I'm having trouble managing school and DAT studying- please help!!

[virtualmaster999]

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Hey everyone,

So I've been studying for the DAT since half way through winter break (about Dec 26th-ish) til now. I am studying while in school taking 13 credits (along with what takes up time for the class):

-Physics 2 w/ lab (4)---- I usually set one day a week to taking notes on the chapter for the week/ doing the problems; for lab, I read the manual the day before (about 1-2 hours per week for lab)

-Ecology (3) (only time I do work for this class is when theres an exam, only one so far, but I needed 4 days for it since theres a lot of material)

-Christian Marriage (3) (nothing really to do, except for midterm coming up this week and random assignments with deadlines)

-Health Carr Ethics (3) kind of taking up quite some time between exams, quizzes, and short papers (lots of material too, so it doesn't help with time management)


Lately it just feels like I am running out of time/ not having enough time while managing school. I don't know why, but it feels like i'm not gonna finish what I need to by the time I want to take the exam. I am planning on taking it end of May (maybe even early June if need be), but it's been so hard managing my time lately. My classes aren't even difficult, a lot of them just require a lot of work (material is easy, just a lot of readings, assignments, notes, etc). I was relatively fine for the first few weeks but when I hit week 4-5 I was starting to run out of time/ getting less time. Here's how I allocate my DAT studying time throughout the week:

-MWF: 7am-11am (bio, since I have a big break)
-Tu/Thursday (7-830 am, QR) although the past week I wasn't able to work on it due to studying for an exam
-For Orgo and Gen chem, I've tried to do them whenever I have freetime any day of the week, although I usually am able to set apart time 2-3 days during M-F for just those alone- this past week I haven't been able to :/
-For Reading Comprehension, I usually read an article a day, if not, I'm reading SOMETHING for one of my classes, and I've take one practice exam (Kaplan dat 2015- got a 43/50, although I'm not sure if Kaplan is easier, seeing how reading exams haven't been my forte)
-For PAT, I am usually able to set aside an hour a day M-F (might start doing sat and sun), and alternate between cube counting, angles, hole punching one day, and pattern folding, keyholes, TFE the next day (havn't done much TFE/ Keyholes since I've been watching some videos and looking for tips on strategies)
-On sat/ sunday, ive been successful on devoting much of these days (6+ hours) to whatever subject needed (usually gen chem and orgo), but this last weekend, I haven't been able to because of studying for an exam.

As for how far I've gone with content:
-Bio: I just need to do diversity of life, body systems, animal reproduction, and plants
-Gen Chem- recently finished acid base chemistry, although Im going to review it again (so I have thermo and electro chem left on chads videos)
-Orgo: done with everything except biochem concepts and lab techniques
-QR: about halfway done, probably a little more
***I have flashcards for the sciences that I made as well**
****NOTE: it feels like I'm forgetting a lot, and so, I need to review things a couple times****

My plan is to hopefully finish content review and do practice problems and exams (including destroyer) for the last two months.

I have a 3.94 gpa and good EC and LOR, so I'm wondering how long I COULD hold off to apply if I did in fact need some time. I just dont wanna give up, but lately it feels SOOO hard to find time, and I feel like that is killing me.

Can I please please please have some help and suggestions? It would mean A LOT!! Anything for any subject or anything in general. Please help me out, I'm in need of it!

Thanks everyone!

 

[Alectrify]

If you are planning to take it in May, you still have plenty of time! Some weeks are going to be busier than others, so keep that in mind.

Your allocation of time seems fine, and I applaud you for waking up early to study for Bio of all subjects. Only thing I can point out is that you should probably be doing mock PAT exams at some point (90 min) since what trips people up a lot of the time is time management and not lack of ability, so you need to be nailing both aspects. Maybe give people your list of materials to see if you're using the best material. 🙂

 

[virtualmaster999]

If you are planning to take it in May, you still have plenty of time! Some weeks are going to be busier than others, so keep that in mind.

Your allocation of time seems fine, and I applaud you for waking up early to study for Bio of all subjects. Only thing I can point out is that you should probably be doing mock PAT exams at some point (90 min) since what trips people up a lot of the time is time management and not lack of ability, so you need to be nailing both aspects. Maybe give people your list of materials to see if you're using the best material. 🙂

Thanks for the reply!

As for resources:

-Bio: cliffs ap and ferralis
-Orgo and gen Chen: chads videos and Barron's ap for gen chem
-QR: chads and kaplan 2015
-RC: kaplan and bootcamp
- pat: bootcamp

I also have destroyer but havent used it yet. I wanna do content first.

I feel that pat is my worst.



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[swindoll]

You have plentyy of time! Relax!

 

[virtualmaster999]

Any suggestions for pat, specifically TFE and keyholes? I just can't get those down. And do you guys think it's worth reviewing everything quickly one more time after going through everything once or just constantly review things like with flash cards?


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[Alectrify]

Bootcamp has the best tfe and keyhole explanations imo. 10 tests should be enough to help you improve. If you still don't get a desirable score after, review old problems and solutions again. It doesn't get clearer than Bootcamp.

If you have a lot of time, then reviewing everything over won't hurt. But you should realize that actual improvement comes from drilling practice problems. You review problems and find out what you don't know and what you're weak at. For the bio section, I'd say ap cliff gave me 10% of what I needed to know and destroyer gave me 90%. You can argue that destroyer is full of problems and not a textbook with partitioned topics, but destroyer was what constantly slapped me with my weaknesses. So don't hesitate to start it. It is the best content review available. 🙂

 

[virtualmaster999]

When do you guys think is the latest I could take the exam while being safe with applying?


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[flossboss24]

You should be fine man. I am in the same boat as you, balancing both. I am about 3 weeks into studying, what has worked for me is writing out a schedule. For instance, I go through a certain amount of chads videos a day, read/review a chapter in cliffs, and do some QR/PAT questions. I follow this M-Saturday. If I fall behind at any point during the week, I push whatever I didn't finish that day to the next day. Sunday is my relaxation day but, if I have information still left to cover for that week then I just finish it out on Sunday. Also, it is very important to be calm and relax, time is on your side, there is nothing to worry about!