hi,
youre planning on taking the DAT in July/August. from now to then is a solid amount of time especially if youre devoting the summer to your DAT.
regarding class vs no class: it depends on what kind of student you are, if you are motivated on your own,then i suggest making up your own study schedule. if you arent so on top of your game, it might pay to "pay" the money for the course, it wont hurt you, and they have a money back guarantee policy if you dont do better than the initial practice test. (Devils advocate: i think the ppl who teach the course are students who did well on the DAT, not professors. granted they can give you insight into the test but at the same time you can prob get that insight for free from your friends or from this most excellent website)
as for study materials: use kaplans to review the material and as a general overview (except for the pat) and their tests are pretty good. achievers questions are also good. I think you should use the destroyer to tie up the knots and really get solid in the sciences-i think thats the general consensus on this site. Topscore is not challenging enough and doesnt give you an accurate representation of your real DAT score in the sciences.
forQR and PAT i hear achiever and topscore are pretty good but i didnt start those sections yet(except for flipping through my kaplans book-their stuff deff easier than the real thing).
Im using basically all of the above to study- kaplan, achiever, topscore, and destroyer. i did most of the science questions in topscore and achiever, topscore is deff easier than achiever and kaplans.
i hope this was helpfull- if you have any further questions please feel free.
