just took the DAT and how it was

[lafootdoc]

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Whats up everyone, I actually took the DAT about a week ago. Heres my breakdown.

Bio 17
gchem 19
ochem 25 🙂
reading comp-18
math-16 😱
total science 19
overall 19

To be honest with you, I only studied for about a month maybe less and took only 2 diags from barrons. I did alot of hw problems. The kaplan subject tests were much more difficult than the actualy DAT. The bio and the math were the hardest on the dat b/c I had a bunch of geometry problems and i never understood geometry. The bio wasnt really hard, but since its such a broad subject to cover, they can pretty much throw in anything from bio. The gchem i'd have to say was pretty cake walk. I didnt know what to expect but i guess it wasnt too bad if i got a 19. My ochem was awsome, I just finished taking the second semester of ochem at my university so to me it was a joke and i probobly finished the ochem in like 10 min. It had alot of freidal crafts as well as ortho, para etc. The reading comp was easy also cuz it was all on physio and cell bio which i had taken at my univ as well. The only restraint was that it was pretty time consuming.
Im sure if I would have taken more diags i would have probobly scored in the mid 20's. Even though 19 isnt that high compared to some other students on this I still think its pretty good.

 

[golfmontpoker]

Congratz for finally finishing, pretty solid scores!! I have just began to study for it, I figure ill study for a couple months. So if you could go back, what would you of definately concentrated on a little more when studying? and any examples for the Bio section you can remember?

 

[kathy92840]

What was your score for PAT?

 

[xxxTheDonxxx]

Whats up everyone, I actually took the DAT about a week ago. Heres my breakdown.

Bio 17
gchem 19
ochem 25 🙂
reading comp-18
math-16 😱
total science 19
overall 19

To be honest with you, I only studied for about a month maybe less and took only 2 diags from barrons. I did alot of hw problems. The kaplan subject tests were much more difficult than the actualy DAT. The bio and the math were the hardest on the dat b/c I had a bunch of geometry problems and i never understood geometry. The bio wasnt really hard, but since its such a broad subject to cover, they can pretty much throw in anything from bio. The gchem i'd have to say was pretty cake walk. I didnt know what to expect but i guess it wasnt too bad if i got a 19. My ochem was awsome, I just finished taking the second semester of ochem at my university so to me it was a joke and i probobly finished the ochem in like 10 min. It had alot of freidal crafts as well as ortho, para etc. The reading comp was easy also cuz it was all on physio and cell bio which i had taken at my univ as well. The only restraint was that it was pretty time consuming.
Im sure if I would have taken more diags i would have probobly scored in the mid 20's. Even though 19 isnt that high compared to some other students on this I still think its pretty good.

Were there a lot of conceptual questions for orgo? or just plain old reactions from barron's and kapplan?

 

[lafootdoc]

hey everyone!
ok my situation was a little different. I was studying for the mcat because i wanted to attend podiatry school but then during my interveiw at nyc's podiatry school. He had told me that i can also take a DAT instead of the mcat and that he doesnt look at the perceptual. So I ended up taking the dat instead. I didnt even look at the perceptual part. If I could change anything about my studying habits, I would say that I would study bio a bit more especially the phylums etc. I hated studying that classification garbage. The other things I would have done was to look at the perceptual. I ended up getting a 15 on it but like i said thats because i didnt even look at it. And finally, I would have probobly gotten more help on the math, especially the geometry. The ochem section just came to me, i was always like over 90th percentile in ochem especially at my undergrad. Alot of the ochem that I had was from second semester like freidal crafs mechanisms and alot of ortho para directors. Know which substituents are ortho and meta, deactivating, activating etc. I also had a couple of basic questions on Sn1 and sn2, e1 and e2. I had some iupac in there too but i swear it was nothing to difficult. Look at it this way, if my idiot of a freind who took ochem like 4 times and still got a c the final time he took it; got a 22 on the ochem section of the DAT then i dont think anyone should worry.. ha ha

 

[lafootdoc]

by the way, I would only and i mean only recommend barrons for the sections that you are really strong in. I used it for ochem just to touch up. The math is pretty good to cuz i didnt know how to do word problems at all, but they explain in it in a way thats pretty good. I wouldnt recommend it for bio, english, or gchem. The diags that it has are pretty good but there are some mistakes on em. I just used the diags from barrons. The kaplan book is probobly only good for bio and maybe ochem if you dont know your ochem. however, the bio is really really detailed. If you guyz can, try to study the princeton review mcat physical section science section. It explains it in a way like your a 2 year old. I can not stop raving bout how good it was. And to be honest with you, some of the questions in the princeton reveiw book were very very similar to the actual DAT. My advice is if your weak in gchem like i was, definately try to get that book somehow. The biological sciences was golden for ochem also!! 😀
Good luck everyone and hit me up if u want to know anything else

 

[FebDAT]

Congratulation to you! Very nice scores. Did you take the ADA old exam? What kind of geometry questions did you get? I am also very bad at geometry. Thanks!

 

[golfmontpoker]

If you guyz can, try to study the princeton review mcat physical section science section. It explains it in a way like your a 2 year old. I can not stop raving bout how good it was. And to be honest with you, some of the questions in the princeton reveiw book were very very similar to the actual DAT. My advice is if your weak in gchem like i was, definately try to get that book somehow. The biological sciences was golden for ochem also!! 😀
Good luck everyone and hit me up if u want to know anything else

So the princeton review mcat physical section science section is really good for the bio part of the DAT?? Never heard of this, might want to hit that up. The Barrons was good for just review on alot of the parts? I havent took ochem for about a year, so i DEFINATELY need to polish up on this... Thanx for the advice!

 

[teefRcool]

What were your reading topics on? Was there also a stock market one if it was could you elaborate on what it was.

 

[lafootdoc]

the princeton review has 2 different sections. One is physical sciences which consists of physics and gchem. The other is the life science which consists of ochem and bio. The bio in the princeton review is ridiculous and worse than kaplan as far as detailing. However, the ochem was awsome and gives the same type of questions as the real dat in terms of similarity. The same goes for the physical sciences. The reading comp that i had on the actual exam consisted of 3 passages and they all related to cell bio and physio so i was lucky. The practice exam from the ada was pretty similar to the actual dat i would have to say.
talk to u all later

 

[teefRcool]

Did your topics include cell magnesium, and thyroid i forgot what the other was on.

 

[lafootdoc]

i remember that one of my passages was on protein kinase receptors. The other one was on voltage gated channels and ion transport through the channels. It was similar to action potentials and sodium potassium pump. The other one if i remember was on insulin, glucagon, and alpha beta cells etc. What I did was spend most of my time on the first 2 passages and get all of them right. Then with the amount of time you will have left even if its only like 6-7 min, use it to skim through the third part. However, make sure that you get all the ones in the first 2 passages right. This way, you will end up with at least a 17-19.

 

[teefRcool]

did you have classification taxonomy, ecology, zoology questions for the bio. My school bio courses never covered any of those. If there were about how many would you say there were of those, i might just press my luck on those topics. Were there a lot of those questions on your test. that stuff gives me a headache and i can never remember anything.

 

[lafootdoc]

I totally feel you bro, whenever I would do hw problems for bio, I would get everything right except for the damn phylum chordata crap. I remember that i was praying the night before that i wouldnt get anything like that on the exam. However as far as i can remember, i think i had like one or 2 questions on the phylum stuff. I think another question was "put kingdom, phylum, class, order, family etc in order". i think the other question was something like, "which one is the closest related to echinoderms or which one of these have an endoskeleton?. The bad thing about bio is that its such a huge topic that they can pretty much throw in anything. I would focus on the other stuff mostly cuz the classification is like 10 percent of it. If you know the other 90% down cold then you should rock the bio section.

 

[burton117]

I think another question was "put kingdom, phylum, class, order, family etc in order".

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