Hello everyone,
I am posting this a month after I have taken the DAT. This site helped me out tremendously and I want to pay it forward. I did well on my DAT, all sections in the 20s except for the PAT section, which I will explain why later.
I took the KAPLAN course and I scored well under 20 in all the practice tests. In fact, the highest score I had was an 18. I followed the Kaplan course curriculum 90 percent. The last month I studied pretty much from 9am until midnight or so in a library room by myself. It sounds intense but I had to do that in order to eliminate any distractions. I read a lot on the SDN and Kaplan people saying take it easy, but I felt like if you know how your brain works, you should follow through with that.
The biggest thing that made a difference for me was taking the practice tests two of them per week the last month before the test.
Gen chem was my most difficult subject even in undergrad so I paid attention to it mostly and made sure to read all the chapters twice. I started freaking out towards the end because people kept talking about Chad's videos, and I couldn't spend anymore money on the DAT prep after Kaplan. However, to my surprise I actually did really well in it. Made a 20.
In Orgo, I did really well in the first section so I kind of slacked off in the second half of Kaplan, to discover the day before the test that I did not know a lot of the reactions. So I went back and reheard both the Kaplan recorded lectures on it. I made a 19 and I am honestly happy with that considering how much I neglected Orgo.
Side note, that was how I reviewed for all the sections, I listened to the Kaplan recordings twice sometimes, after also attending the online anywhere classroom.
Biology was my major so I felt a little over confident at the beginning to find out that as much information as I knew it was not good enough because I had to rewire my brain to the questions asked on the DAT. In the end, when i was reviewing I got my hands on some DAT destroyer problems and only had the chance to do the Biology part of it, I did about 250 questions on the destroyer. Which made sense because I made a 23 on the Bio section.
The QR section was so difficult on the Kaplan, but it definitely prepares you for the timing on the real DAT, I was actually pleasantly surprised. But it took me a while to adapt to the method of skipping and coming back to it. But I was proud of myself because I did that on the actual test. I also made a 20 on this section.
RC section was kind of hard for me to use the Kaplan method but I was introduced to one method which worked for me. Looking at the question first and then skimming through the passage to find the answer helped not only familiarize you with the passage but help you answer questions whiile doing so, saving on time.
The PAT section, to be fair I did not practice it much towards the end but I was so caught up on the angle ranking and top front end that I wasted so much time. By the end I had to play catch up and considering on i guessed on so much of it I was expecting a 14 so I was happy with the 17.
I hope this helped, in summary, the Kaplan course is a pretty good representative of the real DAT. By the time you are through with Kaplan, when you get to the real DAT it will feel like a breeze. As in it was definitely much easier than I anticipated going in. In fact, i took a practice test night before and I made a 17 all around so it tells you, the Kaplan people kind of know what they are doing.
Also, the only supplemental thing i would recommend would be DAT Destroyer but unless you have a lot of time on your hands it is quiet time consuming. I could only get through the BIology part and I didnot get a chance to get through the chem, orgo and qr part.
After you have done all you can do, all thats left is praying about it and letting it go. That was an advice given to me by someone who took the test before me and it helped in the freak out moments that happened as test day got closer.
