- Joined
- Mar 13, 2013
- Messages
- 31
- Reaction score
- 5
Hello SDN!
I recently took my first DAT (08/23/13)--that's the date, not my scores lol--and I have been meaning to make a post about it. But first I'd like to thank everyone who has made posts in the past. Sharing your study schedules, sources, and experiences have all been helpful in what originally seemed to be an impossible task. THANK YOU! Now my turn to give back.
By the way, I am a Bio major. The elective courses that I found most helpful for my DAT were: Anatomy and Physiology, Comparative Physiology, Molecular Bio and Biotechnology, Genetics.
PAT: 24 (98.0%)
QR: 15 (48.9%) 🙁
RC: 18 (52.2%) (wtf?)
BIO: 23 (98.9%)
GC: 23 (97.3%)
OC: 25 (98.4%)
TS: 23 (99.3%)
AA: 21 (97.2%)
It stinks to see QR and RC so low, but I hope its forgivable.
My study materials: Chad's Videos, Craig Savage Videos (YouTube), DAT Destroyer, DAT Math Destroyer, datqvault, DAT Bootcamp, Barron's AP Bio book and flashcards, MasteringOrganicChemistry.com, Campbell's Biology Textbook and my A&P, Bio, Chemistry notes. I did not use all of these to completion--some where more helpful in certain areas than others, so I used them accordingly.
I studied for about a total of 2.5 months. I wrote most of my day-to-day agenda on a calendar. If enough people request it, I'll type it up.
JUNE
I began reviewing Gen. Chemistry (Chad's) and Gen. Bio (Barrons, my notes). I treated this like a full time job 9-5 or 6, with two days off each week.
JULY
2 weeks:
I had to relocate for a bit to work at a family dental office a couple of days, so my studying was kinda interrupted, but here I began doing tons of questions from datqvault, bootcamp, and DAT Destroyer for Gen. chem and biology. I'd wake up, do a PAT test on datqvault, eat, do some outdoor activity, then get to work: Bio test, Chem test. I then reviewed what I got wrong and read about the topic in Campbell's text for bio & Chad's for Chem. Here you can really figure what you need to work on, and made a few flashcards for anything I knew I would forget.
Again time off was important, I went to a few baseball games, boating, pool days.
2 weeks: Began studying organic chemistry. Mostly reviewing my old notes and I purchased the Orgo 1 and 2 study notes from MasteringOrganicChemistry.org (great source). I had a pretty decent background in Orgo, but Chad was a good refresher. Barely touched DAT Destroyer OChem problems, but the Roadmaps were good to reinforce what I knew. I also continued doing my daily PAT routine, Bio and Gen Chem review.
AUGUST
I came back home and began studying for the Math section. My brother was also studying for the exam so we would challenge each other with tough questions and just shared what we knew on certain topics. So it would probably be cool to have a study buddy. I began studying math on DAT Math Destroyer. After a few tests I knew that this would be my downfall. I've never been good at math and regret not studying earlier. IF YOU SUCK AT MATH, STUDY HARD FROM THE BEGINNING!
I used DAT Bootcamp as a mock test. Start with Bio, then Chem, Ochem..so on. Same order as the real test. After taking all 5 tests and reviewing my mistakes I felt pretty confident.
My brother purchased TopScore, so I took all 3 tests and I honestly did not find it representative of the exam. BIO taxonomy was too random. GChem was okay. OChem was probably the only section that was close. PAT was too easy. Reading Easy. Math..well..yeah math.
DAY BEFORE TEST:
-I only reviewed Ochem reactions that I wrote on flashcards.
-Ate a huge, healthy dinner, took my vitamins
-I could not sleep at night because all the study material was running through my head!
TEST DAY:
-I woke up at 6am and was running on 3 hours of sleep. Test was at 8AM. But at that point I was so excited to take the test so I didn't feel tired.
-Make sure you bring 2 IDs with signature. I used my driver's license, and credit card (make sure it's signed in the back)--apparently School ID isn't acceptable.
I've definitely left out a ton of details so if you have any specific questions, I'll be more than happy to answer!
I recently took my first DAT (08/23/13)--that's the date, not my scores lol--and I have been meaning to make a post about it. But first I'd like to thank everyone who has made posts in the past. Sharing your study schedules, sources, and experiences have all been helpful in what originally seemed to be an impossible task. THANK YOU! Now my turn to give back.
By the way, I am a Bio major. The elective courses that I found most helpful for my DAT were: Anatomy and Physiology, Comparative Physiology, Molecular Bio and Biotechnology, Genetics.
PAT: 24 (98.0%)
QR: 15 (48.9%) 🙁
RC: 18 (52.2%) (wtf?)
BIO: 23 (98.9%)
GC: 23 (97.3%)
OC: 25 (98.4%)
TS: 23 (99.3%)
AA: 21 (97.2%)
It stinks to see QR and RC so low, but I hope its forgivable.
My study materials: Chad's Videos, Craig Savage Videos (YouTube), DAT Destroyer, DAT Math Destroyer, datqvault, DAT Bootcamp, Barron's AP Bio book and flashcards, MasteringOrganicChemistry.com, Campbell's Biology Textbook and my A&P, Bio, Chemistry notes. I did not use all of these to completion--some where more helpful in certain areas than others, so I used them accordingly.
I studied for about a total of 2.5 months. I wrote most of my day-to-day agenda on a calendar. If enough people request it, I'll type it up.
JUNE
I began reviewing Gen. Chemistry (Chad's) and Gen. Bio (Barrons, my notes). I treated this like a full time job 9-5 or 6, with two days off each week.
JULY
2 weeks:
I had to relocate for a bit to work at a family dental office a couple of days, so my studying was kinda interrupted, but here I began doing tons of questions from datqvault, bootcamp, and DAT Destroyer for Gen. chem and biology. I'd wake up, do a PAT test on datqvault, eat, do some outdoor activity, then get to work: Bio test, Chem test. I then reviewed what I got wrong and read about the topic in Campbell's text for bio & Chad's for Chem. Here you can really figure what you need to work on, and made a few flashcards for anything I knew I would forget.
Again time off was important, I went to a few baseball games, boating, pool days.
2 weeks: Began studying organic chemistry. Mostly reviewing my old notes and I purchased the Orgo 1 and 2 study notes from MasteringOrganicChemistry.org (great source). I had a pretty decent background in Orgo, but Chad was a good refresher. Barely touched DAT Destroyer OChem problems, but the Roadmaps were good to reinforce what I knew. I also continued doing my daily PAT routine, Bio and Gen Chem review.
AUGUST
I came back home and began studying for the Math section. My brother was also studying for the exam so we would challenge each other with tough questions and just shared what we knew on certain topics. So it would probably be cool to have a study buddy. I began studying math on DAT Math Destroyer. After a few tests I knew that this would be my downfall. I've never been good at math and regret not studying earlier. IF YOU SUCK AT MATH, STUDY HARD FROM THE BEGINNING!
I used DAT Bootcamp as a mock test. Start with Bio, then Chem, Ochem..so on. Same order as the real test. After taking all 5 tests and reviewing my mistakes I felt pretty confident.
My brother purchased TopScore, so I took all 3 tests and I honestly did not find it representative of the exam. BIO taxonomy was too random. GChem was okay. OChem was probably the only section that was close. PAT was too easy. Reading Easy. Math..well..yeah math.
DAY BEFORE TEST:
-I only reviewed Ochem reactions that I wrote on flashcards.
-Ate a huge, healthy dinner, took my vitamins
-I could not sleep at night because all the study material was running through my head!
TEST DAY:
-I woke up at 6am and was running on 3 hours of sleep. Test was at 8AM. But at that point I was so excited to take the test so I didn't feel tired.
-Make sure you bring 2 IDs with signature. I used my driver's license, and credit card (make sure it's signed in the back)--apparently School ID isn't acceptable.
I've definitely left out a ton of details so if you have any specific questions, I'll be more than happy to answer!
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