enamel_enthusiast
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Hello SDN, I have been a frequent stalker of the forum for a good while now. The posts on this forum have been very helpful for a variety of topics, especially in terms of my study strategy for the DAT, and so I wanted to post this to see if I could help some people out in return. I apologize if the long-winded style is not your thing, but those were the most helpful for me, personally (and the most suited for my word-vomit style of writing).
My results for the DAT are in the picture included. I had to edit it in after posting as the table I copied and pasted from the ADA website didn't translate as well as I expected.
My study strategy was over the course of about 8 months. For the first 6 months or so, it was only daily PAT practice through PAT Booster (which I really don't hear enough accolades for, VERY satisfied with this resource), and some review of the sciences through ChadsPrep's DAT course. I really should have utilized ChadsPrep more, as I really only scratched the surface of each topic in his course, not really ever reaching the more complicated concepts (except for ICE tables in GenChem, the videos for which by him I've probably watched and re-watched close to 10 times in my life). I also memorized glycolysis, just because it seemed daunting and I wanted to face it head on.
Once I was done with my Spring semester, it was time to "lock in." Thus began approximately 7 weeks of long hours of focused study where I had taken off from work, which I recognize I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do. I used primarily DAT Bootcamp, and I started off by taking a diagnostic practice test, hoping to see what I needed to focus on. Unfortunately, I needed to focus on everything. I had a low 400 average for pretty much every subject except Organic Chemistry, which I am a tutor for at my university. I decided to start by tackling my weakest science score, which was Bio, by reading the whole "bio bites" textbook, and taking notes. It was approximately 3 days of note taking, throughout which I think I slept once. I do not recommend doing that, I just wanted to "get it out of the way," which did not work. And so then I began the videos for Biology, retaking notes for every topic again. I racked up somewhere north of 50 pages of biology notes on my iPad, which might have been a little more if I continued to use a traditional notebook.
After taking notes for Bio, which took approximately a week, I began the "retention" phase. For each subject, I first learned, and then made sure I could retain the information, largely through practice problems, which DAT Bootcamp is rich with. Any subject I seemed to fall behind on during the retention phase (ie, I was missing a lot of problems still), I would go back and take notes on that chapter again. I had to study kidney function and plant anatomy probably 4 times.
Since the very laborious learning phase of Bio was done, thus began the learning phase for General Chemistry, concurrent with the retention phase of Bio. Fairly straightforward, I just took notes on the videos, memorized some tables (such as solubility charts and enthalpy, entropy, and such), and began practice problems. If there is any subject that has always been shakey for you, now is your time to hammer down on it. For me, it was the ICE tables. I by far spent the most time on understanding solubility and acidity problems, probably 70% of my studying for General Chemistry was for these subjects. Don't be afraid to spend a lot of time on "just one thing" if it is your weak point, and you are strong with the rest. What if you get 10 solubility questions on your exam? Unlikely, but very possible!
In terms of Organic Chemistry, well, I'll be honest, I didn't really study for it much. I relied mostly on my previous knowledge from just taking the class, and from being a tutor for that subject. Perhaps my score reflects that.
For quantitative reasoning, I urge you, I plead with you to take this very seriously. This is such a high-yield section, as it is by far the easiest, and this is coming from someone who is self-admitted to be bad at math. I never enjoyed math, and so I found it very difficult to study for. To make it easier, I studied this every night with a friend. My score went from stuck at a low 410 every practice test, to consistently above 500 every practice test. This undoubtedly boosted my AA.
For reading comprehension, I wish I started earlier the way I did with perceptual ability. If I stuck to reading just one scientific article every night, my reading comprehension would have naturally improved over the course of months, and possibly would have made this section a cakewalk (and I would have learned a lot from these very interesting articles). DAT Bootcamp links you to a scientific journal for this purpose. RC counts in your AA, and figuring out a strategy to improve you score will do you good. What worked best for me was a strategy my friend suggested, which consisted of reading only the first and last sentence of each paragraph, and trying to find the answer to each question in the article. This left me with a lot of extra time to scour the article for my answer, which often lead to me reading the entire article anyway. If you are one who enjoys reading, I am sorry to say it didn't seem to help me much, however I do concede that I mainly read poetry and fiction novels (and the more recent dip into philosophy). The sciences are simply different in their substance, I suppose.
In terms of practice tests, I was fortunate to have a good friend of mine who was studying for the exam at the same time as me. I had DAT Bootcamp (plus), and he had DAT booster. Together, that's 25 practice tests, as we joined forces so to speak, calling every night to study subjects we wanted help on (largely QR). I started off by taking a practice test every few days, starting after the learning stage of Biology, and then ramping it up to a test every day when I was closer to the exam, with a day off here and there. The DAT Bootcamp plus tests are absurdly hard, and for this reason I only did them piecemeal, but to be honest, they were so difficult that they were not really representative of the test at all. I did test #11 in a full-length style, and my score was so much lower than normal that it threw off my confidence, which is paramount to your success. And so I only ended up doing 18 full-lengths, so that I had enough rest days and my confidence was high. I really wanted to avoid burnout, and so when I began doing a full-length every day, I stopped "studying" entirely, simply waking up, doing the test, reviewing it, and I was done for the day. My average still went up with this strategy (reviewing the test is SO important), and so I did not think anything bad of being "lazy" by not continuing to study other than the tests. It seemed to have worked, as the score I got on the DAT was pretty much exactly my average for the final 5-10 practice tests I took.
And now, some good news, and some bad news. Good news, perceptual ability is far, far easier on the actual test than on the practice exams. If you become adept at the perceptual ability practice exams, you will have absolutely no trouble on the real thing. Bad news, biology asks questions in a slightly different way than you might expect. It really requires a thorough knowledge and understanding of Biology, simply memorizing won't get you very far. I saw more than one question completely unlike anything I saw on any practice exam, and I took 25 biology practice tests, so I think that means something. Just be sure to check your answers on each section, time permitting. As one user on a forum post stated, you have worked too long and too hard to lose points over silly mistakes that could be prevented by just taking another look. Me personally, I made sure to check over my GenChem section (as time permitted only one section to be checked for Survey of Natural Sciences), as that is the section I would make the most silly mistakes on while taking practice exams.
And don't think because you might not have the best GPA that you are somehow "dumb," or unable to knock the DAT out of the park. I am very satisfied with my score, even though my GPA is a little lacking, standing at approximately 3.7 GPA/3.5 SGPA. This is an extremely important test, but it is very doable, and if you keep in mind Napoleon Bonaparte's famous quote (slightly altered for relevance), "I [study] as if I have never [passed a test], and [take exams] as if I have never [failed]," you too can get a DAT score you are proud of.
As a final thought, I have no regrets with how much I emphasized biology, essentially learning and relearning it multiple times. This is far more preferable for my style of learning than mountains of flashcards, which make me want to put my head through the wall. Don't get me wrong, flashcards can be helpful (I found them extremely useful in my OCHEM classes), but excessively large quantities on top of several hours of studying just makes everything needlessly miserable in my opinion. If you like them, more power to you, I've seen absolutely wicked results at the hands of the Anki mongers, but unfortunately that is just not me. Do not feel an obligation to use them.
I hope my score breakdown has been helpful. Good luck to everyone taking the DAT, and to everyone applying this cycle.
My results for the DAT are in the picture included. I had to edit it in after posting as the table I copied and pasted from the ADA website didn't translate as well as I expected.
My study strategy was over the course of about 8 months. For the first 6 months or so, it was only daily PAT practice through PAT Booster (which I really don't hear enough accolades for, VERY satisfied with this resource), and some review of the sciences through ChadsPrep's DAT course. I really should have utilized ChadsPrep more, as I really only scratched the surface of each topic in his course, not really ever reaching the more complicated concepts (except for ICE tables in GenChem, the videos for which by him I've probably watched and re-watched close to 10 times in my life). I also memorized glycolysis, just because it seemed daunting and I wanted to face it head on.
Once I was done with my Spring semester, it was time to "lock in." Thus began approximately 7 weeks of long hours of focused study where I had taken off from work, which I recognize I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do. I used primarily DAT Bootcamp, and I started off by taking a diagnostic practice test, hoping to see what I needed to focus on. Unfortunately, I needed to focus on everything. I had a low 400 average for pretty much every subject except Organic Chemistry, which I am a tutor for at my university. I decided to start by tackling my weakest science score, which was Bio, by reading the whole "bio bites" textbook, and taking notes. It was approximately 3 days of note taking, throughout which I think I slept once. I do not recommend doing that, I just wanted to "get it out of the way," which did not work. And so then I began the videos for Biology, retaking notes for every topic again. I racked up somewhere north of 50 pages of biology notes on my iPad, which might have been a little more if I continued to use a traditional notebook.
After taking notes for Bio, which took approximately a week, I began the "retention" phase. For each subject, I first learned, and then made sure I could retain the information, largely through practice problems, which DAT Bootcamp is rich with. Any subject I seemed to fall behind on during the retention phase (ie, I was missing a lot of problems still), I would go back and take notes on that chapter again. I had to study kidney function and plant anatomy probably 4 times.
Since the very laborious learning phase of Bio was done, thus began the learning phase for General Chemistry, concurrent with the retention phase of Bio. Fairly straightforward, I just took notes on the videos, memorized some tables (such as solubility charts and enthalpy, entropy, and such), and began practice problems. If there is any subject that has always been shakey for you, now is your time to hammer down on it. For me, it was the ICE tables. I by far spent the most time on understanding solubility and acidity problems, probably 70% of my studying for General Chemistry was for these subjects. Don't be afraid to spend a lot of time on "just one thing" if it is your weak point, and you are strong with the rest. What if you get 10 solubility questions on your exam? Unlikely, but very possible!
In terms of Organic Chemistry, well, I'll be honest, I didn't really study for it much. I relied mostly on my previous knowledge from just taking the class, and from being a tutor for that subject. Perhaps my score reflects that.
For quantitative reasoning, I urge you, I plead with you to take this very seriously. This is such a high-yield section, as it is by far the easiest, and this is coming from someone who is self-admitted to be bad at math. I never enjoyed math, and so I found it very difficult to study for. To make it easier, I studied this every night with a friend. My score went from stuck at a low 410 every practice test, to consistently above 500 every practice test. This undoubtedly boosted my AA.
For reading comprehension, I wish I started earlier the way I did with perceptual ability. If I stuck to reading just one scientific article every night, my reading comprehension would have naturally improved over the course of months, and possibly would have made this section a cakewalk (and I would have learned a lot from these very interesting articles). DAT Bootcamp links you to a scientific journal for this purpose. RC counts in your AA, and figuring out a strategy to improve you score will do you good. What worked best for me was a strategy my friend suggested, which consisted of reading only the first and last sentence of each paragraph, and trying to find the answer to each question in the article. This left me with a lot of extra time to scour the article for my answer, which often lead to me reading the entire article anyway. If you are one who enjoys reading, I am sorry to say it didn't seem to help me much, however I do concede that I mainly read poetry and fiction novels (and the more recent dip into philosophy). The sciences are simply different in their substance, I suppose.
In terms of practice tests, I was fortunate to have a good friend of mine who was studying for the exam at the same time as me. I had DAT Bootcamp (plus), and he had DAT booster. Together, that's 25 practice tests, as we joined forces so to speak, calling every night to study subjects we wanted help on (largely QR). I started off by taking a practice test every few days, starting after the learning stage of Biology, and then ramping it up to a test every day when I was closer to the exam, with a day off here and there. The DAT Bootcamp plus tests are absurdly hard, and for this reason I only did them piecemeal, but to be honest, they were so difficult that they were not really representative of the test at all. I did test #11 in a full-length style, and my score was so much lower than normal that it threw off my confidence, which is paramount to your success. And so I only ended up doing 18 full-lengths, so that I had enough rest days and my confidence was high. I really wanted to avoid burnout, and so when I began doing a full-length every day, I stopped "studying" entirely, simply waking up, doing the test, reviewing it, and I was done for the day. My average still went up with this strategy (reviewing the test is SO important), and so I did not think anything bad of being "lazy" by not continuing to study other than the tests. It seemed to have worked, as the score I got on the DAT was pretty much exactly my average for the final 5-10 practice tests I took.
And now, some good news, and some bad news. Good news, perceptual ability is far, far easier on the actual test than on the practice exams. If you become adept at the perceptual ability practice exams, you will have absolutely no trouble on the real thing. Bad news, biology asks questions in a slightly different way than you might expect. It really requires a thorough knowledge and understanding of Biology, simply memorizing won't get you very far. I saw more than one question completely unlike anything I saw on any practice exam, and I took 25 biology practice tests, so I think that means something. Just be sure to check your answers on each section, time permitting. As one user on a forum post stated, you have worked too long and too hard to lose points over silly mistakes that could be prevented by just taking another look. Me personally, I made sure to check over my GenChem section (as time permitted only one section to be checked for Survey of Natural Sciences), as that is the section I would make the most silly mistakes on while taking practice exams.
And don't think because you might not have the best GPA that you are somehow "dumb," or unable to knock the DAT out of the park. I am very satisfied with my score, even though my GPA is a little lacking, standing at approximately 3.7 GPA/3.5 SGPA. This is an extremely important test, but it is very doable, and if you keep in mind Napoleon Bonaparte's famous quote (slightly altered for relevance), "I [study] as if I have never [passed a test], and [take exams] as if I have never [failed]," you too can get a DAT score you are proud of.
As a final thought, I have no regrets with how much I emphasized biology, essentially learning and relearning it multiple times. This is far more preferable for my style of learning than mountains of flashcards, which make me want to put my head through the wall. Don't get me wrong, flashcards can be helpful (I found them extremely useful in my OCHEM classes), but excessively large quantities on top of several hours of studying just makes everything needlessly miserable in my opinion. If you like them, more power to you, I've seen absolutely wicked results at the hands of the Anki mongers, but unfortunately that is just not me. Do not feel an obligation to use them.
I hope my score breakdown has been helpful. Good luck to everyone taking the DAT, and to everyone applying this cycle.
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