Low-Study DAT, Breakin' It Down

[Buckethead]

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For my DAT, I put in about 30 minutes a day, every few days, for about 3 weeks. Total, I probably put in 6-8 hours studying for the exam In the breakdown, everything is being compared to Achiever.

Here are my scores:

PAT: 20
QR: 17
RC: 26
Bio: 22
GC: 23
OC: 30
TS: 24
AA: 24

---PAT: Crack DAT PAT is anything and everything you need. This was half of my studying. I took three practice PATs and did steadily better on each. My form development problems were impossible, and I had a few tricky apertures, but honestly, I think I aced the angles, cubes, orthographics, and hole punches. I did a fair amount of passive studying in my spare time. For instance, while bored at the family xmas gathering, I looked at objects around the room and visualized the orthographic projections and silhouettes (for aperture passing). Doing this everyday made my interpretations of the apertures and orthographics VERY fluid and simple.

APERTURES: CDP = easier, Ach. = same, overall = 7/10 difficulty
ORTHOGRAPHICS: CDP = easier, Ach. = harder, overall = 3/10
ANGLES: CDP = easier, Ach. = just a bit harder, overall = 5/10
HOLES: CDP = impossible, Ach. = a bit harder, overall = 3/10
CUBES: CDP = harder, Ach. = easier, overall = 1/10
FORMS: CDP = easier, Ach. = easier, overall = 9/10

---QR: I took a single Achiever QR section, scored a 17, and was happy with that. No studying here; I can't stand numbers. The math wasn't difficult, but I'm an extremely methodical person, so I wasn't able to finish in time. I ended up guessing on about 6 of them. Work on speed to ace this section.

---RC: I've always been good at RC types of things, and I don't think there's really any practicing for this. Two of the RCs are scientific, a third is random. I had DNA microarrays, calcium regulation, and languange/brain. I happened to know a decent amount about microarrays and calcium regulation from research and a crazy cell bio course I took. Taking upper-level biology courses before taking the DAT may help you strike gold -- you may already know a lot about the topic they give you. This could be your band-aid for not being able to read good.

---Bio: Surprised I didn't do better given that I've taught intro and molecular biology discussion sections for two years, but a 22 is just fine. I think I missed all 4 ecology-related questions because I just couldn't care less about that sort of thing (although I'm all for environmentalism...). Overall, the biology section is not difficult. I agree with everyone's assessment that it's very broad, but it stretches itself thin by that same vein -- there's little depth. Study for the ecology and evolution parts of it; ignore everything else if you've taken enough biology and have a good grasp of it.

---GC: This was the section that worried me going into the exam because my intro chem course is split into two semesters, and I've only taken the first semester. I didn't know anything about electrochemistry or colligation or nuclear phenomenon, so I spent a couple of hours looking over those, and that wraps up all the studying I did for my DAT. I'm not sure what I missed on the exam, but for your sake, expect 7-10 pure quantitative problems, maybe 5 that are quantitative and conceptual, then the remainder should be all conceptual. If I remember correctly, all of the multiple choice answers for the pure quantitative problems were in expression form, not number form, meaning that you only have to set up the equation, not solve it. Practice being able to recognize the answer by looking at 5 answer choices that are expressions that represent the actual number, not the number itself. It threw me off a little and took up some extra time, but the science portion shouldn't be a time-crunch. I think I finished with 30 minutes to spare.

---OC: I didn't do any studying for organic chemistry, so I'm definitely happy with this outcome. We didn't even cover amine reactions in my orgo courses, and I knew these were on the DAT, but I thought I knew enough orgo to just kind of intuit what might happen in an amine reaction. I was right: there was a single, simple amine substitution reaction. Most of the reactions were focused on alcohols, ethers, carbonyls, and aromatic rings. Be sure to know what defines aromaticity and how to substitute a benzene ring. Know SN1/2, E1/2, but you don't need to know it in great detail. Know your pKas, but not specifically, maybe just well enough to recognize when a given proton in structure A is more/less acidic than a given proton in structure B. They really seemed to like carbonyls, from acyl substitution to reactions at the B-carbon. I think there were 6 of those or so in all. Maybe 4 benzene/armoatic-related questions. Also, there are a lot of random stability questions, maybe 4-5. Expect 2-3 nomenclature questions.

Overall, the DAT wasn't that difficult. The sciences were shallow, the PAT was actually kind of fun, the reading wasn't bad, but the QR is just too compressed for someone as systematic as me.

CDP was a better representation of the PAT than Achiever. The Achiever exam I took was way harder than the DAT. I wouldn't really recommend Achiever. I absolutely recommend CDP.

I also bought Kaplan's most recent book and found it to be helpful for the chem concepts I mentioned in my GC breakdown, though I could have Googled those concepts just as easily and saved myself the money.

Bottom line: Buy CDP (don't waste money on 10 exams or anything like that). Buy a practice exam program that isn't Achiever and just Google things you miss. There's no need to buy a review book unless you're really lacking in basic scientific knowledge. If you struggle with RC, take some upper-level biology courses, and it's probable you'll cover exactly what could be on the DAT's RC section. Look at the ADA's DAT topic list and see if you know at least something about each of the topics. If you do, then stop studying and go have some fun. Or if you're me, ignore the ecology you don't know, then go have some fun.

I didn't blow up my exam with straight 29s and 30s like some of the people on this forum have in the past, but I also didn't waste hundreds of hours studying. You don't need to either. Reading out of a book is inefficient, redundant, and imprecise with respect to what YOU need to know for the exam. Take a practice exam, Google what you missed, learn it, save time and money. Simple advice, and it worked for me -- 99.4 pecentile AA. Don't tell Kaplan.

 

[uclaDDS101]

It looks like you spent more time on this breakdown than studying for the DAT. Maybe if you actually put in some effort, you might have pulled a couple more 30's. Anyways, congrats.

 

[FutureDent020]

For my DAT, I put in about 30 minutes a day, every few days, for about 3 weeks. Total, I probably put in 6-8 hours studying

---QR: I took a single Achiever QR section, scored a 17, and was happy with that. No studying here; I can't stand numbers.

---RC: I've always been good at RC types of things, and I don't think there's really any practicing for this.

---Bio: Surprised I didn't do better given that I've taught intro and molecular biology discussion sections for two years, but a 22 is just fine. I think I missed all 4 ecology-related questions because I just couldn't care less about that sort of thing (although I'm all for environmentalism...).

Study for the ecology and evolution parts of it; ignore everything else if you've taken enough biology and have a good grasp of it.

So I spent a couple of hours looking over those, and that wraps up all the studying I did for my DAT.

---OC: I didn't do any studying for organic chemistry, so I'm definitely happy with this outcome.

Overall, the DAT wasn't that difficult. The sciences were shallow, the PAT was actually kind of fun, the reading wasn't bad, but the QR is just too compressed for someone as systematic as me.


Look at the ADA's DAT topic list and see if you know at least something about each of the topics. If you do, then stop studying and go have some fun. Or if you're me, ignore the ecology you don't know, then go have some fun.

I didn't blow up my exam with straight 29s and 30s like some of the people on this forum have in the past, but I also didn't waste hundreds of hours studying. You don't need to either.

Take a practice exam, Google what you missed, learn it, save time and money. Simple advice, and it worked for me -- 99.4 pecentile AA. Don't tell Kaplan.

1) Good job on the DAT
2) Extremely disgusting, arrogant post
3) Your analysis of the DAT is appreciated and accurate, but your advice is terrible
4) What seems to have worked for you, will only work for a small minority

 

[TexasOMFS]

Wow, very nice scores for not studying. But I agree with FutureDent, most people would not be able to do this even if they had just finished gchem/ochem. You must have a very good memory to have been able to remember the bulk of the material. If I might ask, did you see any unorthodox things on your QR section such as questions about p-values and other aspects from statistics?

 

[Buckethead]

Wow, very nice scores for not studying. But I agree with FutureDent, most people would not be able to do this even if they had just finished gchem/ochem. You must have a very good memory to have been able to remember the bulk of the material. If I might ask, did you see any unorthodox things on your QR section such as questions about p-values and other aspects from statistics?

Everything on the QR was kosher. There wasn't anything otherworldly on there, just too much in too little of a time period. In fact, I think mine might have been a little easier than what I saw in Achiever, but again, I'm slow with math. I just needed more time.

To the other guy who called the post arrogant and disgusting:

Yep. I didn't proofread the post, and you're right -- it came off completely arrogant and disgusting. My apologies, I didn't intend for it to sound that way.

Don't follow my advice if you think it won't work. Do what sounds best to you. But doing well IS possible without sacrificing your summer doing something as inefficient as reading prep books over and over. You already know a lot of the stuff on the DAT, so you shouldn't study it again by rereading it. My advice is to focus solely on what troubles you, as indicated by a practice exam, then home in on these topics via Google and fill in the holes. I honestly think this is better than buying a book and immersing your self in it like it's a full-time job.

If anyone has any questions about the DAT, please ask away, and I'll do my best to answer them while it's fresh on my mind.

 

[N1264d]

So, just out of curiosity on CDP did you go with the 5 test version or 10? I seem to do pretty good on PAT questions with the few I have seen on the forum and am going to be ordering CDP soon. Do you recommend Achiever at all or just not for the pat portion. I understand Achiever is harder than the DAT but it seems that might be good. If you practice on a harder test you should do better on an easier one, right?

 

[azar87]

damn those are solid scores for someone who didn't even study much at all congrats on the phenomenal scores ....you mentioned using kaplan.....did you use topscore or destroyer or anything else that we should know about if so how useful were these resources?