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I got my Canadian DAT scores back earlier last week and I managed to score 98th percentile or higher in every section except reading comprehension. Since there isn’t much information on the Canadian DAT on these forums, I thought I would share my experience on how I studied and scored so high on my DAT.
My Scores breakdown (Nov 5th, 2016)
Biol: 25 (98th percentile)
Chem: 23 (99th percentile)
PAT: 24 (98th percentile)
RC: 21 (78th percentile)
TS: 24 (100th percentile)
AA: 23 (98th percentile)
Score sheet:
imgur.com/a/huuRh
Practice Test Scores for DAT Bootcamp:
Biol: 24/24/24/24/24
Chem: 22/25/23/22/25
PAT: 21/21/20/19/20/20/23/23/23/22
RC: 20/19/18/x/x
Practice Test Scores for DAT Crusher:
PAT: 20/21/23/24
RC: 21
Note: the scores I didn’t include were ones I did not do.
Background
I just graduated from a 4-year biology program at York earlier this year and decided to take a year off before I apply everywhere. My GPA is fairly reasonable (3.86 with my worst year dropped) and so I had to kill my DAT to be competitive at most schools. I ended up studying for the DAT from the end of classes (around April) to November, so about 5 months while doing full time research in a physiology lab and taking one course.
Resources I used:
1. DAT Bootcamp
2. DAT Crusher (A new Canadian DAT resource)
3. DAT Destroyer
4. Chad’s videos
5. Cliff’s notes 3rd edition PDF and Craig savage youtube videos (mainly for plant and fungi review)
6. AK lectures (This one I highly recommend for overall review. Couple with cliffs. Although cliff’s is sufficient for a bulk of your DAT needs, cliff’s still lacks several key categories which can be tested. Although AK lectures offers a wide variety of topics, I only used it for bone, cartilage, joints, gram +/- bacteria, several physiological pathways that cliff’s didn’t cover such as renin-angiotensin, the liver, the skin and subcutaneous fat anatomy).
Study schedule
I did not use a defined study schedule per se, and it was a bit unorthodox at times, for I mainly studied based on my gut feeling, I would study what I thought would be most beneficial for me. For example, I would either spend 1-2 weeks on just biology or on the other extreme, not touch biology for a whole month. The moral of this being, don’t try to conform to pre-made study schedules; you know yourself best and should use them as guides on what topics you should normally be covering over a given time frame, rather than following them to the cue.
Biology
From second year, my friends in dental schools informed me that the DAT mainly covered physiology, ecology, taxonomy/cladistics and a bit on anatomy and molecular biology. Thus, to cover my bases, I took several upper year molecular science courses, a wet lab thesis project which taught me various modern physiology and molecular techniques (that can and may be asked on the official), as well as taking every course from various departments that my university offered on physiology (both vertebrae and invertebrate physiology) and several chemical applications on biological systems in fourth year. So, while preparing for the DAT, I put the least emphasis on this topic and my score from all my practice tests (be it bootcamp or crusher) was mostly around the mid 20s to 30, similar to my official. The only section that I put a decent amount of time for was the fungi and land plant systems, which I never went across during my undergrad career.
To the first-year pre-dents that are interested in dental, I suggest you to tailor your courses in the upper years to help you in the test as well as for dental school. I viewed my 3rd and 4th year as a long-term DAT studying investments rather than just simply courses that I needed to pass for interviews.
Chemistry
Disclaimer: the first two weeks prior to starting chemistry, I indirectly practiced chemistry but only doing mental multiplication, long divisions, estimations and most importantly, root/log estimations. Knowing how to do a question is one thing, but it’s a total different beast all together if you attempt to solve the same question without a calculator while being stressed for time.
Now onto my preparations: although I continued taking chemistry courses after first year, they were all related to organic chemistry. Thus, I was out of luck when I attempted to do practice problems from various sources, especially the famous DAT Destroyer. After searching a bit and hearing feedback from friends, I came across the lovely gem that was Chad’s videos. I watched his videos across a two-week time span and re-read my notes of him continuously throughout the period of my studies to keep myself fresh. I did his online tests around 2-3 times and the DAT Destroyer 3-4 times, with some questions that I highlighted ranging around 6 times. Although it seems excessive and redundant, it wasn’t and it honestly helped me tremendously, for when I finally began timing myself on the practice tests, I found it to be a walk in the park. As people have mentioned, DAT destroyer is not meant to be timed or to be treated like a test. I used it religiously to LEARN concepts not taught by chad, or to hone in on and strengthen my weaknesses. After going through chad and destroyer, my scores throughout in all my tests for the various resources I used ranged between 23 to 30, which is in the range of what I got in my official score.
Final note about sciences: remember, it’s better to understand instead of memorizing random terminologies, especially when it comes to chemistry. If you simply learn a few rules, you can extrapolate and even have a very solid foundation to make assumptions needed to make a decent educated guess. Also, remember this test isn’t about how well you do, it’s about how well you do relative to the populace. Thus, I went in expecting to get 2-3 questions wrong in biology and 1-2 wrong in chemistry (which is what ended up happening on the actual, since I searched up the questions I had a hard time answering), and I still ended up fine overall.
PAT
This was the most difficult section for me to overcome. In fact, I probably spent the most amount of time on this section. At first, I started out using DAT Bootcamp and it was tremendously helpful when I first started, especially because of their top front end and pattern folding generator. However, after a month or two of practice, I plateaued at 20-21, after completing all their PAT practice tests, and never scored anything higher. The areas that really hurt my score was angle ranking and key holes. In retrospect, the angles on the DAT official were a bit easier and thus practicing on bootcamp’s 3 degree different angle questions really assisted me.
Later, I came across and started using DAT Crusher after trying their free sample test. It was by far the best resource I used for the PAT because of how challenging it was, especially the keyhole section. At first, I was left dumbfounded and frustrated for, I could get 5-10 questions right on this section. But their tests forced me to increase my observational skills for the PAT because of how difficult their tests were. In my opinion, this helped me a lot, for I felt that by practicing harder questions (which the resources I previously used lacked in several areas), I would be in the most optimal shape to do well on the official. After completing DATCrusher’s tests, I returned to bootcamp’s last 4 PAT tests and I noticed my scores jumping 2-3 points on the PAT, and even higher for my actual test (24).
Reading Comp
I didn’t really use any techniques, I simply read half of the passage and answered until I couldn’t answer anymore. Then I employed either search and destroy, where I would read the next two question and read the passage until I came across the answer, or skip the question that I gauged to take up more than 10-20 seconds to answer.
Compared to bootcamp, where I scored around 18s, the Canadian DAT was much easier, mainly because I felt that the passages were much shorter, so I had more time to read and answer. To me, the comprehension wasn’t an issue, but rather the timing, where I attempted to finish the bootcamp test in 50 minutes (which is the time frame that the Canadian DAT gives you) rather than 60 minutes. Plus, bootcamp asked more author tones and inferring questions whereas the Canadian DAT was more straightforward. Other than bootcamp, I used DATCrusher once for reading comprehension since they launched their first sample test a week before my DAT. It was fairly accurate of the type of questions and difficulty of what I saw on my DAT, although it was not a complete test. The other bonus of DATcrusher was their test layout was much closer to how the Canadian DAT reading passages are laid out so it simulated the Canadian DAT much better. Hopefully DATcrusher launches more reading comprehension tests and I would recommend crusher based on what I saw on the sample and my comparison to my DAT I wrote.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, the DAT is one of those exams that you don’t want to write again in your life. I would spend as much time as you can to study for in the summer because once school starts, you’ll probably be really busy with courses to study for the DAT. I was fortunate I wasn’t taking a heavy courseload but I think my scores could have been lower if I had a heavier courseload. At the end, it comes down to the amount of time you put in and practice. Literally practice with as many questions and practice tests as you can.
**If you have any questions, feel free to message me**
My Scores breakdown (Nov 5th, 2016)
Biol: 25 (98th percentile)
Chem: 23 (99th percentile)
PAT: 24 (98th percentile)
RC: 21 (78th percentile)
TS: 24 (100th percentile)
AA: 23 (98th percentile)
Score sheet:
imgur.com/a/huuRh
Practice Test Scores for DAT Bootcamp:
Biol: 24/24/24/24/24
Chem: 22/25/23/22/25
PAT: 21/21/20/19/20/20/23/23/23/22
RC: 20/19/18/x/x
Practice Test Scores for DAT Crusher:
PAT: 20/21/23/24
RC: 21
Note: the scores I didn’t include were ones I did not do.
Background
I just graduated from a 4-year biology program at York earlier this year and decided to take a year off before I apply everywhere. My GPA is fairly reasonable (3.86 with my worst year dropped) and so I had to kill my DAT to be competitive at most schools. I ended up studying for the DAT from the end of classes (around April) to November, so about 5 months while doing full time research in a physiology lab and taking one course.
Resources I used:
1. DAT Bootcamp
2. DAT Crusher (A new Canadian DAT resource)
3. DAT Destroyer
4. Chad’s videos
5. Cliff’s notes 3rd edition PDF and Craig savage youtube videos (mainly for plant and fungi review)
6. AK lectures (This one I highly recommend for overall review. Couple with cliffs. Although cliff’s is sufficient for a bulk of your DAT needs, cliff’s still lacks several key categories which can be tested. Although AK lectures offers a wide variety of topics, I only used it for bone, cartilage, joints, gram +/- bacteria, several physiological pathways that cliff’s didn’t cover such as renin-angiotensin, the liver, the skin and subcutaneous fat anatomy).
Study schedule
I did not use a defined study schedule per se, and it was a bit unorthodox at times, for I mainly studied based on my gut feeling, I would study what I thought would be most beneficial for me. For example, I would either spend 1-2 weeks on just biology or on the other extreme, not touch biology for a whole month. The moral of this being, don’t try to conform to pre-made study schedules; you know yourself best and should use them as guides on what topics you should normally be covering over a given time frame, rather than following them to the cue.
Biology
From second year, my friends in dental schools informed me that the DAT mainly covered physiology, ecology, taxonomy/cladistics and a bit on anatomy and molecular biology. Thus, to cover my bases, I took several upper year molecular science courses, a wet lab thesis project which taught me various modern physiology and molecular techniques (that can and may be asked on the official), as well as taking every course from various departments that my university offered on physiology (both vertebrae and invertebrate physiology) and several chemical applications on biological systems in fourth year. So, while preparing for the DAT, I put the least emphasis on this topic and my score from all my practice tests (be it bootcamp or crusher) was mostly around the mid 20s to 30, similar to my official. The only section that I put a decent amount of time for was the fungi and land plant systems, which I never went across during my undergrad career.
To the first-year pre-dents that are interested in dental, I suggest you to tailor your courses in the upper years to help you in the test as well as for dental school. I viewed my 3rd and 4th year as a long-term DAT studying investments rather than just simply courses that I needed to pass for interviews.
Chemistry
Disclaimer: the first two weeks prior to starting chemistry, I indirectly practiced chemistry but only doing mental multiplication, long divisions, estimations and most importantly, root/log estimations. Knowing how to do a question is one thing, but it’s a total different beast all together if you attempt to solve the same question without a calculator while being stressed for time.
Now onto my preparations: although I continued taking chemistry courses after first year, they were all related to organic chemistry. Thus, I was out of luck when I attempted to do practice problems from various sources, especially the famous DAT Destroyer. After searching a bit and hearing feedback from friends, I came across the lovely gem that was Chad’s videos. I watched his videos across a two-week time span and re-read my notes of him continuously throughout the period of my studies to keep myself fresh. I did his online tests around 2-3 times and the DAT Destroyer 3-4 times, with some questions that I highlighted ranging around 6 times. Although it seems excessive and redundant, it wasn’t and it honestly helped me tremendously, for when I finally began timing myself on the practice tests, I found it to be a walk in the park. As people have mentioned, DAT destroyer is not meant to be timed or to be treated like a test. I used it religiously to LEARN concepts not taught by chad, or to hone in on and strengthen my weaknesses. After going through chad and destroyer, my scores throughout in all my tests for the various resources I used ranged between 23 to 30, which is in the range of what I got in my official score.
Final note about sciences: remember, it’s better to understand instead of memorizing random terminologies, especially when it comes to chemistry. If you simply learn a few rules, you can extrapolate and even have a very solid foundation to make assumptions needed to make a decent educated guess. Also, remember this test isn’t about how well you do, it’s about how well you do relative to the populace. Thus, I went in expecting to get 2-3 questions wrong in biology and 1-2 wrong in chemistry (which is what ended up happening on the actual, since I searched up the questions I had a hard time answering), and I still ended up fine overall.
PAT
This was the most difficult section for me to overcome. In fact, I probably spent the most amount of time on this section. At first, I started out using DAT Bootcamp and it was tremendously helpful when I first started, especially because of their top front end and pattern folding generator. However, after a month or two of practice, I plateaued at 20-21, after completing all their PAT practice tests, and never scored anything higher. The areas that really hurt my score was angle ranking and key holes. In retrospect, the angles on the DAT official were a bit easier and thus practicing on bootcamp’s 3 degree different angle questions really assisted me.
Later, I came across and started using DAT Crusher after trying their free sample test. It was by far the best resource I used for the PAT because of how challenging it was, especially the keyhole section. At first, I was left dumbfounded and frustrated for, I could get 5-10 questions right on this section. But their tests forced me to increase my observational skills for the PAT because of how difficult their tests were. In my opinion, this helped me a lot, for I felt that by practicing harder questions (which the resources I previously used lacked in several areas), I would be in the most optimal shape to do well on the official. After completing DATCrusher’s tests, I returned to bootcamp’s last 4 PAT tests and I noticed my scores jumping 2-3 points on the PAT, and even higher for my actual test (24).
Reading Comp
I didn’t really use any techniques, I simply read half of the passage and answered until I couldn’t answer anymore. Then I employed either search and destroy, where I would read the next two question and read the passage until I came across the answer, or skip the question that I gauged to take up more than 10-20 seconds to answer.
Compared to bootcamp, where I scored around 18s, the Canadian DAT was much easier, mainly because I felt that the passages were much shorter, so I had more time to read and answer. To me, the comprehension wasn’t an issue, but rather the timing, where I attempted to finish the bootcamp test in 50 minutes (which is the time frame that the Canadian DAT gives you) rather than 60 minutes. Plus, bootcamp asked more author tones and inferring questions whereas the Canadian DAT was more straightforward. Other than bootcamp, I used DATCrusher once for reading comprehension since they launched their first sample test a week before my DAT. It was fairly accurate of the type of questions and difficulty of what I saw on my DAT, although it was not a complete test. The other bonus of DATcrusher was their test layout was much closer to how the Canadian DAT reading passages are laid out so it simulated the Canadian DAT much better. Hopefully DATcrusher launches more reading comprehension tests and I would recommend crusher based on what I saw on the sample and my comparison to my DAT I wrote.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, the DAT is one of those exams that you don’t want to write again in your life. I would spend as much time as you can to study for in the summer because once school starts, you’ll probably be really busy with courses to study for the DAT. I was fortunate I wasn’t taking a heavy courseload but I think my scores could have been lower if I had a heavier courseload. At the end, it comes down to the amount of time you put in and practice. Literally practice with as many questions and practice tests as you can.
**If you have any questions, feel free to message me
**
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