I just took the DAT last week. I studied with BC and destroyer. Here is what I learned from my experience:
1. If your testing center gives you markers to write notes make sure THEY ARE NEW. I was given 2 markers that were used and they completely ran out of ink on my PAT section and I couldnt get it replaced until the proctor came in the room (by that time a few minutes had passed so that killed my score and confidence and made the rest of the exam super stressful)
2. The TFE BC problems are completely useless. The real thing was much harder so I only recommned using TFE BC for the basics. TFE and keyhole was my worst section when practicing so I spent a lot of time working on improving my TFE score and improving my speed but that made no difference in the real thing so I recommend that you use one of the "harder" PAT study books for TFE specifically
3. Angle ranking was super easy. I was always good at them and the BC angle ranking was much harder. The real DAT made the angles really obvious so it was really easy
4. Both Gen chem and Orgo focused more on problems and way less theory than I was used to. I got a 20 on both of them even though on BC my avg orgo score was 23-25
5. EVERY SINGLE score except QR was much lowere than what I expected by about 2-3 points so I was pretty pissed that I ended up with a 19 AA. All my scores were within one point of each other. I read that usually BC underscores your scores by 1 or 2. But my scores were much lower than what i expected (especially in reading and orgo ) which were my best sections. I always got at a 21 in reading and i ended up with an 18 on the real thing 🙁
6. The detroyer math was completely useless tbh. The QR section was much closer to BC imo. They had so many simple calculation problems and only 1 or 2 not obvious word problems. The only thing that was different is that I felt the test makers put in a lot of calculation problems that were easy to do but took a long time ( so naturally i skipped them). I think those type of questions separated scores. The word problems at the end were quite simple and easy. As usual, TIME IS THE ENEMY is this section
7. In my experience all my scores were much lower than what BC suggested (except for math). I think it was because i was super nervous and the issue with the markers that threw me off my game and got me super upset for the rest of the exam
Conclusion: Buy a hard PAT book for TFE and maybe for keyhole. The QR BC is extremely similar to what you will see. Make sure you ask for new markers
1. If your testing center gives you markers to write notes make sure THEY ARE NEW. I was given 2 markers that were used and they completely ran out of ink on my PAT section and I couldnt get it replaced until the proctor came in the room (by that time a few minutes had passed so that killed my score and confidence and made the rest of the exam super stressful)
2. The TFE BC problems are completely useless. The real thing was much harder so I only recommned using TFE BC for the basics. TFE and keyhole was my worst section when practicing so I spent a lot of time working on improving my TFE score and improving my speed but that made no difference in the real thing so I recommend that you use one of the "harder" PAT study books for TFE specifically
3. Angle ranking was super easy. I was always good at them and the BC angle ranking was much harder. The real DAT made the angles really obvious so it was really easy
4. Both Gen chem and Orgo focused more on problems and way less theory than I was used to. I got a 20 on both of them even though on BC my avg orgo score was 23-25
5. EVERY SINGLE score except QR was much lowere than what I expected by about 2-3 points so I was pretty pissed that I ended up with a 19 AA. All my scores were within one point of each other. I read that usually BC underscores your scores by 1 or 2. But my scores were much lower than what i expected (especially in reading and orgo ) which were my best sections. I always got at a 21 in reading and i ended up with an 18 on the real thing 🙁
6. The detroyer math was completely useless tbh. The QR section was much closer to BC imo. They had so many simple calculation problems and only 1 or 2 not obvious word problems. The only thing that was different is that I felt the test makers put in a lot of calculation problems that were easy to do but took a long time ( so naturally i skipped them). I think those type of questions separated scores. The word problems at the end were quite simple and easy. As usual, TIME IS THE ENEMY is this section
7. In my experience all my scores were much lower than what BC suggested (except for math). I think it was because i was super nervous and the issue with the markers that threw me off my game and got me super upset for the rest of the exam
Conclusion: Buy a hard PAT book for TFE and maybe for keyhole. The QR BC is extremely similar to what you will see. Make sure you ask for new markers
