Ardi_Dental
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2023
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 0
I got the following scores: AA=22, TS = 24 (BIOL=22 , GC=25 , OC=25 , PAT=25 , RCT=16 , QR=24).
I'm a Senior Engineer who decided to become a dentist; thus, I had to pass the required pre-dental courses (90 credit hours for Texas) because my background was completely different. After finishing the courses, I started to review the course materials and an old version of Kaplan book that a friend gave me. They help me to recall the materials, but when I wanted to practice a sample test, I felt completely clumsy!
A friend of mine proposed Bootcamp and DATBooster, and after my research I selected DATBooster due to the following reasons: (1) It includes PAT booster, which is an excellent tool, (2) more practice questions (at the time I selected this product), (3) I wanted to study using my laptop or tablet, so the cellphone applications of Bootcamp would not be helpful for me, and (4) more affordable price, which was not an important item for my case, but it can be for many students.
Honestly, if the time could be rewind, I would register for a 6 months DATBooster option rather than 3 months and extending for another month. Especially for my case because I had to run my full-time job as an engineer, a full family and son, and dental shadowing, so I needed to spend more time for reviewing and completely using all scopes & details in DATBooster.
How I studied:
Due to my personal duties and limitations, I needed to open time every day.
While I driving to work or drop off my son or pick him up, I listened to the free videos in Youtube or the ones in the DATBooster about the Biol, OC, and GC. This approach helped me to gradually build a foundation to better understand the concepts.
I studied the text book and summary cheat sheets for each section constantly.
I reviewed my mistakes and passed exams almost three times.
For PAT, I really spent time by reviewing my mistakes to learn why I couldn't catch the answer in the first place.
I studied constantly between 9:30 pm to 12 pm, after family went to sleep.
Important notes:
- The Biol section of the actual exam was a little hard for me, although I spent good amount of time to practice. The issue was in the DAT exam two tricky questions were about viruses, and several other simple but confusing questions were asked as well. So, don’t prepare yourselves only for difficult concepts and difficult names because simple questions may cause problem.
- DATBooster is excellent for chemistry sections and everything in there will land in your exam. I solved all questions in both Chems, and I’m still shocked that why I didn’t get higher scores!
- At the end of Biol + GC + OC, I had 6 more minutes to go back and review the marked questions.
- Use DATBooster to crush the PAT section. The PAT section of DATBooster is harder than the actual exam, but the angles & cube counting sections of the DATBooster are only slightly harder than the real exam. During the exam, I spent more time and also returned to the questions frequently because my brain was trained with harder questions, and I thought that "maybe I am missing something like my practice questions, it can’t be such easy!", which wasted my time. So, be aware of this difference.
- The QR was similar to DATBooster practice test, and you don’t need anything more. The problem for my case is that one question didn’t have the correct answer in the options, which killed my time! And one question was completely vague, and what the question wanted from the test taker was not straightforward. After the exam, I talked to some DAT math experts, and they were agreeing with me. Thus, I contacted ADA and wrote the questions & answers to them. They accepted that one question in my exam was wrong, but they said the credit was given to you, which I don’t believe it. And they replied that the other question was completely clear from the ADA point of view!
- The reading section was very difficult for me. I could get 18 to 20 in my practice exam tests, and I thought the actual exam should be a little better, but in the actual DAT exam, I received very long and hard texts, especially the first text was longer than enough with 18 questions. My recommendation for the users is to spend time for this section, if you are not good in reading section. DATBooster has many good articles and practice samples which are very close to the actual exam. Unfortunately, due to my full-time job duties, family & kid, and dental shadowing my practice time was very limited.
My last recommendation is to review as much as you can to really consolidate it into your brain, so spend more time for this exam, if possible.
I'm a Senior Engineer who decided to become a dentist; thus, I had to pass the required pre-dental courses (90 credit hours for Texas) because my background was completely different. After finishing the courses, I started to review the course materials and an old version of Kaplan book that a friend gave me. They help me to recall the materials, but when I wanted to practice a sample test, I felt completely clumsy!
A friend of mine proposed Bootcamp and DATBooster, and after my research I selected DATBooster due to the following reasons: (1) It includes PAT booster, which is an excellent tool, (2) more practice questions (at the time I selected this product), (3) I wanted to study using my laptop or tablet, so the cellphone applications of Bootcamp would not be helpful for me, and (4) more affordable price, which was not an important item for my case, but it can be for many students.
Honestly, if the time could be rewind, I would register for a 6 months DATBooster option rather than 3 months and extending for another month. Especially for my case because I had to run my full-time job as an engineer, a full family and son, and dental shadowing, so I needed to spend more time for reviewing and completely using all scopes & details in DATBooster.
How I studied:
Due to my personal duties and limitations, I needed to open time every day.
While I driving to work or drop off my son or pick him up, I listened to the free videos in Youtube or the ones in the DATBooster about the Biol, OC, and GC. This approach helped me to gradually build a foundation to better understand the concepts.
I studied the text book and summary cheat sheets for each section constantly.
I reviewed my mistakes and passed exams almost three times.
For PAT, I really spent time by reviewing my mistakes to learn why I couldn't catch the answer in the first place.
I studied constantly between 9:30 pm to 12 pm, after family went to sleep.
Important notes:
- The Biol section of the actual exam was a little hard for me, although I spent good amount of time to practice. The issue was in the DAT exam two tricky questions were about viruses, and several other simple but confusing questions were asked as well. So, don’t prepare yourselves only for difficult concepts and difficult names because simple questions may cause problem.
- DATBooster is excellent for chemistry sections and everything in there will land in your exam. I solved all questions in both Chems, and I’m still shocked that why I didn’t get higher scores!
- At the end of Biol + GC + OC, I had 6 more minutes to go back and review the marked questions.
- Use DATBooster to crush the PAT section. The PAT section of DATBooster is harder than the actual exam, but the angles & cube counting sections of the DATBooster are only slightly harder than the real exam. During the exam, I spent more time and also returned to the questions frequently because my brain was trained with harder questions, and I thought that "maybe I am missing something like my practice questions, it can’t be such easy!", which wasted my time. So, be aware of this difference.
- The QR was similar to DATBooster practice test, and you don’t need anything more. The problem for my case is that one question didn’t have the correct answer in the options, which killed my time! And one question was completely vague, and what the question wanted from the test taker was not straightforward. After the exam, I talked to some DAT math experts, and they were agreeing with me. Thus, I contacted ADA and wrote the questions & answers to them. They accepted that one question in my exam was wrong, but they said the credit was given to you, which I don’t believe it. And they replied that the other question was completely clear from the ADA point of view!
- The reading section was very difficult for me. I could get 18 to 20 in my practice exam tests, and I thought the actual exam should be a little better, but in the actual DAT exam, I received very long and hard texts, especially the first text was longer than enough with 18 questions. My recommendation for the users is to spend time for this section, if you are not good in reading section. DATBooster has many good articles and practice samples which are very close to the actual exam. Unfortunately, due to my full-time job duties, family & kid, and dental shadowing my practice time was very limited.
My last recommendation is to review as much as you can to really consolidate it into your brain, so spend more time for this exam, if possible.
