- Joined
- Jul 7, 2008
- Messages
- 40
- Reaction score
- 0
First of all I want to thank the SDN community for the support and study tips. Reading all the breakdown by people who got high scores is a big motivation to me. Im glad to have this finally over with, and wish all of you out there who are stressing out right now the best of luck!
My overall feel towards the DAT was that it was very manageable. I got scared after doing test 1 of topscore because I got 17 on Ochem after 5 weeks of studying. Oh, a very important tip is to not get your nervousness affect your test. One of the reasons I did poorly on Topscore 1 is that I thought I wouldnt have enough time and just rushed all the problems.
Materials used: CDP(great) Chads, Allans notes, Destroyer (2009), CDR (I think its not that helpful at all, save your money), KBB (garbage, waste of money)
PAT: Materials used: CDP. Its a great program. I had no perceptual ability at all, and I would definitely do super bad without this program. Keyhole is harder than CDP. TFE is about the same. Hole punching is easier. Cube counting is easier. Pattern folding is not harder. Its more shape-based than figures, which like many said CDP doesnt prepare you enough on. I thought I did better on the real DAT on this section, so somewhat disappointed with my score.
QR: Materials used: Math destroyer. Math destroyer pretty much covered 99% of what you need. Math destroyer is definitely harder than the real test. I always was running out of time during practice tests, but on the real DAT I had 15 minutes left to check all my answers again. I couldnt believe it! When I got to number 38, I was like ,"wtf? Im almost done?
RC: Materials used: CDR. Since English is my second language, I thought I might need some help here so I bought CDR. Did the first three tests and got 21, 18, 21. I think CDR is not representative of the real test at all. The questions asked were very different, and the reading on the real test is harder to understand. When I read CDR the readings were pretty interesting, but the reading on the real test were super boring. I really dont have any strategy. One helpful thing about CDR I think is that after doing the test I know I have enough time to read the passage first thing and then go back to the passage again when I need to find the answers. Oh, and on the middle of my second passage I realized, holy crap, is this the ethics passage that people are talking about? To be honest, as a science guy, the passage is super boring and hard to understand. However, its manageable. My other two passages are fungi and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (lucked out, learned about it in my dev bio class).
Biology: Destroyer, KBB, Cliffs, Barrons AP. OK I started out reading Cliffs. The materials are super dense and the writing is hard to understand and the lack of figures do not help. Thank GOD I decided to buy Barrons AP, which cover pretty much the same materials, but the writing and the figures are much better. I highly recommend Barrons over Cliffs. I am a MCDB major so I think I have an advantage here. However, while doing destroyer I also freaked out since there are other aspects of bio that I am not familiar with (taxonomy, plants, ecology, etc). I was tempted to memorize all the bio stuff from destroyer since a couple people say that its necessary. Thank GOD I didnt. The real DAT was super easy compared to the practice tests. One question was super simple that I had to re-read the question to make sure if that's really what they're asking. On my test I got nothing on plants, ecology, taxonomy, etc. However, I believe you need to prepare for those since you never know what youre gonna get.
Gchem: Chads and destroyer. Like many others said. Chad and destroyer will prepare you for this section. I did get a couple of weird conceptual questions, and maybe got wrong on some of them, but if you know Chad+destroyer youll be golden.
Ochem: see above
Scores
PAT:18 (54.2)🙄
QR: 22 (97.9)
RC: 21 (76.7)
Bio: 23 (97.4)
Gchem: 22 (91.8)
Ochem: 23 (94.4)
TS: 23 (97.8)
AA: 22 (97.0)
CDP scores:
15/15/15 (freaking out at this point)/20/18/18/22
Topscore:
I deleted my test 1 scores but I think I got 19 on bio, 21 on gchem, and 17 on ochem
Test 2:
AA:21
bio:21
chem:20
ochem:25
pat:22
qr:19
rc:21
ts: 22
Test 3(only did science)
Bio: 18 (crazy questions; confidence killer)
Chem: 19
Ochem: 23
TS: 20
Well Im glad to have this done. My summer has just started. I just graduated in June and now will be writing my secondaries and applying for job. Hope to see you guys in dental school next year!😀
My overall feel towards the DAT was that it was very manageable. I got scared after doing test 1 of topscore because I got 17 on Ochem after 5 weeks of studying. Oh, a very important tip is to not get your nervousness affect your test. One of the reasons I did poorly on Topscore 1 is that I thought I wouldnt have enough time and just rushed all the problems.
Materials used: CDP(great) Chads, Allans notes, Destroyer (2009), CDR (I think its not that helpful at all, save your money), KBB (garbage, waste of money)
PAT: Materials used: CDP. Its a great program. I had no perceptual ability at all, and I would definitely do super bad without this program. Keyhole is harder than CDP. TFE is about the same. Hole punching is easier. Cube counting is easier. Pattern folding is not harder. Its more shape-based than figures, which like many said CDP doesnt prepare you enough on. I thought I did better on the real DAT on this section, so somewhat disappointed with my score.
QR: Materials used: Math destroyer. Math destroyer pretty much covered 99% of what you need. Math destroyer is definitely harder than the real test. I always was running out of time during practice tests, but on the real DAT I had 15 minutes left to check all my answers again. I couldnt believe it! When I got to number 38, I was like ,"wtf? Im almost done?
RC: Materials used: CDR. Since English is my second language, I thought I might need some help here so I bought CDR. Did the first three tests and got 21, 18, 21. I think CDR is not representative of the real test at all. The questions asked were very different, and the reading on the real test is harder to understand. When I read CDR the readings were pretty interesting, but the reading on the real test were super boring. I really dont have any strategy. One helpful thing about CDR I think is that after doing the test I know I have enough time to read the passage first thing and then go back to the passage again when I need to find the answers. Oh, and on the middle of my second passage I realized, holy crap, is this the ethics passage that people are talking about? To be honest, as a science guy, the passage is super boring and hard to understand. However, its manageable. My other two passages are fungi and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (lucked out, learned about it in my dev bio class).
Biology: Destroyer, KBB, Cliffs, Barrons AP. OK I started out reading Cliffs. The materials are super dense and the writing is hard to understand and the lack of figures do not help. Thank GOD I decided to buy Barrons AP, which cover pretty much the same materials, but the writing and the figures are much better. I highly recommend Barrons over Cliffs. I am a MCDB major so I think I have an advantage here. However, while doing destroyer I also freaked out since there are other aspects of bio that I am not familiar with (taxonomy, plants, ecology, etc). I was tempted to memorize all the bio stuff from destroyer since a couple people say that its necessary. Thank GOD I didnt. The real DAT was super easy compared to the practice tests. One question was super simple that I had to re-read the question to make sure if that's really what they're asking. On my test I got nothing on plants, ecology, taxonomy, etc. However, I believe you need to prepare for those since you never know what youre gonna get.
Gchem: Chads and destroyer. Like many others said. Chad and destroyer will prepare you for this section. I did get a couple of weird conceptual questions, and maybe got wrong on some of them, but if you know Chad+destroyer youll be golden.
Ochem: see above
Scores
PAT:18 (54.2)🙄
QR: 22 (97.9)
RC: 21 (76.7)
Bio: 23 (97.4)
Gchem: 22 (91.8)
Ochem: 23 (94.4)
TS: 23 (97.8)
AA: 22 (97.0)
CDP scores:
15/15/15 (freaking out at this point)/20/18/18/22
Topscore:
I deleted my test 1 scores but I think I got 19 on bio, 21 on gchem, and 17 on ochem
Test 2:
AA:21
bio:21
chem:20
ochem:25
pat:22
qr:19
rc:21
ts: 22
Test 3(only did science)
Bio: 18 (crazy questions; confidence killer)
Chem: 19
Ochem: 23
TS: 20
Well Im glad to have this done. My summer has just started. I just graduated in June and now will be writing my secondaries and applying for job. Hope to see you guys in dental school next year!😀
