I got owned by the DAT today..any sueggestions?

[peerless218]

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Hey what's up guys...
ya I just took my DAT today and the result was SOOO CRAPPY!! I need some help

Here is what I got
16 BIO, 19 GC, 19OC, 15RC, 16 QR, and 22 PAT. AA = 17

All I studied was the Kaplan's thick blue book and that obsiouvly wasn't enough. I was getting between 19s and 21s on all my practice tests and yet....my real result is REALLY disappointing with an AA of a 17. Do you guys have any suggestions besides the DAT destroyer? My world was shook pretty hard after I saw my result.

For BIO, I knew the Kaplan Bio front and back and yet, there was maybe 5 - 7 questions that are actually related to the info I've been studying off. I even had 2 histoloy slides question on my DAT, asked me to identify things. And I have couple medical term asking me what kind of disease this is. I dont know, Kaplan's bio is just TOO general. For I was getting 21s and 22s on the Kaplan pratice tests.👎thumbdown👎

OC, I got owned or didn't do that well because I didn't pay any attention to NMR, IR, and lab techiniques while I was studying. From the people I heard from, none of them had any of those types of questions on their DATs. Today, 5 of those questions showed up on mine...and yap, I guessed Cs on all of them. 😡

GC. VERY unlike the Kaplan material. almot 70% of my questions were conceptual ones. with very easy calculation problems. I had like 5-6 questions that requires calculation. Thery were like solving the % of N in a compound, determine molarity, and something else. I guess it's easier then Kaplan. I was getting 17s and 18s on Kaplan, yet scored the highest on my real thing for science.

I dont know, the Kaplan's top fron and end view and keyhole was A LOT harder then the real thing. Yet the angle ranking and folding were PRETTY hard on the actual DAT. Pattern folding is about the same, and cube counting is easier in my opinion. For angle ranking, I breezed through the pratice questions. Yet, ALL my angles on the actaul DAT on every single problems are off by less than 5 - 10 degrees I kidd you not. It was sooo hard.

RC: Wow...I did not sleep last night due to jetlag. I am up right now because it's only 7 PM in Taiwan. After the PAT, that was it. My brain literally stopped function afterward. Did REALLY bad on RC and QR. I have not done that bad since my diagnostic at Kaplan. Next time I am def not going back to Taiwan and come back the week before the test. That was my own fault.

QR: Overall, it was not that hard overall. Except I had 4 questions dealing with sins, cos, and tan. Those I have no idea how to do. The computer cost me a very vauleable 5 minutes on the test. IT FROZE ON ME 3-4 times!!! When I say froze I mean I couldn't move onto the next nor previous questeions with the click on the button, while the timer was still counting. The 1st 3 times that happened, it took like 20 - 30 secs each time before it was back to normal. The 4th time it froze for almost a min. Then I called the prometric center person, she came in and restarted my computer. The thing is, after the computer restarted, I still couldn't do my math till like a min later (with the timer still in place). I didn't get to do the last 5 VERY VERY easy questions because of those mins I lost. the last 5 problems were solving for y, f(x) = .....when X = 4, and 3 other very solvable problems. They couldn't give me back my lost time. They could only file a report for me to the dental boards for this incident. It's ridiculus, could have at least gotten an 18 if not a 19 had I had times for those 5 problems.

Any suggestions on getting a better score? 😕😕. I only have ONE last shot at DAT on Nov, for I am in ther process of applying this year. THIS IS SOOOO BAD

 

[TeamGuo]

I think you just need to work on your science scores. I thought cliff's and shaums was pretty good.

If you can, you should take bunch of bio courses that will help you toward the dat. Ex. physio

good luck!

 

[peerless218]

I was reading and some people are saying how the Baron's AP Biology is pretty good. What do you think of that book? Or have you heard anything about Baron's?

 

[glk2101]

for bio, so you had 5-7 questions from material from kaplan and 33-35 of stuff you didn't know?? was that stuff just more specific to what you knew or totally different? if it was totally different what was it?

 

[peerless218]

just things I have NEVER seen before from the Kaplan book. Those info wasn't mention anything from the books and to the pratice tests and the test solutions. I had 2 histoloy slides, and some pretty dumb experiment questions. Something like if a chicken's molar is planted uder the epithelial lining of the mouse, and it grew teeth. What deos that tell you about the experiment? Stuff like that. I seriosuly think Kaplan's biology is ALMOST completely useless. It's pretty good on everything else though

 

[polarmolar]

Both your chem scores are good so I would suggest using AP Cliffs for bio and then supplement the Kaplan material with outside problems.

Excellent PAT score btw!!

 

[peerless218]

Alright thanks a lot!! The funny thing is....I dont even study for the PAT. I did all the PAT stuff for Kaplan once back in April and that's pretty much it. I can't break 22 and I dont really get less than 20 so I gave up on the PAT..haha I have 90 days left and I need to learn the stuff I didn't care about. I didn't know those stuff people said that rarely shows up would come and bite me on the butt that hard. Like NMW, IR, lab technique, Trig stuff involving sin, cos, and tan. that's like 9 questions total. 5 /30 on the ochem was pretty heavy in my opinion. Learned my lesson.

 

[wbloo]

i am studying bio with DAT Destoryer, AP Cliffs and Sparknotes notecards - between these three resources I am hoping I have the bio covered.


Kaplan is a great start to studying, but I think you need to try more resources.

 

[dcl222]

those are still pretty good scores for the chem and ochem from studying only the Kaplan Blue! would u say memoring all the rxn in ochem (+the oddball IR/NMR/techniques) is sufficient from the kaplan?

 

[heatwheat]

Try AP Cliffs Bio. and go through Campbells if you can.

 

[supraman]

Try AP Cliffs Bio. and go through Campbells if you can.

What about shaums?

 

[dentalplan]

Na...Shaum's sucks a fat nutsack....I only recommend it to people who already have a good background in BIO or people who are very good readers....cuz the reading can get kind of confusing.

 

[orthodocs12]

I suggest the Destroyer for the sciences. It's not too long, and gives u good grasp of what u need to know for the DAT. Worked for me!

 

[AReynolds04]

i had that chicken/rat problem too, i had no clue what the answer was! for the sciences, i used Kaplan BB but i supplemented the subjects with a bio textbook. i took alot of UD bio courses and that definitely helped too.

 

[supraman]

lol what the f, your computer froze??

 

[peerless218]

ya man, my computer froze on me and it was sooo lame!!!! Last 5 questions I didn't get to do were EASY too!!!! None of them were word problems. I proba could've solved them in like30 - 40 secs each

 

[peerless218]

For Ochem, I just made bunch of sheets that has every single Ochem mechanisms in them. I would def go over a textbook on NMR, IR spec, and for lab tech. Kaplan doesn't really do that good of a job explaiing those 3 topics.

 

[alanan84]

For Bio I used Kaplan and did about half the bio questions in destroyer. I actually thought kaplan was pretty good for Bio, not for the chemistrys. I guess it depends on your bio background and the version of DAT that you get. By the way, I got a 20 on the bio part, one of my better scores.