancing speed/efficiency. By my 12th practice QR my speed had drastically increased.
Have you done many practice problems? Do you have the destroyer?
You can probably complete the DAT destroyer in 2.5 days. If you do it through completely twice in 5 days, you can spend your 6th day making study sheets on the problems. Common bio themes, and then the major repetitive gen chem math based problems, with the steps on how to solve each one. If you learn that study sheet, once you see that chem problem, the steps to solve should click so you can immediately tackle it efficiently. The more familiar you become with the problems and repetitive manner in which theyre presented to you, you will increase in speed while at the same time learning the material.
You can perhaps decide that when you see a problem you had practiced before, and know it will take a while you might want to MARK it, and leave it untill later. I wouldn't recommend spending one minute, and then skipping it and forgetting that minutes worth of work you had done. Also, the reverse to this is you may know it will take a little while to solve the problem because you know how the problem works, but on the same note you will be likely to solve this problem and get a better grade because of it.
As mentioned before, most of the math problems are figure out the solution in terms of the formula, not the numerical answer.
i.e. you woiuld see "A) 2x4/2" as opposed to "A) 4"
The best you can do is take as many timed practice tests and work on balancing speed/efficiency. By my 12th practice QR my speed had drastically increased.
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2009
- Messages
- 28
- Reaction score
- 0
hey there! I'm taking mine on 19th... also I'm doing the practice exams but not satisfied w/ the scores (TS and AA varies from 17~21 **Achiever is the lowest..Topscore is the highest..Kaplan on the middle.. ). I am also running out of time (especially on GC and QR) on my practice tests but we gotta keep calm with unfamiliar questions. I recommend like others, just guess, mark, and move on. I think that is the best thing we can do about it at this point.
Well, let's push it hard for all the mid-late April DAT test takers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, let's push it hard for all the mid-late April DAT test takers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you sooo much for your advice. Im going to work on the DAT destroyer like you mentioned. I think im spending too much time overanalyzing the questions and like you said i just have to practice and get familiar with the type of problems. I took the practice exam ob the kaplan book and was scoring 17-20 the biggest problem was that i had a lot of questions left by the time was up and I started freakin out when i had a few minutes left soni was rushing. Again thank you so much, I truly appreciate ur advice
you shall be fine. if you get any problems relating to stoichiometry or the pv=nrt problem, you will most likely not need to calculate it. i was surprised when I didn't get ANY gas problems... Most of it were pertaining to stoichiometry. I was also surprised I got no acid/base problems.
My exam is on the 19th and i am starting to freak out and blame myself for not concentrating, but hey, we still have time, 2 more weeks. You can get a lot done. This goes to me first .. Practice, Practice, and calm down, even if you do not have a calculator in GC !
Lol i know im so slow doing calculations in my head. But a lot of people hve said that they dont make u write out the answer. That calmed me down a lil. Good luck we are going to be fine!!! 🙂
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2010
- Messages
- 239
- Reaction score
- 5
Don't worry about time in science sections there are not a lot of calculations. I actually skipped all the gen chem questions and did them last because I was worried about the math. I think I finished the sciences with 10+ minutes to spare. RC and QR are a different story.....
I know time is an issue but be confident in your answers. You can try skipping the questions that you don't immediately know from the back of your head. That's what I did on my actual DAT. I skipped nearly half the bio section because several questions required me to sit down for more than a minute to answer. Since orgo was my strongest subject, I breezed through that in like 15~20 minutes. Gen chem was a crapshoot--not sure how I still got 29 on it to this very day.... The answers that I got corresponded with the answer choices given to me on the exam. I wasn't as confident as I was with orgo.
Overall, I sifted through the exam and answered everything that I could and knew with confidence in a little bit over an hour (so I had almost 30 minutes left when I "finished" the science section) and spent the rest of my time analyzing and answering the questions that I found challenging. In fact, I was able to look over my exam, AGAIN (or two more times.. I forget)!
Overall, I sifted through the exam and answered everything that I could and knew with confidence in a little bit over an hour (so I had almost 30 minutes left when I "finished" the science section) and spent the rest of my time analyzing and answering the questions that I found challenging. In fact, I was able to look over my exam, AGAIN (or two more times.. I forget)!
