Wow guys, I was updating my signature and I come back to all this support! I'm about to tear up again like I did at the testing center -- I'm so sappy...
Anyway, I'll see what I can do here. I used Kaplan for sure. I want to call them up and let them know how much I am in love with them right now! (I did not use DAT destroyer or Dr. romano 😛 )
I guess the best prep I had was I worked my arse off this summer with classes. I took Orgo 1, orgo 2, orgo lab, human phys, human anatomy, AND kaplan. Did well in the classes but I can't begin to tell you how important they were to my scores. I was able to study for orgo class and concentrate on other subjects through kaplan! Anyway, classes ended on the 11 so I then had 10 days of straight DAT studying. Mostly studied and re-studied the review notes. After reviewing a section I would take a subject test online on a DIFFERENT section (that I had reviewed earlier) to see how much I retained, then I used either my gen bio book (Solomon) or Schaum's to review material on the questions I didn't get right. Did that for Gen Bio, and Gen chem. Last two days I have been reviewing the flash cards. Throughout the summer I reviewed a few every night before going to bed -- those helped a lot.
All in all, mostly Kaplan though. I found all of their stuff to be harder than the real thing although the styles of questions were a little different -- DAT is much clearer and concise. My PAT actually dropped (I got a 25, 28, and 24 on Kaplan tests) but the angles were manageable. Actually, I found the hole punch section to be the hardest -- I had a bunch where the paper wasn't folded all the way across and some with 3 holes!!! The rest was the same.
Bio was fine, Chem was easier -- really simple calculations or conversions. Orgo was kinda tricky but I didn't study any of the Kaplan stuff (just my class) so I'm sure I could have done better. No complaints though!
RC was annoying because my second passage was on finance complete with market equations and the such. Annoying. The others were easy -- cancer and autonomic nervous system.
QR was blowing me away on the practice tests -- I got a 20 once but 16s the other times and NEVER had time to finish. I was done with this one with about 5 minutes to spare and went back to my marked problems. The questions were much easier than kaplan. Know sin, cos relationships though -- lots of that kind of trig.
The worst part was before the test. I was freaking out. Near panic attack freaking out. Didn't get any sleep this morning but as soon as I sat down it seemed like any of the practice tests I had taken. Those were key. Full-time real-scenario practice tests. Nothing was a surprise so I calmed right down and just DID IT!
Anyway, hope some of this helps. I still can't believe it. When the scores popped up I thought I was reading how many I got wrong 🙄 But I walked out with a huge grin and the lady handed me my printout and said, "those are some of the highest scores I have ever seen". I started screaming when I got in my car. Such a feeling. Wow. Anyway, thanks for the support and the 'attaboys. I'm on my cloud right now 🙂
Let me know if there's anything else you wanna know though!
Mack
