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Hello fellow pre-dents of the SDN community! On Friday Aug 26th (8/26), I took the DAT. This was supposed to be up way earlier, but I needed some time to relax 🙂 and move in to school.
My results were:
PAT – 22
QR – 29
RC – 26
BIO – 21
GC – 26
OC – 26
TS – 23
AA – 26
*Let me just tell you – as soon as I got my score report I ran to my car and just started screaming and laughing at the same time. If anyone saw me they probably would’ve thought I was possessed lol
My “breakdown” is going to be a little more than just an analysis of all the parts of the test; it will contain lessons that I’ve learned not only from preparing for the DAT but also throughout the past 3 years in college. With that being said, if you’d just like to know what I did to prepare or what I felt about the test itself, scroll down below to sections 3 and 4, respectively. I am writing assuming you read general facts about the DAT (or Ari’s Study Guide) and Ari’s 10-week schedule (since that’s what my post will heavily be about).
If you are here (on SDN) because you want to know how to do well on the DAT, you are definitely at the right place! The amount of knowledge you can gain from previous test-takers is invaluable, no doubt, but this is only the first step. Keep in mind that there is no short cut or even the one perfect study schedule that gets everyone to a great score. Why? We all learn differently, and there are many versions of the test. Therefore, my experience may be very different from yours. What matters the most is that you do your best in learning and keep a good grasp of the material, in whatever way is best suited for you.
I. Rant on Life – The First 2 Years of College
Going into this journey, I felt ready to do all I can to do get a good score. It was definitely in part because I wanted a solid score to strengthen my application. But to be honest, I mainly wanted this experience to really challenge me and allow me to see how dedicated I could be to the field of dentistry.
I am a rising senior at Rutgers, the state school of NJ, and I came in to college not knowing what I was passionate about and not caring about my future. I thought that things would “work out on their own,” (but life doesn’t work like that) and I spent the first 3 semesters of college going with the flow. I was not doing poorly, since I went to a high school that focused a lot on academic rigor and growth, but I didn’t know why I even had to study. One night during my sophomore year, I just couldn’t go to sleep, knowing that I was only giving mediocre effort into the years of my life that will determine how I do the rest of it. There was this sudden fear of becoming regretful when it got too late. From then on, my view on academics/life changed completely.
Coming back to the DAT, I felt that if I couldn’t even put in 100% of my effort into a test such as the DAT, I wouldn’t be able to do that in dental school and even as a dentist. There are going to be many times in college and probably in dental school when you question the importance of studying and devoting so much into it. And so, that makes it even more important for you to have a clear vision of your goal and where you want to be. That’s just how you get through all the struggles in life. I’m sure for all of you reading this, you have an image of what kind of dentist or even just what kind of person you want yourself to be. It’s important to always keep that in your mind.
II. DAT – First Impressions of the Beast
I gave myself a good 2.5 months to study for the DAT (6/6 – 8/26). That’s because I knew I would need that much time. Also, I worked on Fridays and Saturdays as a dental assistant, and most of the time was too tired to study after work. There are people who have studied for 2 weeks, 4 weeks, etc. that did better than me. You know yourself the best, so make a decision that will best fit how you study.
A little more background on where I was with each subject before I started studying:
BIO- I took bio 1 and 2 in freshman year, genetics in sophomore year, and some bio electives in my junior year. I pretty much had 0 memory of bio 1 and 2 because I crammed the hell out of everything during freshman year, and this is what the test is based on, so I had to re-learn almost everything. However, I remembered a lot from Genetics, which made heredity and DNA stuff a breeze.
GC- I AP’d out of Chem 1, which definitely did not help, and I kinda bs’d my way through chem 2, so gchem was another subject that I had to re-learn a good chunk of (esp Acid/Base, kinetics, parts of thermodynamics).
OC- I took ochem junior year and this was when I kinda got my act together and studied my butt off, so ochem was fresh in my mind and DAT ochem was way easier than college ochem. I definitely spent the least amount of time on it compared to the other sciences.
PAT- Man, I sucked so much when I first started (and tbh I don’t think I’m very accurate right now either lol) but it’s something that gets better with practice!
RC- I lived in the States pretty much my entire life, took classes for SAT prep and did pretty well in reading, and so I went in believing that I had the capability to understand my primary language … lol I will talk about this more later.
QR- Being a Korean American child living in a very Korean neighborhood flooded with after school academies and test prep centers, my Korean mother (who also worked as a math teacher in Korea despite her degree in French literature lol) had a firm belief that doing well in math meant success in school. When I was in elementary school, she sent me to after school academies, where I used to do like 100 math probs in an hour or some crazy sh** like that and had 200 probs for hw! Tbh though, this helped me so much for QR LOL. Not gonna lie, I told my mom that all the hard work during elementary/middle school helped me a lot for this test. Definitely the section that I had the least problems with/studied the least
So, before I started actually studying, I spent just about one whole day to look on SDN to see what I would need to do to be successful (as many of you probably are doing rn as you’re reading this). This is probably the best use of SDN for the DAT. I went through breakdown after breakdown, but I ended up choosing around 10 detailed ones of people who did well and made a Word doc about what materials they used, tips on doing well, how much they studied, etc. The general consensus seemed to be that people used:
BIO – Cliff’s AP Bio 3rd Ed. (not 4th), Destroyer, Qvault, Campbell
OC and GC – Chad’s Videos + Destroyer
PAT – Crack DAT PAT, Bootcamp, Achiever
RC – Crack DAT Reading, Scientific American Articles
QR – Math Destroyer
I stumbled upon DAT bootcamp through SDN and found Ari’s 10-week study schedule.
I decided to follow it, since it utilized most of the materials I wanted to use, as well as 5 full length tests + the 2007, 2009 DAT. I had 12 weeks to finish it, but 2 of the 7 days of the week I was working, and in July, I had another commitment that made it hard for me to study on Sundays, as well. I ended up just barely finishing the schedule by the day of my test.
Materials that I Used:
BIO: Cliff’s AP Bio 3rd Ed, Feralis Bio Notes, Ty Jacobs’ Bio Study Guide, Bootcamp, Qvault Test 1, Crash Course Biology Videos, Wikipedia/Google
GC: Chad’s Videos, DAT Destroyer, Bootcamp, Khan Academy Videos
OC: Chad’s Videos, College Notes, DAT Destroyer, Bootcamp, Master Organic Chemistry
PAT: Bootcamp, Youtube vids
RC: Bootcamp
III. Walk-through of the Study Schedule
I feel like I don’t really see people reviewing the 10-week schedule so I wanted to walk you through what I felt about it. I first got all the materials needed for Ari’s 10-week schedule. There is an online-pdf version of Cliff’s, which saves you like $15. I bought the video subscription for Chad’s videos with a discount (15%?) you get if you are an ASDA member, the Destroyer set (DAT + Math) for $200, as well as the Bootcamp subscription for around $140.
For WEEKS 1-4 (Learning the Content), I pretty much followed the schedule exactly, finishing what I needed for that week right on time.
For WEEKS 5-10 (Practicing the Material), I made some adjustments to the schedule. For example, during week 9 when you are supposed to take the full length tests, I did more destroyer problems (40 bio 30 gc 30 oc) timed rather than doing the ones from the full length tests because they were problems I had seen before. You can read about more changes I made in the descriptions of each section below:
BIOLOGY (21):
WEEKS 1-4: I started with reading through Cliff’s and handwriting notes from it. I really recommend handwriting notes (especially for bio). It’s been proven that handwriting notes helps students retain more information than typing them. I really think that drawing out all the diagrams and relationships for bio helped me understand/visualize the concepts. I didn’t really do the read one day, re-read next day type of system, and I didn’t think that was necessary. But one mistake I made was not really memorizing/studying my notes for each week. Because there was so much to go through, I got lazy with going back to my notes after I took them for the first time, but I think I would’ve been less stressed in the 2nd half of studying if I did memorize as I went on.
WEEKS 5-9: I got so stressed during this time, especially around week 6 and 7 because of bio that I gave myself like a one-week break. (It took me two weeks to finish week 6) This was partly because I didn’t really have much memorized. I started Destroyer, but was getting like 9-11 wrong out of around 30. I know it’s fairly common to get a lot wrong for destroyer, but I felt stressed because I felt like I wasn’t really learning from my wrong answers. This is clearly an example of when “just following a schedule” won’t get you a good score. Around week 8, I started going back to major concepts that I was struggling with, and re-reading my notes and watching YouTube videos/reading Ty’s & Feralis’ notes on them. This definitely helped because unlike destroyer, these things are meant to give a complete overview of a topic rather than one random fact.
WEEK OF (10): I spent a good chunk of my time on Bio during this week. Tbh, I probably put in the most hours for bio in general. I made sure I reviewed all my notes and flashcards and memorized everything that I had taken notes on.
LOOKING BACK: Doing Destroyer questions definitely discouraged me in the beginning because I felt like I knew nothing. To be honest, I don’t think Cliff’s 3rd edition is all that great because it doesn’t really provide everything you need (esp for animal form/fxn). Also, going into destroyer right after doing Cliff’s, I think, is not really a good idea. I think you should read through Ty’s or Feralis’ Notes (I personally preferred Ty’s because they were a bit easier to follow) instead of reading through Cliffs. I would start destroyer later (maybe week 7?) and do more problems each day. By week 5, I had the wrong idea that I was ready for bio. If you start off with something more comprehensive/extensive and go through that slowly, it should help you more. Also, I am a visual learner and memorize things best if I can associate something with an image or even a chart. I feel like I really wasn’t taking that into account when I was following this schedule. As I’ve said before, you know yourself the best. Just following this schedule doesn’t necessarily mean you know the material! Think about that as you’re going along.
*BC SCORES: 23 / 19 / 17 / 18 / 19 (My BC Scores aren’t totally representative because I took them when I didn’t really have everything memorized/reviewed)
2007: 20
2009: 22
**Sorry, I lost my 2007, 2009 scores for everything so I will try my best to remember what I got on these. But I generally do so it shouldn’t be too off!
GEN CHEM and O CHEM (Both 26):
I’ll group these together because they were similar enough in terms of what the schedule asked you to do for these subjects.
WEEKS 1-4: I watched Chad’s vids and did the quizzes right after. Again, I hand wrote the notes, following the vids. I think that for the chems, it might be better to go through the videos quickly the first time, and when you start doing destroyer/bootcamp q’s, rewatch the videos again on the topics that you need more help in.
WEEKS 5-9: I followed the schedule pretty well for gc and oc; I did the bootcamp tests, saw what I got wrong, and reviewed the topics that I struggled with the most. I think I was getting around 7-9 wrong the first time around for gc and around 3-5 for oc. As mentioned above, for week 9 (bc full length tests) I ended up doing 30 destroyer problems for both subjects, timed.
WEEK OF (10): Other than the 2007, 2009 DAT, I didn’t do more practice problems. I reviewed the questions I got wrong (the second time I went through Destroyer) and memorized everything I needed to from my notes (GC: solubility à NAG SAG pms castro bear [LOOK THIS UP!], molec geometry, bond characteristics, etc) and (OC: reactions, E2/E1/SN1/SN2 condtions, lab techniques, IR/NMR, etc.)
LOOKING BACK: I think Ari’s schedule for the chems were really good. Chad’s videos were an excellent foundation and doing the destroyer questions was great practice. I think you can get by doing the destroyer just once instead of twice, but in that case you have to go back to the questions you got wrong multiple times to remind yourself what you did wrong. Also, after going trhough it once, you should definitely go back to your notes, re-watch Chad’s vids, or even watch Khan Academy vids on the subjects that you are shaky on. I did this for Acid/base, thermodynamics, kinetics during the last two weeks, and I think that’s the reason I did well. Overall, destroyer was more than enough practice for the chems.
*GC BC SCORES: 19 / 20 / 21 / 24 / 21 (My BC Scores aren’t totally representative because I took them when I didn’t really have everything memorized/reviewed)
OC BC SCORES: 19 / 24 / 20 / 26 / 23
2007: GC- 29 OC- 30 (lol 2007 was a joke)
2009: GC- 22? OC- 23
QUANTITATIVE REASONING (29):
I watched Chad’s videos and did the quizzes. The QR videos were not as good as the chem vids. But still, there were certain parts, such as the rate distance time a.k.a. the # of workers/amount of time type of problems, that definitely helped. However, if you have a weak math background, DEFINITELY go through these as they will be a good starting point.
Math destroyer was also really good. I think I did around 9 of these tests? All kind of spaced out whenever I felt like I had the time throughout my studying schedule. Timing myself with these tests definitely helped me pace myself for the real one.
BC SCORES: 24 / 22/ 30 / 23 / Didn’t do the last one (I don’t remember why lol)
2007- 24?
2009- Didn’t do – I read that 2009 was a lot harder and not necessary to do (I completely agree).
READING COMPREHENSION (26):
I didn’t really do anything lol. I kind of just yolo’d it and didn’t read the scientific american articles because I was lazy after spending the whole day studying. I feel like it really isn’t necessary to do this, though, to do well on RC for the DAT.
I just remember one of the RC tests from the full-length tests during Week 9 where I got an 18. I was so shocked with this since it was the week before my exam and I hadn’t been doing anything to prepare (lol I kinda hated myself when I took that first test) I tested out different methods (Ari’s method, the BYU4you balanced method, Vicviper’s method, etc.) on the practice tests. I realized that I didn’t do any better when I read through the entire passage compared to when I didn’t really read through it. I ended up just going straight to the questions and used search & destroy to find answers in the passage. I passed it if it wasn’t a question asking for a simple fact but asked for tone or overall message of the passage, etc. (basically anything that I needed to read through the entire passage for). I marked these and once I got through with the rest of the questions, I was able to make a good guess since I had a feel of the whole passage by then.
BC SCORES: 21 / 18 / 23 / 21 / Didn’t do the last one
2007- I honestly don’t remember at all
2009- 22?
PAT (22):
As you can tell from my first score, I sucked at PAT when I began, which was pretty much when I took PAT Test 6, and I got discouraged by that. From then on, I made sure that I would practice (almost every day… lol) with the BC generators. On the full tests, my strategy was to solve Keyholes and TFE first, skip the angles, do the rest of the exam, and come back to angles at the end. I realized that this created the least amount of stress for me.
The schedule tells you to try out the generators but mainly tells you to do the PAT trainer game every day. I didn’t do this mainly because I was lazy after studying sciences lol. Therefore, I don’t really know the effectiveness of the trainer game. Clearly my scores stayed similar throughout. I think that if I started the BC generators earlier in June (my first month) rather than July (second), I probably could have done better on the actual exam, so take that into consideration.
IV. My Exam (Each Section)
BIO(21) – Definitely had mostly general and straightforward questions, not to the amount of detail contained in Destroyer. I don’t remember it being overwhelmingly focused on a particular topic, though I do think I only had 1 or 2 questions on anatomy, which made me really sad because that’s the subject that I really devoted in studying in depth.
GC (26) - It was pretty basic stuff, similar to the easy questions in Destroyer/BC. I think I had maybe one or two questions that I was stuck on.
OC (26) - Also no real surprises here, I saw a lot of things that I was used to, except I did see this one alkene reaction that kinda threw me off since I hadn’t looked at it in a while. Make sure you review all the reactions before the test!
*My strategy for the sciences was to take my time and go through each problem, and only select an answer if I was sure that that’s what I wanted to pick. When I was doing the practice exams, I saw that 90 minutes was definitely a lot of time. Therefore, instead of going through it the first time quickly and making careless mistakes (ESP with the chems), my thought was that I would go through it slowly and make sure I get the easy ones definitely correct. I still had around 12 minutes left even after doing this, and so I went back to the ones I marked to review them one more time.
PAT (22) – In general very similar in difficulty to a BC Test. No rock keyholes (thank God), but keyholes were still kinda difficult. I think TFE was average, angles were a little bit easier than BC, hole punching was very easy, and pattern folding was similar to BC. Cube counting, though! I don’t know what it was but I screwed up like twice with this, even though I had no real problems with it throughout the practice tests. But thankfully I had enough time to finish everything and go over around 4 or 5 questions that I had marked.
RC (26) - Definitely a lot easier than any practice exam I took on BC. I was so happy when I was taking the exam (as weird as that sounds lmao). The questions were pretty much in order of the text, and the texts were all shorter and easier to read than BC ones (PTL). One of them was 7 paragraphs lol. Around 90% of the questions were very simple fact questions that you could easily S&D (again, because the questions were in order). I had 10 minutes to review around 2 or 3 questions that I was stuck on.
QR (29) - I think QR was similar in difficulty as the BC tests. The first question was a simplification question and I was stuck on it for a good 2 min so I passed it. I came back to it at the end and just ended up plugging in random numbers to get the answer. I definitely paced myself through this section, and I think there were around 2 or 3 questions that I wasn’t sure about. Just as I did for my first one, I reasoned it out in different ways and used the calculator sometimes to prove that the other answers weren’t correct. I think it’s definitely important to be flexible in the QR section. If you don’t get it, skip it! When you come back to it, try to see it from a different angle or try to eliminate all the other answers. I think that especially for QR, you need to really tell yourself that getting the most difficult question on the section isn’t getting you the good score. Getting the MOST right is. So again, do the ones you know well/are easy and get the most right as possible. One more thing – use the calculator to check your answers!
V. Tips/Misc Notes:
-The day before the test, I drove to the testing center around the same time, and I went inside Prometric to talk to the front desk person to go over again what I needed to bring, what the rules were, where the bathroom is, etc. Doing this definitely helps you more relaxed on the day of, knowing that you know exactly what you will be doing at the testing center.
-You are allowed to highlight the text for RC and strikeout answer options for all parts. This actually helped me a lot. Also, the break time is now 30 minutes. I think I spent around 20.
-Drink as little as possible on the day of and eat something hearty and easy on the stomach.
During Studying:
1) Exercise
I started going to the gym with my friend during this time, and this was one of the best decisions I made because it kept my mind and body refreshed while I was studying day in and day out. I also made this decision because I know that in dental school everyone needs to have something they do to relieve pressure from academia- might as well get into the habit early.
2) Change your studying environment
I think I went to like 3 or 4 different cafes and a library while studying for the test, and it helped me not go insane lol
3) Use flash cards
For bio but also for the chems – if there’s anything that you are forgetting easily, make flash cards for it and review it once in a while. I know a lot of peoplel found anki to be helpful, and I think it’s a really good program. However, I personally didn’t really use it. If I had to do this whole process again, I think I would use anki from the beginning, especially for bio.
4) Make your own notes
It definitely helps making your own notes because it helps you retain the material and you always have something to refer back to/add to.
5) Keep yourself happy but learn how to say no
You need some days off and you should spend time with family/friends. But if you are studying during summer break like me, you need to know how to say no sometimes. If you are devoting this time to the DAT, it should be your priority. You can celebrate once you get that dream score!
VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS:
I hope this has been/will be helpful to many people who are studying for the DAT because I, too, have learned a lot from reading other people’s breakdowns.
This post was a lot longer than I thought it would be, and I might not have said everything I wanted to say. Regardless, I am very happy I went through with the decision to write a breakdown of the DAT because it also helped me get a really good closure to this journey.
Thank you, SDN community, for helping me along the past 2.5 months, and I am happy to be giving back in this way.
My results were:
PAT – 22
QR – 29
RC – 26
BIO – 21
GC – 26
OC – 26
TS – 23
AA – 26
*Let me just tell you – as soon as I got my score report I ran to my car and just started screaming and laughing at the same time. If anyone saw me they probably would’ve thought I was possessed lol
PREFACE
If you are here (on SDN) because you want to know how to do well on the DAT, you are definitely at the right place! The amount of knowledge you can gain from previous test-takers is invaluable, no doubt, but this is only the first step. Keep in mind that there is no short cut or even the one perfect study schedule that gets everyone to a great score. Why? We all learn differently, and there are many versions of the test. Therefore, my experience may be very different from yours. What matters the most is that you do your best in learning and keep a good grasp of the material, in whatever way is best suited for you.
I. Rant on Life – The First 2 Years of College
Going into this journey, I felt ready to do all I can to do get a good score. It was definitely in part because I wanted a solid score to strengthen my application. But to be honest, I mainly wanted this experience to really challenge me and allow me to see how dedicated I could be to the field of dentistry.
I am a rising senior at Rutgers, the state school of NJ, and I came in to college not knowing what I was passionate about and not caring about my future. I thought that things would “work out on their own,” (but life doesn’t work like that) and I spent the first 3 semesters of college going with the flow. I was not doing poorly, since I went to a high school that focused a lot on academic rigor and growth, but I didn’t know why I even had to study. One night during my sophomore year, I just couldn’t go to sleep, knowing that I was only giving mediocre effort into the years of my life that will determine how I do the rest of it. There was this sudden fear of becoming regretful when it got too late. From then on, my view on academics/life changed completely.
Coming back to the DAT, I felt that if I couldn’t even put in 100% of my effort into a test such as the DAT, I wouldn’t be able to do that in dental school and even as a dentist. There are going to be many times in college and probably in dental school when you question the importance of studying and devoting so much into it. And so, that makes it even more important for you to have a clear vision of your goal and where you want to be. That’s just how you get through all the struggles in life. I’m sure for all of you reading this, you have an image of what kind of dentist or even just what kind of person you want yourself to be. It’s important to always keep that in your mind.
II. DAT – First Impressions of the Beast
I gave myself a good 2.5 months to study for the DAT (6/6 – 8/26). That’s because I knew I would need that much time. Also, I worked on Fridays and Saturdays as a dental assistant, and most of the time was too tired to study after work. There are people who have studied for 2 weeks, 4 weeks, etc. that did better than me. You know yourself the best, so make a decision that will best fit how you study.
A little more background on where I was with each subject before I started studying:
BIO- I took bio 1 and 2 in freshman year, genetics in sophomore year, and some bio electives in my junior year. I pretty much had 0 memory of bio 1 and 2 because I crammed the hell out of everything during freshman year, and this is what the test is based on, so I had to re-learn almost everything. However, I remembered a lot from Genetics, which made heredity and DNA stuff a breeze.
GC- I AP’d out of Chem 1, which definitely did not help, and I kinda bs’d my way through chem 2, so gchem was another subject that I had to re-learn a good chunk of (esp Acid/Base, kinetics, parts of thermodynamics).
OC- I took ochem junior year and this was when I kinda got my act together and studied my butt off, so ochem was fresh in my mind and DAT ochem was way easier than college ochem. I definitely spent the least amount of time on it compared to the other sciences.
PAT- Man, I sucked so much when I first started (and tbh I don’t think I’m very accurate right now either lol) but it’s something that gets better with practice!
RC- I lived in the States pretty much my entire life, took classes for SAT prep and did pretty well in reading, and so I went in believing that I had the capability to understand my primary language … lol I will talk about this more later.
QR- Being a Korean American child living in a very Korean neighborhood flooded with after school academies and test prep centers, my Korean mother (who also worked as a math teacher in Korea despite her degree in French literature lol) had a firm belief that doing well in math meant success in school. When I was in elementary school, she sent me to after school academies, where I used to do like 100 math probs in an hour or some crazy sh** like that and had 200 probs for hw! Tbh though, this helped me so much for QR LOL. Not gonna lie, I told my mom that all the hard work during elementary/middle school helped me a lot for this test. Definitely the section that I had the least problems with/studied the least
So, before I started actually studying, I spent just about one whole day to look on SDN to see what I would need to do to be successful (as many of you probably are doing rn as you’re reading this). This is probably the best use of SDN for the DAT. I went through breakdown after breakdown, but I ended up choosing around 10 detailed ones of people who did well and made a Word doc about what materials they used, tips on doing well, how much they studied, etc. The general consensus seemed to be that people used:
BIO – Cliff’s AP Bio 3rd Ed. (not 4th), Destroyer, Qvault, Campbell
OC and GC – Chad’s Videos + Destroyer
PAT – Crack DAT PAT, Bootcamp, Achiever
RC – Crack DAT Reading, Scientific American Articles
QR – Math Destroyer
I stumbled upon DAT bootcamp through SDN and found Ari’s 10-week study schedule.
I decided to follow it, since it utilized most of the materials I wanted to use, as well as 5 full length tests + the 2007, 2009 DAT. I had 12 weeks to finish it, but 2 of the 7 days of the week I was working, and in July, I had another commitment that made it hard for me to study on Sundays, as well. I ended up just barely finishing the schedule by the day of my test.
Materials that I Used:
BIO: Cliff’s AP Bio 3rd Ed, Feralis Bio Notes, Ty Jacobs’ Bio Study Guide, Bootcamp, Qvault Test 1, Crash Course Biology Videos, Wikipedia/Google
GC: Chad’s Videos, DAT Destroyer, Bootcamp, Khan Academy Videos
OC: Chad’s Videos, College Notes, DAT Destroyer, Bootcamp, Master Organic Chemistry
PAT: Bootcamp, Youtube vids
RC: Bootcamp
III. Walk-through of the Study Schedule
I feel like I don’t really see people reviewing the 10-week schedule so I wanted to walk you through what I felt about it. I first got all the materials needed for Ari’s 10-week schedule. There is an online-pdf version of Cliff’s, which saves you like $15. I bought the video subscription for Chad’s videos with a discount (15%?) you get if you are an ASDA member, the Destroyer set (DAT + Math) for $200, as well as the Bootcamp subscription for around $140.
For WEEKS 1-4 (Learning the Content), I pretty much followed the schedule exactly, finishing what I needed for that week right on time.
For WEEKS 5-10 (Practicing the Material), I made some adjustments to the schedule. For example, during week 9 when you are supposed to take the full length tests, I did more destroyer problems (40 bio 30 gc 30 oc) timed rather than doing the ones from the full length tests because they were problems I had seen before. You can read about more changes I made in the descriptions of each section below:
BIOLOGY (21):
WEEKS 1-4: I started with reading through Cliff’s and handwriting notes from it. I really recommend handwriting notes (especially for bio). It’s been proven that handwriting notes helps students retain more information than typing them. I really think that drawing out all the diagrams and relationships for bio helped me understand/visualize the concepts. I didn’t really do the read one day, re-read next day type of system, and I didn’t think that was necessary. But one mistake I made was not really memorizing/studying my notes for each week. Because there was so much to go through, I got lazy with going back to my notes after I took them for the first time, but I think I would’ve been less stressed in the 2nd half of studying if I did memorize as I went on.
WEEKS 5-9: I got so stressed during this time, especially around week 6 and 7 because of bio that I gave myself like a one-week break. (It took me two weeks to finish week 6) This was partly because I didn’t really have much memorized. I started Destroyer, but was getting like 9-11 wrong out of around 30. I know it’s fairly common to get a lot wrong for destroyer, but I felt stressed because I felt like I wasn’t really learning from my wrong answers. This is clearly an example of when “just following a schedule” won’t get you a good score. Around week 8, I started going back to major concepts that I was struggling with, and re-reading my notes and watching YouTube videos/reading Ty’s & Feralis’ notes on them. This definitely helped because unlike destroyer, these things are meant to give a complete overview of a topic rather than one random fact.
WEEK OF (10): I spent a good chunk of my time on Bio during this week. Tbh, I probably put in the most hours for bio in general. I made sure I reviewed all my notes and flashcards and memorized everything that I had taken notes on.
LOOKING BACK: Doing Destroyer questions definitely discouraged me in the beginning because I felt like I knew nothing. To be honest, I don’t think Cliff’s 3rd edition is all that great because it doesn’t really provide everything you need (esp for animal form/fxn). Also, going into destroyer right after doing Cliff’s, I think, is not really a good idea. I think you should read through Ty’s or Feralis’ Notes (I personally preferred Ty’s because they were a bit easier to follow) instead of reading through Cliffs. I would start destroyer later (maybe week 7?) and do more problems each day. By week 5, I had the wrong idea that I was ready for bio. If you start off with something more comprehensive/extensive and go through that slowly, it should help you more. Also, I am a visual learner and memorize things best if I can associate something with an image or even a chart. I feel like I really wasn’t taking that into account when I was following this schedule. As I’ve said before, you know yourself the best. Just following this schedule doesn’t necessarily mean you know the material! Think about that as you’re going along.
*BC SCORES: 23 / 19 / 17 / 18 / 19 (My BC Scores aren’t totally representative because I took them when I didn’t really have everything memorized/reviewed)
2007: 20
2009: 22
**Sorry, I lost my 2007, 2009 scores for everything so I will try my best to remember what I got on these. But I generally do so it shouldn’t be too off!
GEN CHEM and O CHEM (Both 26):
I’ll group these together because they were similar enough in terms of what the schedule asked you to do for these subjects.
WEEKS 1-4: I watched Chad’s vids and did the quizzes right after. Again, I hand wrote the notes, following the vids. I think that for the chems, it might be better to go through the videos quickly the first time, and when you start doing destroyer/bootcamp q’s, rewatch the videos again on the topics that you need more help in.
WEEKS 5-9: I followed the schedule pretty well for gc and oc; I did the bootcamp tests, saw what I got wrong, and reviewed the topics that I struggled with the most. I think I was getting around 7-9 wrong the first time around for gc and around 3-5 for oc. As mentioned above, for week 9 (bc full length tests) I ended up doing 30 destroyer problems for both subjects, timed.
WEEK OF (10): Other than the 2007, 2009 DAT, I didn’t do more practice problems. I reviewed the questions I got wrong (the second time I went through Destroyer) and memorized everything I needed to from my notes (GC: solubility à NAG SAG pms castro bear [LOOK THIS UP!], molec geometry, bond characteristics, etc) and (OC: reactions, E2/E1/SN1/SN2 condtions, lab techniques, IR/NMR, etc.)
LOOKING BACK: I think Ari’s schedule for the chems were really good. Chad’s videos were an excellent foundation and doing the destroyer questions was great practice. I think you can get by doing the destroyer just once instead of twice, but in that case you have to go back to the questions you got wrong multiple times to remind yourself what you did wrong. Also, after going trhough it once, you should definitely go back to your notes, re-watch Chad’s vids, or even watch Khan Academy vids on the subjects that you are shaky on. I did this for Acid/base, thermodynamics, kinetics during the last two weeks, and I think that’s the reason I did well. Overall, destroyer was more than enough practice for the chems.
*GC BC SCORES: 19 / 20 / 21 / 24 / 21 (My BC Scores aren’t totally representative because I took them when I didn’t really have everything memorized/reviewed)
OC BC SCORES: 19 / 24 / 20 / 26 / 23
2007: GC- 29 OC- 30 (lol 2007 was a joke)
2009: GC- 22? OC- 23
QUANTITATIVE REASONING (29):
I watched Chad’s videos and did the quizzes. The QR videos were not as good as the chem vids. But still, there were certain parts, such as the rate distance time a.k.a. the # of workers/amount of time type of problems, that definitely helped. However, if you have a weak math background, DEFINITELY go through these as they will be a good starting point.
Math destroyer was also really good. I think I did around 9 of these tests? All kind of spaced out whenever I felt like I had the time throughout my studying schedule. Timing myself with these tests definitely helped me pace myself for the real one.
BC SCORES: 24 / 22/ 30 / 23 / Didn’t do the last one (I don’t remember why lol)
2007- 24?
2009- Didn’t do – I read that 2009 was a lot harder and not necessary to do (I completely agree).
READING COMPREHENSION (26):
I didn’t really do anything lol. I kind of just yolo’d it and didn’t read the scientific american articles because I was lazy after spending the whole day studying. I feel like it really isn’t necessary to do this, though, to do well on RC for the DAT.
I just remember one of the RC tests from the full-length tests during Week 9 where I got an 18. I was so shocked with this since it was the week before my exam and I hadn’t been doing anything to prepare (lol I kinda hated myself when I took that first test) I tested out different methods (Ari’s method, the BYU4you balanced method, Vicviper’s method, etc.) on the practice tests. I realized that I didn’t do any better when I read through the entire passage compared to when I didn’t really read through it. I ended up just going straight to the questions and used search & destroy to find answers in the passage. I passed it if it wasn’t a question asking for a simple fact but asked for tone or overall message of the passage, etc. (basically anything that I needed to read through the entire passage for). I marked these and once I got through with the rest of the questions, I was able to make a good guess since I had a feel of the whole passage by then.
BC SCORES: 21 / 18 / 23 / 21 / Didn’t do the last one
2007- I honestly don’t remember at all
2009- 22?
PAT (22):
As you can tell from my first score, I sucked at PAT when I began, which was pretty much when I took PAT Test 6, and I got discouraged by that. From then on, I made sure that I would practice (almost every day… lol) with the BC generators. On the full tests, my strategy was to solve Keyholes and TFE first, skip the angles, do the rest of the exam, and come back to angles at the end. I realized that this created the least amount of stress for me.
The schedule tells you to try out the generators but mainly tells you to do the PAT trainer game every day. I didn’t do this mainly because I was lazy after studying sciences lol. Therefore, I don’t really know the effectiveness of the trainer game. Clearly my scores stayed similar throughout. I think that if I started the BC generators earlier in June (my first month) rather than July (second), I probably could have done better on the actual exam, so take that into consideration.
IV. My Exam (Each Section)
BIO(21) – Definitely had mostly general and straightforward questions, not to the amount of detail contained in Destroyer. I don’t remember it being overwhelmingly focused on a particular topic, though I do think I only had 1 or 2 questions on anatomy, which made me really sad because that’s the subject that I really devoted in studying in depth.
GC (26) - It was pretty basic stuff, similar to the easy questions in Destroyer/BC. I think I had maybe one or two questions that I was stuck on.
OC (26) - Also no real surprises here, I saw a lot of things that I was used to, except I did see this one alkene reaction that kinda threw me off since I hadn’t looked at it in a while. Make sure you review all the reactions before the test!
*My strategy for the sciences was to take my time and go through each problem, and only select an answer if I was sure that that’s what I wanted to pick. When I was doing the practice exams, I saw that 90 minutes was definitely a lot of time. Therefore, instead of going through it the first time quickly and making careless mistakes (ESP with the chems), my thought was that I would go through it slowly and make sure I get the easy ones definitely correct. I still had around 12 minutes left even after doing this, and so I went back to the ones I marked to review them one more time.
PAT (22) – In general very similar in difficulty to a BC Test. No rock keyholes (thank God), but keyholes were still kinda difficult. I think TFE was average, angles were a little bit easier than BC, hole punching was very easy, and pattern folding was similar to BC. Cube counting, though! I don’t know what it was but I screwed up like twice with this, even though I had no real problems with it throughout the practice tests. But thankfully I had enough time to finish everything and go over around 4 or 5 questions that I had marked.
RC (26) - Definitely a lot easier than any practice exam I took on BC. I was so happy when I was taking the exam (as weird as that sounds lmao). The questions were pretty much in order of the text, and the texts were all shorter and easier to read than BC ones (PTL). One of them was 7 paragraphs lol. Around 90% of the questions were very simple fact questions that you could easily S&D (again, because the questions were in order). I had 10 minutes to review around 2 or 3 questions that I was stuck on.
QR (29) - I think QR was similar in difficulty as the BC tests. The first question was a simplification question and I was stuck on it for a good 2 min so I passed it. I came back to it at the end and just ended up plugging in random numbers to get the answer. I definitely paced myself through this section, and I think there were around 2 or 3 questions that I wasn’t sure about. Just as I did for my first one, I reasoned it out in different ways and used the calculator sometimes to prove that the other answers weren’t correct. I think it’s definitely important to be flexible in the QR section. If you don’t get it, skip it! When you come back to it, try to see it from a different angle or try to eliminate all the other answers. I think that especially for QR, you need to really tell yourself that getting the most difficult question on the section isn’t getting you the good score. Getting the MOST right is. So again, do the ones you know well/are easy and get the most right as possible. One more thing – use the calculator to check your answers!
V. Tips/Misc Notes:
-The day before the test, I drove to the testing center around the same time, and I went inside Prometric to talk to the front desk person to go over again what I needed to bring, what the rules were, where the bathroom is, etc. Doing this definitely helps you more relaxed on the day of, knowing that you know exactly what you will be doing at the testing center.
-You are allowed to highlight the text for RC and strikeout answer options for all parts. This actually helped me a lot. Also, the break time is now 30 minutes. I think I spent around 20.
-Drink as little as possible on the day of and eat something hearty and easy on the stomach.
During Studying:
1) Exercise
I started going to the gym with my friend during this time, and this was one of the best decisions I made because it kept my mind and body refreshed while I was studying day in and day out. I also made this decision because I know that in dental school everyone needs to have something they do to relieve pressure from academia- might as well get into the habit early.
2) Change your studying environment
I think I went to like 3 or 4 different cafes and a library while studying for the test, and it helped me not go insane lol
3) Use flash cards
For bio but also for the chems – if there’s anything that you are forgetting easily, make flash cards for it and review it once in a while. I know a lot of peoplel found anki to be helpful, and I think it’s a really good program. However, I personally didn’t really use it. If I had to do this whole process again, I think I would use anki from the beginning, especially for bio.
4) Make your own notes
It definitely helps making your own notes because it helps you retain the material and you always have something to refer back to/add to.
5) Keep yourself happy but learn how to say no
You need some days off and you should spend time with family/friends. But if you are studying during summer break like me, you need to know how to say no sometimes. If you are devoting this time to the DAT, it should be your priority. You can celebrate once you get that dream score!
VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS:
I hope this has been/will be helpful to many people who are studying for the DAT because I, too, have learned a lot from reading other people’s breakdowns.
This post was a lot longer than I thought it would be, and I might not have said everything I wanted to say. Regardless, I am very happy I went through with the decision to write a breakdown of the DAT because it also helped me get a really good closure to this journey.
Thank you, SDN community, for helping me along the past 2.5 months, and I am happy to be giving back in this way.
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