Organizing my study for DAT, one month left???

[Chemboy23]

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Ok, so I know that not everyone learns the same. I am looking for advice from someone who has taken the DAT and done decent/really well. I have started making notecards for Bio on Anki and it is taking sooooo long. Basically, what I do is make a notecard for everything stated in Cliff's AP Bio. Anyone know of an easier way? I am doing decent on the CDP practice tests (18-19 total) but I cannot seem to get over an 8 or 9 on hole punch and pattern folding. Everything else I score almost perfect. I tried the 4x4 grid method for hole punch and it's slowly coming to me, but it's taking a long time.
GChem and OChem, I am just using Chad's videos and taking notes and the quizzes that he suggests us to do. Math is my trouble area and the one I keep overlooking the most. I am good with most areas (excluding random weird shapes by TopScore), but I need some Trig & Probability help, Maybe even some word problem work would be great. I have one month, I take the test August 10th. I've been studying for about a month and keep getting sidetracked. I have the following materials to study and was wondering if any of you could suggest like a day by day schedule. I just feel so overwhelmed right now.
---DAT Destroyer
---Chad's Videos
---CDP PAT
---Cliff's AP Bio
---KBB
---Acheiver - a total waste of money, I'll never get >15 on this 🙁
---Kaplan course notes, notecards, DAT CD

-Any online Bio cards? I feel like I've wasted a lot of time doing these although I am learning as I go along; someone suggested just reading it.
-Any tricks to the hole punch & pattern folding? I know some say to do the 4x4 grid paper, but I'm having trouble seeing it when they do half holes in comlex folds
-Math practice? Any good sources online? I have spent literally thousands on getting ready for this test and I know CDMath and Math Destroyer are good, but I'm broke lol.
-Mainly, if you had one month to study, knowing what you know now, HOW would you study?

Thanks soooo much in advance for any help.

 

[nicUD]

Hey!

I'm in the same boat, I take the DAT aug 9th and am freaking out hardcore!!
Heres this page has free bio quizes that go along w/ campbell, I think its helpful. http://www.hbwbiology.net/quizzes-ap-review-main.htm

In hole punching, look at the 1st fold in your answers for a line of symmetry. Such as if the paper was folded in half vertically the left and right halves should be equal. that is usually how i start to eliminate answers.

Good luck!!

 

[Chemboy23]

hey thanks so much for the help. best of luck to you! i know the feeling, it's like your whole future depends on something that you're only a little in control of. 🙁 That quiz site is awesome though! thanks again!

 

[cookie13]

Try this for math
http://www.kwiznet.com/p/showCurriculum.php?curriculumID=40

 

[theragu]

Hey, sorry to ask a question, I know you're looking for advice, but..

You said you're scoring almost perfect on everything but those two..how do you do so well on Angles?
I really need help on that, even tho I use the "hill technique" or looking at it like a laptop screen, it just takes up a lot of time and isn't foolproof.
Thanks!

 

[dentz00]

me tooo! omg im taking it the same date and i am so overwhelmed as well.. i'm doing one chem, a lil bio, pat and qr daily. Im doing organic hardcore and hope to start gchem on thursday! ahh!!!

 

[molar3]

me too! mines august 10th. and im screwed. lets just put it like that. i havnt even LOOKED at reading comprehnsion although im not even sure how i would approach that besides doing passages i guess? whatever. and not to mention ive hardly practiced PAT at all. wow this is bad

 

[molar3]

1 month till d-day

 

[Chemboy23]

--->theragu - i really don't know how to explain it. sometimes you can look at the answer choices and two will look alike. Most of the time the two end choices will be the same, i'll give you an example below. if you look at it from their standpoint, they want you to have to distinguish b/t two angles that are almost exactly alike. Most people waste time looking at all four. Example below:

A. 1-3-2-4
B. 4-2-1-3
C. 1-2-3-4
D. 2-3-1-4

Ok, so when I look at these, I automatically see the similiarities in choice A and C. The only difference is the middle two. But!!!, you have to be careful, because this isn't true ALL THE TIME. So basically here's what I do. I look at the choices and try to see if I can find two like the above. Then, I go and look at the figures and try to first, make sure 4 is largest and 1 is smallest, then you can figure out which of the two (2 or 3) is larger/smaller. Hope this helps, again it's just what I prefer to do. For some it may not work.

---> cookie13 - thanks so much for that link, that is truly wonderful. These are the areas I was having trouble in!

 

[Chrono]

Try this for math
http://www.kwiznet.com/p/showCurriculum.php?curriculumID=40

this looks good but you have to pay to use it right? I didn't see anyway to view the solutions.

 

[theragu]

--->theragu - i really don't know how to explain it. sometimes you can look at the answer choices and two will look alike. Most of the time the two end choices will be the same, i'll give you an example below. if you look at it from their standpoint, they want you to have to distinguish b/t two angles that are almost exactly alike. Most people waste time looking at all four. Example below:

A. 1-3-2-4
B. 4-2-1-3
C. 1-2-3-4
D. 2-3-1-4

Ok, so when I look at these, I automatically see the similiarities in choice A and C. The only difference is the middle two. But!!!, you have to be careful, because this isn't true ALL THE TIME. So basically here's what I do. I look at the choices and try to see if I can find two like the above. Then, I go and look at the figures and try to first, make sure 4 is largest and 1 is smallest, then you can figure out which of the two (2 or 3) is larger/smaller. Hope this helps, again it's just what I prefer to do. For some it may not work.

---> cookie13 - thanks so much for that link, that is truly wonderful. These are the areas I was having trouble in!

Thank you for the explanation! I actually have been doing this on some of them, but never put it into words. Ill try to use it more often.

 

[mashinka]

ahhhh i take it in a month too! aug 11th. FML HARDCORE!
I havent even started doing practice problems...Im still just trying to learn all the material.
I would say our best bet at this point and just do problems over and over and over again!

 

[lovelyinpink11]

I'm in the same boat as you... Aug 8th is my date... I feel overwhelmed right now too...destroyer is kicking my ass and making me panic...I hope to finish it this week so I can start review missed questions, do review on commonly missed sections, and a crap load of practice exams/topscore to get use to the testing format and see where I'm at/progressing

Good luck all early August testers!! We can do it!!

 

[cookie13]

this looks good but you have to pay to use it right? I didn't see anyway to view the solutions.

Yeah I had just found the site... and thought it would be helpful... but as you learned and so did I that it requires money...

But I found this other math site.. it was through my library... go figure
see if it works for you only thing you need is a library card... its very very helpful I'm using it right now... If it doesn't work PM me and I have another solution

Website: learningexpresslibrary.com

 

[LittleTomato]

Hey, sorry to ask a question, I know you're looking for advice, but..

You said you're scoring almost perfect on everything but those two..how do you do so well on Angles?
I really need help on that, even tho I use the "hill technique" or looking at it like a laptop screen, it just takes up a lot of time and isn't foolproof.
Thanks!

I visualize my angles as laptop screens too! I ask myself "which laptop is more open" and it seems to work for me pretty well. I look for the smallest angle and then the widest angle and this usually narrows down the choices to one or two. Then I analyze the ones in between if there are two answers still left. This breaks it down into only comparing two angles to each other rather than trying to compute all four at once, if that makes sense.

As far as my practice CDP tests go I'm doing pretty well on everything (12/15 and up) except cube counting, which on my last test I got a 4 out of 15... If anyone has strategies for this section I would love to know! Also, is there any way of doing these types of questions more quickly?

 

[Chemboy23]

cube counting is the easiest section. regardless of what anyone tells you, it's faster and more efficent to make a tally sheet (I'm sure you've seen them on here before). Basically you just go ahead and count all the cubes. It gives a more accurate answer and you don't get in the middle of a bunch of cubes a forget what number you had already (this happened to me A LOT!!!) Also, many people forget that there are still squares that you cannot see (i.e., they're behind a taller figure, for example). You have to be able to visualize what you cannot see basically, if that makes any sense lol. So...if I had, let's say I had the following figure.

As you can see (hopefully), there are many faces on this figure we cannot see from this angle. The middle of this figure has a hole (with no cube). You need to look at this figure from the backside too.

Tally sheet:

#faces exposed-------#cubes
0-
1-
2-
3-
4-
5-

One last note, I recommend you start somewhere on the side. If you start in the middle, you tend to forget where you were as you're adding to your data. And just take it one column at a time. I hope this helps, if I can help you in anyway, please let me know. Good luck.