Hey guys!! I finished taking the DAT yesterday and ended up scoring pretty high. I was definitely surprised when I saw my scores, and was expecting to get around a 19-20AA (a score I would've been thrilled with, so you can only imagine my reaction to seeing the scores below). I was planning on posting a breakdown regardless since many of the breakdowns helped me shape-up the basis of my studying. Thank you all! Now, let's get into it:
Bio:22
GC:22
OC: 25
PAT:21
RC:20
QR:20
TS:22
AA:22
Some quick background: I'm a senior biology major at a top 40 university, and studied for about a month for about 6-10 hours each day, pretty hardcore. In retrospect, I should've spent more time studying over summer as opposed to during the semester (since I have to play "catch-up" in all my classes) but it is what it is
.
Materials used: Dat Destroyer, Math Destroyer, DAT Bootcamp, Chad's Videos, Cliffs Bio 3rd edition, my own version of Feralis.
NOTE: I truly feel that with these preparatory materials, anyone can succeed as long as you study hard. No matter what, be truthful to yourself when studying. All of these materials are 10/10 for me, as I feel all of them definitely helped me succeed.
How I studied for each section:
Bio 22: I am a bio major, so I was feeling pretty confident, but still, I knew that they would probably test me on really obscure topics, and they did...so be ready for that. Cliff's AP Bio coupled with Feralis Bio notes for content, and DAT destroyer and DAT Bootcamp for questions. DO ALL OF THESE. They're amazing.
GC 22: Gen chem I and II were BY FAR my worst classes I've ever taken in my life...so if I'm able to reverse this, I am absolutely certain all of you guys can too!!! Chad's videos + quizzes pretty much covered everything that was tested. I supplemented these with DAT destroyer and Bootcamp, again, and really saw improvements quickly.
OC 25: Orgo was my in college. I only took orgo I, but I took it two years ago, so I had to re-learn everything from Chad and then practiced my knowledge, again (surprise-surprise), with Destroyer + Bootcamp.
PAT 21: Bootcamp >>>> CDP. CDP was helpful (I guess) for introducing everything, but is waaay overpriced for what it's worth. Bootcamp is essential here!! Just practice, and do NOT get discouraged by Bootcamp exams, plan to score 1-2 points higher on the real thing. Bootcamp was incredibly representative, but definitely harder than the actual (which is a good thing). Also, there is an amazing youtube tutorial for hole punching if you haven't already seen it:
RC 20: Wow, I suck at reading comp but I'll take a 20 RC any day of the week! I did 3 bootcamp exams trying a paragraph-mapping method, but that did not work well for me. On the real deal, I just used search-and-destroy for all 3 passages since the questions are primarily regurgitate information but in different words. Like seriously, WTF is the point of this if it doesn't actually test "comprehension..." Oh well, screw it...NEXT
QR 20: Chad's QR +Dat destroyer + Math destroyer. Again, learned stuff from Chad, then practiced everything the latter. Destroyer ruled for this! I did not use Bootcamp's QR because I heard it was too hard.
**Here are my ADA PRACTICE SCORES (compare away!!):
2007 DAT: Too easy, but similar format. Bio-24; GC-23; OC-30; PAT: 20; RC: n/a; QR: n/a
2009 DAT: Bio-23; GC-21; OC-23 ;everything else n/a
These above exams are pretty representative of what is expected on the actual sciences section, cause my scores ended up being remarkably similar to the average of these^
**Bootcamp exams: (bio/gc/oc/pat/rc/qr)
1. 23/19/20/NA/18/NA
2. 20/19/20/17/16/NA
3. 21/23/19/17/18/NA
4. 18/20/20/18/NA/NA
5. 22/19/21/18/NA/NA
Pat exams 6-8: 18, 19, 19
^So yeah, I didn't really take FULL advantage of all of the Bootcamp practice tests, you guys definitely should though! Also, this is very important: Do NOT get discouraged by low practice scores, the real DAT actually isn't that bad! The best thing about Bootcamp is that it forces you to do harder problems in the same amount of time on the actual DAT, so please do NOT worry about timing if you are unable to finish some bootcamp exams (namely RC and PAT).
D-DAY: I ate an egg-bagel cheese with a glass of milk, and a multivitamin for breakfast this morning. My exam was at 8am (yeah, it sucks, I know). I arrived at the testing center 45 minutes in advance, and they got me started right away. Protocol (in case anyone isn't familiar: put belongings in a locker, leave food on designated food shelf, show ID's, get fingerprinted, confirm information, check-in, get metal-detected, receive two pink double sided laminated boards with grids, and fine-point sharpies, and get seated. BEGIN EXAM: Oh crap, it's starting.
BIO: started off nice, but then I got some REALLY obscure questions, details that one would normally dismiss as unimportant while studying, but I think I was able to eliminate some choices. No plant questions (unfortunate, cause I had extensively prepared for those) and only one animal diversity question (also unfortunate for the same reason). Lots of physio, so be sure to be comfortable with it!
GC: was almost too good to be true. I was cruising through many of them, simple rearrangements of equations, common bioling point/ranking acidity questions, no too sure what I missed here.
OC: was too good to be true (i.e. it was easy to go through) and had 8 minutes to spare. I looked back at some of the stupid bio questions, and decided not to change any of my initial answers.
PAT: keyholes kind of sucked, they were on par with bootcamp (which is already pretty tough for keyholes). TFE was a lot easier, as it was pretty easy to eliminate choices (avoid line counting because it will NOT work). Angles... I don't want to sound arrogant, but seriously, these angles were EASIER than anything I had practiced before. Maybe one tough ranking question, the rest were just obvious to me (so definitely practice these! Even while going through Bootcamp's solutions, I would re-do them and stare at them until I could see an apparent discrepancy. Just as Ari says, study the PAT solutions CAREFULLY!). Hole punching: only 1 tough hole, everything else was straightforward. Cube counting: expect 10-14 cubes on average, one of mine had 17 though, but not too bad. Pattern folding: surprisingly straightforward, Bootcamp helped immensely with this!
RC: 3 words... search-and-destroy
QR: a lot of straightforward calculations. I actually went in blind expecting to run out of time, but math Destroyer was easily the most helpful for this section. I went through exams 1-5 and saw a lot of EERILY similar questions, so be sure to study up on those.
In the end, and I emphasize this for a reason: DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED by the DAT, nor any of your practice exams!! They're meant to be more challenging to better prepare you for the real deal. The real DAT wasn't nearly as hard as some of them, albeit it had a bunch of random questions in it to ensure no one gets 30's across the board...
Nonetheless, feel absolutely free to ask questions!! I will get to them as soon as I can. Now that you know that it is really not that bad and that anyone can do it, go and kill it! It's your turn.
Bio:22
GC:22
OC: 25
PAT:21
RC:20
QR:20
TS:22
AA:22
Some quick background: I'm a senior biology major at a top 40 university, and studied for about a month for about 6-10 hours each day, pretty hardcore. In retrospect, I should've spent more time studying over summer as opposed to during the semester (since I have to play "catch-up" in all my classes) but it is what it is
.Materials used: Dat Destroyer, Math Destroyer, DAT Bootcamp, Chad's Videos, Cliffs Bio 3rd edition, my own version of Feralis.
NOTE: I truly feel that with these preparatory materials, anyone can succeed as long as you study hard. No matter what, be truthful to yourself when studying. All of these materials are 10/10 for me, as I feel all of them definitely helped me succeed.
How I studied for each section:
Bio 22: I am a bio major, so I was feeling pretty confident, but still, I knew that they would probably test me on really obscure topics, and they did...so be ready for that. Cliff's AP Bio coupled with Feralis Bio notes for content, and DAT destroyer and DAT Bootcamp for questions. DO ALL OF THESE. They're amazing.
GC 22: Gen chem I and II were BY FAR my worst classes I've ever taken in my life...so if I'm able to reverse this, I am absolutely certain all of you guys can too!!! Chad's videos + quizzes pretty much covered everything that was tested. I supplemented these with DAT destroyer and Bootcamp, again, and really saw improvements quickly.
OC 25: Orgo was my in college. I only took orgo I, but I took it two years ago, so I had to re-learn everything from Chad and then practiced my knowledge, again (surprise-surprise), with Destroyer + Bootcamp.
PAT 21: Bootcamp >>>> CDP. CDP was helpful (I guess) for introducing everything, but is waaay overpriced for what it's worth. Bootcamp is essential here!! Just practice, and do NOT get discouraged by Bootcamp exams, plan to score 1-2 points higher on the real thing. Bootcamp was incredibly representative, but definitely harder than the actual (which is a good thing). Also, there is an amazing youtube tutorial for hole punching if you haven't already seen it:
RC 20: Wow, I suck at reading comp but I'll take a 20 RC any day of the week! I did 3 bootcamp exams trying a paragraph-mapping method, but that did not work well for me. On the real deal, I just used search-and-destroy for all 3 passages since the questions are primarily regurgitate information but in different words. Like seriously, WTF is the point of this if it doesn't actually test "comprehension..." Oh well, screw it...NEXT
QR 20: Chad's QR +Dat destroyer + Math destroyer. Again, learned stuff from Chad, then practiced everything the latter. Destroyer ruled for this! I did not use Bootcamp's QR because I heard it was too hard.
**Here are my ADA PRACTICE SCORES (compare away!!):
2007 DAT: Too easy, but similar format. Bio-24; GC-23; OC-30; PAT: 20; RC: n/a; QR: n/a
2009 DAT: Bio-23; GC-21; OC-23 ;everything else n/a
These above exams are pretty representative of what is expected on the actual sciences section, cause my scores ended up being remarkably similar to the average of these^
**Bootcamp exams: (bio/gc/oc/pat/rc/qr)
1. 23/19/20/NA/18/NA
2. 20/19/20/17/16/NA
3. 21/23/19/17/18/NA
4. 18/20/20/18/NA/NA
5. 22/19/21/18/NA/NA
Pat exams 6-8: 18, 19, 19
^So yeah, I didn't really take FULL advantage of all of the Bootcamp practice tests, you guys definitely should though! Also, this is very important: Do NOT get discouraged by low practice scores, the real DAT actually isn't that bad! The best thing about Bootcamp is that it forces you to do harder problems in the same amount of time on the actual DAT, so please do NOT worry about timing if you are unable to finish some bootcamp exams (namely RC and PAT).
D-DAY: I ate an egg-bagel cheese with a glass of milk, and a multivitamin for breakfast this morning. My exam was at 8am (yeah, it sucks, I know). I arrived at the testing center 45 minutes in advance, and they got me started right away. Protocol (in case anyone isn't familiar: put belongings in a locker, leave food on designated food shelf, show ID's, get fingerprinted, confirm information, check-in, get metal-detected, receive two pink double sided laminated boards with grids, and fine-point sharpies, and get seated. BEGIN EXAM: Oh crap, it's starting.
BIO: started off nice, but then I got some REALLY obscure questions, details that one would normally dismiss as unimportant while studying, but I think I was able to eliminate some choices. No plant questions (unfortunate, cause I had extensively prepared for those) and only one animal diversity question (also unfortunate for the same reason). Lots of physio, so be sure to be comfortable with it!
GC: was almost too good to be true. I was cruising through many of them, simple rearrangements of equations, common bioling point/ranking acidity questions, no too sure what I missed here.
OC: was too good to be true (i.e. it was easy to go through) and had 8 minutes to spare. I looked back at some of the stupid bio questions, and decided not to change any of my initial answers.
PAT: keyholes kind of sucked, they were on par with bootcamp (which is already pretty tough for keyholes). TFE was a lot easier, as it was pretty easy to eliminate choices (avoid line counting because it will NOT work). Angles... I don't want to sound arrogant, but seriously, these angles were EASIER than anything I had practiced before. Maybe one tough ranking question, the rest were just obvious to me (so definitely practice these! Even while going through Bootcamp's solutions, I would re-do them and stare at them until I could see an apparent discrepancy. Just as Ari says, study the PAT solutions CAREFULLY!). Hole punching: only 1 tough hole, everything else was straightforward. Cube counting: expect 10-14 cubes on average, one of mine had 17 though, but not too bad. Pattern folding: surprisingly straightforward, Bootcamp helped immensely with this!
RC: 3 words... search-and-destroy
QR: a lot of straightforward calculations. I actually went in blind expecting to run out of time, but math Destroyer was easily the most helpful for this section. I went through exams 1-5 and saw a lot of EERILY similar questions, so be sure to study up on those.
In the end, and I emphasize this for a reason: DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED by the DAT, nor any of your practice exams!! They're meant to be more challenging to better prepare you for the real deal. The real DAT wasn't nearly as hard as some of them, albeit it had a bunch of random questions in it to ensure no one gets 30's across the board...
Nonetheless, feel absolutely free to ask questions!! I will get to them as soon as I can. Now that you know that it is really not that bad and that anyone can do it, go and kill it! It's your turn.
