Just took the DATS...

[ngoel]

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PAT : 18

QR : 19
RC : 23

Bio : 18
GC : 21
OC : 18

TS : 19
AA : 20

Relatively happy with the scores - I was scoring MUCH MUCH worse on my practice tests (around a 15-16 TS in TopScore & Achiever).
QR & RC were pretty straightforward. I use a sort of mix of search and destroy while reading the passage approach - just kinda answer questions as I go along reading. QR wasn't miserable - timing is KEY! I thought there were a lot of easier/quicker to solve problems near the end - so that's something to think about.
GC was pretty straightforward, along with Orgo (I am just MISERABLE at Orgo). Bio had a few weird questions here and there, but overall, I thought it was much easier than the practice tests I took. One thing I noticed is that TopScore & Achiever both focus a lot on weird taxonomical differences, but I only saw maybe one or two of those on the test.
Right before my PAT, my dry-erase markers were sorta fading out, so when I got to Cube Counting, they were totally dead. I asked the lady to bring me new ones and as quickly as possible because timing is key in PAT too. Wow, she took her time - I got so fed up, I got out of my chair and asked what was taking so long. She said they didn't have any new ones and had to go down to some other office to get some. So, that TOTALLY screwed me over on time - cube counting shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes, I wasted like 15 or so having to recount each cube per face painted. I never scored below a 21ish on any practice test, so that really upset me.
Overall, not nearly as bad as I was expecting. I plan on taking it again because I'm pretty sure I can score better.

I'm still not in very good shape for applying...
Overall GPA : 3.1 , Science GPA : 3.0
The usual dental shadowing hours and a decent amount of EC's

Any suggestions?

 

[harrygt]

PAT : 18

QR : 19
RC : 23

Bio : 18
GC : 21
OC : 18

TS : 19
AA : 20

Relatively happy with the scores - I was scoring MUCH MUCH worse on my practice tests (around a 15-16 TS in TopScore & Achiever).
QR & RC were pretty straightforward. I use a sort of mix of search and destroy while reading the passage approach - just kinda answer questions as I go along reading. QR wasn't miserable - timing is KEY! I thought there were a lot of easier/quicker to solve problems near the end - so that's something to think about.
GC was pretty straightforward, along with Orgo (I am just MISERABLE at Orgo). Bio had a few weird questions here and there, but overall, I thought it was much easier than the practice tests I took. One thing I noticed is that TopScore & Achiever both focus a lot on weird taxonomical differences, but I only saw maybe one or two of those on the test.
Right before my PAT, my dry-erase markers were sorta fading out, so when I got to Cube Counting, they were totally dead. I asked the lady to bring me new ones and as quickly as possible because timing is key in PAT too. Wow, she took her time - I got so fed up, I got out of my chair and asked what was taking so long. She said they didn't have any new ones and had to go down to some other office to get some. So, that TOTALLY screwed me over on time - cube counting shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes, I wasted like 15 or so having to recount each cube per face painted. I never scored below a 21ish on any practice test, so that really upset me.
Overall, not nearly as bad as I was expecting. I plan on taking it again because I'm pretty sure I can score better.

I'm still not in very good shape for applying...
Overall GPA : 3.1 , Science GPA : 3.0
The usual dental shadowing hours and a decent amount of EC's

Any suggestions?

It's great that you don't have anything below 18. Good luck
Can you give us a break up of each section?
Did you have Crack PAT? How was the hole punching section on real PAT?
Thx

 

[wkawk2416]

i wonder why they use dry and other ****.

 

[DentalDeac]

that sucks about your markers dude, maybe you can explain in your interviews why your pat was lower than you expected

 

[Bruinlove]

Good Job! 😀
Are you taking it again because of PAT? Then, I don't think it's the best idea since you already have 18 on it.
If you are taking it gain because you believe you can do better on every section, I say go for it. 👍

 

[Contach]

PAT : 18

QR : 19
RC : 23

Bio : 18
GC : 21
OC : 18

TS : 19
AA : 20

Relatively happy with the scores - I was scoring MUCH MUCH worse on my practice tests (around a 15-16 TS in TopScore & Achiever).
QR & RC were pretty straightforward. I use a sort of mix of search and destroy while reading the passage approach - just kinda answer questions as I go along reading. QR wasn't miserable - timing is KEY! I thought there were a lot of easier/quicker to solve problems near the end - so that's something to think about.
GC was pretty straightforward, along with Orgo (I am just MISERABLE at Orgo). Bio had a few weird questions here and there, but overall, I thought it was much easier than the practice tests I took. One thing I noticed is that TopScore & Achiever both focus a lot on weird taxonomical differences, but I only saw maybe one or two of those on the test.
Right before my PAT, my dry-erase markers were sorta fading out, so when I got to Cube Counting, they were totally dead. I asked the lady to bring me new ones and as quickly as possible because timing is key in PAT too. Wow, she took her time - I got so fed up, I got out of my chair and asked what was taking so long. She said they didn't have any new ones and had to go down to some other office to get some. So, that TOTALLY screwed me over on time - cube counting shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes, I wasted like 15 or so having to recount each cube per face painted. I never scored below a 21ish on any practice test, so that really upset me.
Overall, not nearly as bad as I was expecting. I plan on taking it again because I'm pretty sure I can score better.

I'm still not in very good shape for applying...
Overall GPA : 3.1 , Science GPA : 3.0
The usual dental shadowing hours and a decent amount of EC's

Any suggestions?

Wow you are very good at RC, and strong DAT test taker - good job. Too bad about PAT

How do you use the markers for the cube counting session?
I have been doing it mentally, and thought this was the only way.. what do you write down on your paper? Do you draw the cube arrangement out and then put numbers on each one?

 

[DentalDeac]

Wow you are very good at RC, and strong DAT test taker - good job. Too bad about PAT

How do you use the markers for the cube counting session?
I have been doing it mentally, and thought this was the only way.. what do you write down on your paper? Do you draw the cube arrangement out and then put numbers on each one?

Ok so here is what you do for cube counting, it makes it so much easier

on your paper, write Figure A then write
0
1
2
3
4
5

for the number of painted sides.

Then think about each individual cube and how many sides are painted and then just make a hash mark next to the number you have already written down on your paper.

Usually I start all the way to the left of the figure, from back to front, top to bottom.

This way you make sure you don't miss any cubes and you only have to look at the figure once. It saves a ton of time.

 

[osimsDDS]

theres an even easier way then that....you just write out numbers horizontally...then tally up the numbers systematically by counting the cubes, then count the number of cubes and compare to the number of tallies you got, if it matches your golden if not then go back and do it again (i usually save cube counting for last because its the easiest haha). Once your done with the first figure draw another horizontal line under the tallies you had and start the new figure...if you do this you wont have to erase and stuff its just easier then doing it vertically for each figure...

 

[license2kill]

osimsdds,

Could you explain the last part of your last post? I didn't understand "putting another horizontal line under your tallies for another figure" part. Thxs!😀

 

[Andrew324]

I do it the kaplan way and it works really well for me

create a column for each column in the image as im going along, I start from the far left front and go to the next one back then the next one back, then the second column first row, then second row....

in my columns I start with the bottom cube and work my way to the top writing how many sides are showing 0,1,2,3

If that makes sense...It works really well for me

 

[Chga]

Ok so here is what you do for cube counting, it makes it so much easier

on your paper, write Figure A then write
0
1
2
3
4
5

for the number of painted sides.

Then think about each individual cube and how many sides are painted and then just make a hash mark next to the number you have already written down on your paper.

Usually I start all the way to the left of the figure, from back to front, top to bottom.

This way you make sure you don't miss any cubes and you only have to look at the figure once. It saves a ton of time.

This method actually takes longer then just doing the questions as they come

 

[osimsDDS]

takes about 30 seconds longer probably, but you will get all of them right i gaurantee you this...this strategy is probably the best strategy that ive picked up from kaplan and maybe the only one that works hahaha

 

[atlanta213]

I agree with osimsdds.

 

[Andrew324]

Chga, yeah we all do it differently, I like my way, never get any cube counting wrong 🙂....except on crack dat those illusions...but the real thing I have been told does not have any tricky ones like this

 

[PooyaH]

I've been using Kaplan's method and it works!!! I mean for me lol

 

[ngoel]

I used the ...

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5 : |

method. I agree it takes a tad bit longer, but with practice, you can really get used to how a 5 vs. 4 vs. 3...etc. looks like and tally pretty quickly. If it weren't for these absurd markers, I usually got through each set up of cubes within max 1 minute, and then answering the following questions for that one was a matter of seconds. There's usually A-E or A-F from what I had seen in most practice tests, so this whole section, with practice, should really only take about 6-8 minutes max. I'm not familiar with the Kaplan way - I took the class, but I had already studied a lot of PAT stuff on my own so I didn't really get much use out of it - plus the Kaplan ones were a BREEZE compared to the real thing in my opinion.
I've never really used any other strategy and since I was stuck with no markers, I ended up having to count up the particular painted cubes pertaining to each question - easily wasted about 5 minutes!

 

[osimsDDS]

I used the ...

0 : ||
1 : |||
2 : ||||
3 : ||
4 : |||
5 : |

method. I agree it takes a tad bit longer, but with practice, you can really get used to how a 5 vs. 4 vs. 3...etc. looks like and tally pretty quickly. If it weren't for these absurd markers, I usually got through each set up of cubes within max 1 minute, and then answering the following questions for that one was a matter of seconds. There's usually A-E or A-F from what I had seen in most practice tests, so this whole section, with practice, should really only take about 6-8 minutes max. I'm not familiar with the Kaplan way - I took the class, but I had already studied a lot of PAT stuff on my own so I didn't really get much use out of it - plus the Kaplan ones were a BREEZE compared to the real thing in my opinion.
I've never really used any other strategy and since I was stuck with no markers, I ended up having to count up the particular painted cubes pertaining to each question - easily wasted about 5 minutes!

dude i believe you 100%, these markers are worthless they destroy your score IMO it should be calculated into your score, a testing center that uses markers should up your score by 1 point HAHAHA...no but im serious these markers are what killed me the first time around...and hopefully it wont this time around

 

[ngoel]

A few people asked about a breakdown of each section ...

Bio : Like I said, nothing incredibly random. There was probably 2-3 questions pertaining to material that I'd never really seen before, but overall a LOT more basic than I was expecting. As much as this test is factual regurgitation, I was surprised to see a solid handful of questions that were very conceptually based. My TopScore/Achiever scores were maxing out at 16, so I was incredibly worried, so much so that I took a practice test the day before and got a 14! Achiever over TopScore in my opinion, but I would still recommend both because the real thing I would say fell somewhere in between in terms of content.

Chem : Also, nothing out of the ordinary at all. This has always been my strongest section, but on TopScore/Achiever, I was still only scoring around 17-18ish. A pleasant surprise, but there's not nearly as much information that you need to get through in this section compared to Bio & Orgo. My only weak-spots were acid/base and pH calculating stuff (I HATE LOGS!). They're easy enough once you know how to do them - I think I was just being lazy when it came to this section because I was under the impression that I'd be doing okay. With some solid practice, this section is one that should be very easily knocked out.

Orgo : Very pleasantly surprised with an 18. People say this is the most basic section of the exam - I just could not keep all my reagents/types of reactions straight, which I think led to a lot both lucky guesses and stupid mistakes. I was NOT expecting a Carbon-12 NMR - seriously, who does that! 1-H NMR all the way! (Wow, that's lame). This was 100% my weakest section while taking practice tests - I was topping out at 12-13 tops! The night before the exam, I went through EVERY practice exam I'd taken in this section and just tried to extract as much as I could from it. This is also one of those sections that with proper studying should be pretty doable.

PAT : I don't even want to go into it because I'm still so angry about that d***n marker incident. I'd say this also fell somewhere in between TopScore and Achiever in terms of difficulty. This was one of my stronger sections going in, but wow - those angle ranking problems were TOUGH. Any advice on how to improve on those? Key-holes were tricky, not tough - you had to make sure to ALWAYS consider the entry from the side not visible to you. TFE's were pretty basic - know how to count solid/dash lines and you're golden. Hole-punching wasn't too bad - I think I wasted time on a few tricky ones though - still get really confused with those half-punched holes. The pattern folding was def. not nearly as bad as those seen on practice exams I thought. Get yourself a solid reference point on the folded out pattern (one that is consistent through the answer choices and you can narrow it down pretty quickly). I was scoring around 21+ usually on my TopScores - I was an idiot, got cocky, and decided not to worry about taking them in Achiever because I was only worried about my Science. Bad move - not a bad score, but def. one that should have been much higher.

RC : No FRAP (what is that by the way) or Ethics - I guess I missed the "beast." Not as many factual recalls as I'd seen in my practice exams. There were those weird ones where it asked if both statements were true, false, and whether they were related - not difficult, but def. not something you see on TopScore or Achiever. The passages didn't seem as long, but I don't do paragraph counting, so I can't be sure. My advice - go to the first question, start reading quickly, find the pertaining paragraph, read it, answer question, do the same for the following question. By the time you get to probably the 6th or 7th question, you've read a sizeable amount of the paragraph and you can quickly find things. To practice - I'd say get some practice tests and try to practice catching key words and phrases that the question is asking and you'll fly through it. Content-wise - I had a Nervous System/Spinal Cord passage, a miserably awful passage about floating pontoon bridges, and a really interesting one about epidemiology.

QR : One word - speed. Go through it - practice manipulating equations fast. KNOW how to do those questions where they ask you if two guys paint/fill/cut this fast and one guy cuts this fast, how fast does the other guy cut. I've seen that literally on EVERY practice exam. It's annoying and time-consuming, know how to set it up quickly. There's only a question or two on unit circle analysis and whatnot, know 0 to 2Pi and the positions for all the ones in between (pretty basic stuff). If you're wasting time, STOP, put down a good guess, mark it, and go on. The amount of quickly-solvable problems at the end was pretty high and frustrating when you get to them with only 30 seconds left, and they only take 10 seconds each. Plain and simple - don't waste time.

In terms of study materials/aids, I took the Kaplan class last Fall. I was planning on taking the DAT in January but they canceled all the dates. It probably was a good resource, but I wasn't very motivated while taking the class, so I didn't really take full advantage of it and pretty much was an idiot and wasted a LOT of money. It's a very solid course as long as you put in the work.
I personally REALLY liked Audio Osmosis - it set up a lot of general foundation for Biology especially. It's obnoxiously lame, but they hit pretty much everything to a solid amount of detail. Couple that with Schaum's and it's probably a solid combo. I only got about a quarter through Schaum's, but it is a great resource.
I used TopScore and DAT Achiever for practice exams - both great resources. TopScore gets knocked a lot because it's not as in-depth as Achiever, but I feel like both are great resources. TopScore had a weirdly heavy emphasis on taxonomical stuff, which did me no good, but it hit a lot of the other nitty-gritty details that might pop up on the test. I think they're only 50 bucks each - def. worth it to get both in my opinion. Six practice tests might seem like a lot, but I'd say it's the BEST way to prepare. Take them, go through them and get acquainted with EACH question you got wrong AND right. Someone told me that TopScore didn't give solutions, but they are def. there - so don't get fooled by that.
My biggest regret? I purchased DAT Destroyer but didn't go through it well enough at all. Especially from the raves about it, I really should have sat down with that book a lot more. That's why I'm pretty sure if I take it again with proper studying, this is def. a test that is not out-of-question to do really well on.

 

[mddang]

this is my strategy for cube counting...

If I am asked how many cubes have 3 sdes exposed, then i will simply count how many have 3 sides exposed... No note taking or anything. If I am asked how many have 2 exposed, then I will count how many have 2.

Basically, I only count for what they ask for without writing anything down. It might take a little practice, but it takes very little time once you can easily recognize which cubes will have 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 sides exposed

 

[rdhdds1]

this is my strategy for cube counting...

If I am asked how many cubes have 3 sdes exposed, then i will simply count how many have 3 sides exposed... No note taking or anything. If I am asked how many have 2 exposed, then I will count how many have 2.

Basically, I only count for what they ask for without writing anything down. It might take a little practice, but it takes very little time once you can easily recognize which cubes will have 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 sides exposed

I second that.