hi friends,
here's my -MUCH AWAITED(jk)- all new Canadian DAT study breakdown!
first off let me remind you that each person's studying habits are different, so trust in what you are doing. I read hundreds of breakdowns while I was studying, and I know how it feels to not see your favorite study strategies in other people's success stories. but do what you're doing, and DON'T DOUBT YOURSELF EVEN FOR A SECOND.
Okay, here we go!
Score breakdown:
Biology: 21
Chemistry: 27
RC: 21
PAT: 22
AA: 23
Resources used: DAT Bootcamp & DAT Crusher (expensive combo, I know, but imo it's gonna be worth it at the end. if you can't find promo codes dm me
)
Studied for:
Biology: 3 months (started during the winter break, and worked full time after)
Chem: 1 month
RC: ~last 10 days
PAT:~last 20 days
Biology(21): I started with the 120-page Bootcamp Biology Notes (high-yield content). I loved the condensed notes, and I studied around 1 chapter every 2 days. I would read the chapter on the first day, then re-read them and work on Bio Bite questions (from Bootcamp) the next day. Bio Bite questions were perfect for making you feel confident about the basic info from each chapter because they had lots of hidden repetitions in them. keep in mind that it has many super-detailed questions too; try to learn as much as you can but if you don't have much time, just focus on the content that you can find on the high yield 120-page notes. Towards the end of my studying, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of the content, so I re-read the whole 120-page summary before I moved on to the practice exams on DAT Crusher. DAT Crusher is well-known to be representative of Canadian DAT, so I primarily used their website for their practice exams. I completed all 10 of the timed practice exams and reviewed my answers the next day thoroughly. I even reviewed the questions that I had correctly answered just to solidify the info. I read the whole 120-page summary again around 3-4 days before my exam and skimmed through the pages before I slept the night before my exam.
DAT Crusher's questions were fairly representative of the exam questions and made me feel confident while answering most questions on my exam.
Chem(27): I started by watching Mike's videos (on Bootcamp). I had never ever felt so good about chem before watching his videos. I watched his videos twice overall because I forgot to create a summary of the content the first round and realized that I had forgotten a lot of stuff when 2 weeks were left till my exam -.- after I took down the notes, I just worked on all the practice exams and questions from DAT Crusher. I highly suggest the {Mike's videos + DAT Crusher practice exams} combo for chem. Chemistry felt like a BREEZE on the exam!
RC(21): don't listen to my advice for this section. I procrastinated studying for this section until I only had 10 days left to my exam because I thought I'm some sort of reading comp genius... turns out I AM NOT. over the last 10 days, I took around 8 practice RC exams. I used those 8 exams mainly to find the perfect strategy. I decided to read the whole passage before answering its questions, and this strategy would work in an ideal world where you have the reading speed of the reading comp gods, but... well... it did not work for me-.- I ended up running out of time and missing around 8 questions on the real exam. I genuinely thought I would get a 17 from this section, but the reading comp gods helped me lol.
PAT(22): I suggest lots of practice for this section; however if you don't have a lot of time, do not worry too much about it because as soon as you feel confident with different question types, you will do well on this section. I only studied for this section for 20 days. I did not use any PAT generators and started with the practice exams. I had a very hard time with keyhole and TFE questions at the beginning, and at one point I even gave up on TFE and decided to skip those questions, but I just pushed myself because I realized that once you learn the tricks, it gets much easier. I watched the instructional videos on both Bootcamp and Crusher, and took the practice exams on both. I started from a score estimation of 17 and improved it to 20 in two weeks. keep in mind that I took timed PAT practice exams every day for 20 days. So consistent practice would DEFINITELY help a lot with this section.
Tips:
- take your time with learning bio and chem content, but when it's time to take practice exams, don't procrastinate! the whole thing is done in 30 mins(per section) and all you have to do is to review your answers after. you can postpone the review till the day after, but before you start the review quickly redo the questions to remember which ones need a more intensive review.
- find your strengths and weaknesses in PAT and design your own strategy based on them. you don't need to start from the keyhole questions! skip to whichever section you prefer.
-don't let score estimations discourage you. below are my average estimated scores on BootCamp and Crusher:
bootcamp's estimation of my scores:
RC: 20-21
Biol: 19-22
Chem: 21
PAT: 21
DAT Crusher's score estimation:
RC: 18
Biol: 18-20
Chem: 20-21
Pat: 19
you'll do better than you think you will, so just trust yourself, put in the work, and you'll be fine!
If you have any questions (or can't find the promo codes) feel free to ask!
here's my -MUCH AWAITED(jk)- all new Canadian DAT study breakdown!
first off let me remind you that each person's studying habits are different, so trust in what you are doing. I read hundreds of breakdowns while I was studying, and I know how it feels to not see your favorite study strategies in other people's success stories. but do what you're doing, and DON'T DOUBT YOURSELF EVEN FOR A SECOND.
Okay, here we go!
Score breakdown:
Biology: 21
Chemistry: 27
RC: 21
PAT: 22
AA: 23
Resources used: DAT Bootcamp & DAT Crusher (expensive combo, I know, but imo it's gonna be worth it at the end. if you can't find promo codes dm me
)Studied for:
Biology: 3 months (started during the winter break, and worked full time after)
Chem: 1 month
RC: ~last 10 days
PAT:~last 20 days
Biology(21): I started with the 120-page Bootcamp Biology Notes (high-yield content). I loved the condensed notes, and I studied around 1 chapter every 2 days. I would read the chapter on the first day, then re-read them and work on Bio Bite questions (from Bootcamp) the next day. Bio Bite questions were perfect for making you feel confident about the basic info from each chapter because they had lots of hidden repetitions in them. keep in mind that it has many super-detailed questions too; try to learn as much as you can but if you don't have much time, just focus on the content that you can find on the high yield 120-page notes. Towards the end of my studying, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of the content, so I re-read the whole 120-page summary before I moved on to the practice exams on DAT Crusher. DAT Crusher is well-known to be representative of Canadian DAT, so I primarily used their website for their practice exams. I completed all 10 of the timed practice exams and reviewed my answers the next day thoroughly. I even reviewed the questions that I had correctly answered just to solidify the info. I read the whole 120-page summary again around 3-4 days before my exam and skimmed through the pages before I slept the night before my exam.
DAT Crusher's questions were fairly representative of the exam questions and made me feel confident while answering most questions on my exam.
Chem(27): I started by watching Mike's videos (on Bootcamp). I had never ever felt so good about chem before watching his videos. I watched his videos twice overall because I forgot to create a summary of the content the first round and realized that I had forgotten a lot of stuff when 2 weeks were left till my exam -.- after I took down the notes, I just worked on all the practice exams and questions from DAT Crusher. I highly suggest the {Mike's videos + DAT Crusher practice exams} combo for chem. Chemistry felt like a BREEZE on the exam!
RC(21): don't listen to my advice for this section. I procrastinated studying for this section until I only had 10 days left to my exam because I thought I'm some sort of reading comp genius... turns out I AM NOT. over the last 10 days, I took around 8 practice RC exams. I used those 8 exams mainly to find the perfect strategy. I decided to read the whole passage before answering its questions, and this strategy would work in an ideal world where you have the reading speed of the reading comp gods, but... well... it did not work for me-.- I ended up running out of time and missing around 8 questions on the real exam. I genuinely thought I would get a 17 from this section, but the reading comp gods helped me lol.
PAT(22): I suggest lots of practice for this section; however if you don't have a lot of time, do not worry too much about it because as soon as you feel confident with different question types, you will do well on this section. I only studied for this section for 20 days. I did not use any PAT generators and started with the practice exams. I had a very hard time with keyhole and TFE questions at the beginning, and at one point I even gave up on TFE and decided to skip those questions, but I just pushed myself because I realized that once you learn the tricks, it gets much easier. I watched the instructional videos on both Bootcamp and Crusher, and took the practice exams on both. I started from a score estimation of 17 and improved it to 20 in two weeks. keep in mind that I took timed PAT practice exams every day for 20 days. So consistent practice would DEFINITELY help a lot with this section.
Tips:
- take your time with learning bio and chem content, but when it's time to take practice exams, don't procrastinate! the whole thing is done in 30 mins(per section) and all you have to do is to review your answers after. you can postpone the review till the day after, but before you start the review quickly redo the questions to remember which ones need a more intensive review.
- find your strengths and weaknesses in PAT and design your own strategy based on them. you don't need to start from the keyhole questions! skip to whichever section you prefer.
-don't let score estimations discourage you. below are my average estimated scores on BootCamp and Crusher:
bootcamp's estimation of my scores:
RC: 20-21
Biol: 19-22
Chem: 21
PAT: 21
DAT Crusher's score estimation:
RC: 18
Biol: 18-20
Chem: 20-21
Pat: 19
you'll do better than you think you will, so just trust yourself, put in the work, and you'll be fine!
If you have any questions (or can't find the promo codes) feel free to ask!
