How did you study for DAT?

[SM555]

Im planning on beginning my studying for DAT soon. From looking at breakdowns i have found most of the material Im going to buy, however, I have yet to to find some examples of how to schedule my DAT studying. What i mean by that is for the few months you studied, did you devote the first week to gen chem, 2nd week ochem, 3 week bio, 4th week pat then the remainder of the time do qvault and practice tests? I realize what works for one person wont necessarily work for everyone so i was hoping to get alot of examples of your scheduling and how long you studied.

 

[customx]

There are a lot of examples in the breakdowns that people have posted. I suggest studying a little bit of everything rather than devoting huge chunks of time towards just one subject.

 

[steiner2]

There are a lot of examples in the breakdowns that people have posted. I suggest studying a little bit of everything rather than devoting huge chunks of time towards just one subject.

Yup. Mix it up with at least 2 subjects. I admire people who can spend 2 months+ studying. I put in 4 weeks with heavy studying in last 2 weeks. Some of us have short attention spans. But just do lots of practice. Reading forever doesnt help.

 

[nahehes49]

I usually lack the attention span to study for more than 1 - 1.5 hour. I'm also inherently lazy and I like to sleep.

So I'd have intense studying for 45-50 min on one topic. Usual breakdown is...

20 min review
15 min practice test
10 min review stuff/concept I missed
= 45 min

So like three study sessions of three subjects, bio gchem and ochem. (obviously with break in between)

Prevented me from getting bored and got me in the habit of exam taking. Got 25 ts and 24 aa.

Good luck. Pm me if you need anything.

 

[Dotoday]

It all depends on your strength and weaknesses. If you are weak in chemistry, spend more time doing that. If Bio or math are yoir weaker subjects, pay more attention to them. Everyone has their own schedule. I would not do that by weeks. I would take as long as I need to be comfortable. You can start by doing few topics ACS exam, Destroyer or Kaplan and see how well you do. Good luck.

 

[fungames]

I never did a full length practice test. I spent my time reviewing topics and doing practice problems in the DAT destroyer, Crack DAT. I was busy so it was hard to find time to take an entire full length practice test. However, if you don't have any test-taking stamina (not used to taking long exams), you should probably do 1 a week for a month to get used to it. Also, if you take a practice exam, don't feel bad if you get a low score! Most people do better on the real thing than on the practice tests.