Recent DAT taker hoping to help fellow students!

[22tran]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hi guys,
I recently took the DAT and did fairly ok.
I was one of the students that had a lot of trouble with self-discipline, so I was never able to put in a 10 hour a day study schedules like other students who have succeeded taking the DAT. I postponed my exams for so many times and bought so many different materials it probably costed me six months worth of paycheck. And no, I'm not kidding.
That being said, I've went through so many different materials, techniques and have probably read everything about DAT I could find online to find something that worked for me. I can't count the times I gave up and spent days or weeks of postponing until I could pick up the book again. Studying for the DAT was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
I made this post hoping that I could help other DAT takers struggling with any problems they have while studying for the DAT.
So post your questions here! If I can't answer them, I'm sure someone else will!

 

[Pre-dental 16]

Could you tell about your typical study schedule, study materials and which ones worked the best? Also how did you study for BIO section and how did you do on DAT?

 

[htorres89]

What was your best strategy to handle each subject? Destroyer all the way? Math Destroyer? Please let me know


Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile

 

[LuckBloodandSweat]

Scores plox ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)? Evidence not needed if not 23/24+ 😉

 

[22tran]

AA 22 Bio 21 Gen Chem 21 Orgo 24 PAT 20 RC 20 QR 24
Something like that

I've used a lot of different materials, and the ones I'd swear by are chads, destroyer and bootcamp. I think that's what you will ever need to study and nothing more.
But for practice, if you can, you should try as many different practice exams from different sources as possible just to prepare yourself.

I think destroyer definitely helped a lot if you're just beginning to study and have a lot of time. That definitely took me a lot of time to go over. But to start I would always always go to Chad's for the basic.
What I did was every day I would look at the chapter in destroyer for gen chem and orgo chem, then watch the chad videos that corresponds to that chapter, then after finishing the videos I'd attempt the problems in destroyer and carefully go through them afterwards. I try to go through one chapter of orgo and gen each day but of course I was having trouble sticking through my schedule.
For the bio section I went through the kaplan book in the beginning and wrote down notes. But to be honest I didn't think it helped too much since it covered only very basic materials. Basically I would go through the questions in destroyer, know all over the materials the book covers and then I usually record everything I've written down on that day and listen to it when I'm driving, eating, etc.
I've heard that cliff notes really help but I haven't really tried it.
I also used feralis notes on bootcamp. But it is really reallyyyy lengthy, so again I'd read through it then summarize it and record it like I'm teaching it to someone else, then listen to it whenever I have time
For math I used destroyer and bootcamp and just learn the different methods and do practice. The one I probably had the most trouble with was probably probability and permutation problems. I think destroyer covers that pretty well
Then the last 2 weeks (or week and a half) I begin to do full length practice with bootcamp, Crack and DAT achiever. I didn't finish all the practices in any of them but I wanted to use different softwares to see the difference in their exam styles and difficulty levels

 

[DMikes]

I recently took the DAT and did fairly ok.

Glad you did "okay!"

AA 22 Bio 21 Gen Chem 21 Orgo 24 PAT 20 RC 20 QR 24

MFW "okay" = 22.

That's like... 96th+ percentile. A 22 is an awesome score.

 

[Sm101]

When did you start studying and how many hours did you spent per day studying?

 

[22tran]

Glad you did "okay!"



MFW "okay" = 22.

That's like... 96th+ percentile. A 22 is an awesome score.

I know that it's decent. But a lot of people get so much better score by studying for like 6 7 weeks straight. I postponed so many times and took forever and I tried so many different methods, so I didn't feel like I did great or anything.

 

[DMikes]

I know that it's decent. But a lot of people get so much better score by studying for like 6 7 weeks straight. I postponed so many times and took forever and I tried so many different methods, so I didn't feel like I did great or anything.

A 22 is better than decent. That's seriously an awesome score. Different things work for different people. What you did worked for you and it shows.

 

[22tran]

When did you start studying and how many hours did you spent per day studying?

I first started in October of last year. I didn't seriously get into it. I paid for Kaplan so I would attend the classes but didn't do anything else besides that. So I completely wasted my time and money.
Then when Nov came around I started hearing from other students and dentists I shadowed for that it was too late for the cycle and with a low GPA (3.2) my chances were pretty much zero. So I postponed it for next year
I was working full time from Nov-Feb then started working only on weekends and planned to study Mon-Thu
That did not happen. I spent most of my days going out and doing things I didn't get to do when I was working 7 days a week. So here and there I would pick up the bio notes and "study" but it went nowhere.
From Feb to April I still didn't get anything done. I had planned to take it in April just in case I needed to retake again I would be able to do it in July.
But it didn't happen. So April comes and goes and then May and June... I still got nothing done
In the middle of June when the cycle opened and I realized I was nowhere ready I started panicking because I haven't even started on my application. So I decided to take off work completely and spent time trying to really buckle down. It took me about a week and a half to finish my essay and application, and around end of June I started to study seriously
I began to go over Destroyer gen and orgo. Those two were my weakest sections. So I bought the full dynamite package and I went over the entire books for gen chem and orgo chem (these are the separate GC and OC books, not in the big destroyer book). It was completely worth it because after that, every practice from everywhere else made perfect sense and seemed very easy. There would be things I haven't seen before or silly mistakes that I make, but for the complicated problems that required thorough understanding, I aced through them with no trouble. If anyone is shaky on chemistry I strongly recommend Destroyer.
It took me 4 weeks total just to go through Destroyer chemistry. I was probably studying about 4-5 hours a day.
After that I began to do practice from the big Destroyer book that contains Math, Bio, GC & OC. I did 40 bio questions, 30 GC and 30 OC a day and then try to go over them
I make recordings of all the questions in Bio that I get wrong bc I know it's such a huge section and there's so many random things to remember. Then I just listen to it when I drive, eat, shower, etc. and I found it very useful
On the last 3 weeks I started switching to Bootcamp. I did about 2 full lengths per week and the rest of the days I would go over them and fit in an hour practice of PAT, Math or Reading each day.
On the last week I did one FL every single day. I used crack DAT, bootcamp and achiever.
It really really helped me build up my endurance for the long exam because during the actual exam the proctors actually messed up and I lost my 30 min break. So I had to power through the entire exam without any break, and I felt fine.
The fact that I made myself to one exam each day really made me become familiar with the process and I stopped worrying. During my actual exam I was nervous, but after about 20 min it started feeling very natural and easy.

 

[22tran]

Hey I'm in a similar position as you, so I appreciate you posting! I keep postponing and postponing and now I'm stressing the eff out because I'm already late in this cycle :/

What were your practice/bootcamp scores? (Even if you just finished a section).

When did you know you were ready?

Well I started studying since last October.. So the fact that I just took the exam this August said a lot.
I had a lot of trouble with self discipline and I just could not buckle down and study. Everyday I'd keep thinking that I'd get serious "tomorrow"
Eventually I got to the point where I felt so upset, disappointed and disgusted with myself because I wasn't working, and I wasn't studying. I was doing nothing but procrastinating. I started setting out short term goals, like how many chapters I need to go through or how much practice I had to do each day, etc. and try to accomplish them.
It was also really helpful once I forced myself to get into the habit of sleeping and waking early. When I go to bed super late and wake up late, I had a lot of trouble feeling motivated and wanting to get anything done and I'd just waste the rest of the day doing nothing.

When I first started bootcamp, I've already gone through both GC & OC destroyer books, and half of the big destroyer, and I was scoring around 20 in bio and 25 in GC & OC
I definitely recommend trying to really understand GC and OC through Destroyer because it really laid a strong foundation that allows you to make educated guesses on questions you've never seen before. Even with the very hard ones, you still have an idea of where and how to tackle it. GC & OC were my weakest subjects and by the end of Destroyer they became my best scored ones.
I was feeling ready when I took the bootcamps and crack and started to understand their problems and have a decent idea about most of the things they're asking. I was never feeling ready about PAT though, I never scored higher than a 20 on any PAT practice that I took. I probably spent the last week doing only PAT and math from bootcamp and that really helped me.
On the week of the exam I still freaked out because I scored very badly on Achiever. I think I started feeling kind of confident when instead of being able to recognize questions I've answered before, I was able to use information I learned from a previous question to answer a different questions. Like the dots felt like they started to connect. I never felt completely ready but then I asked myself how much better I'd do if I had studied for one more week and I probably wouldn't do much better except for maybe PAT

Honestly I don't think you'll ever feel ready because there is just so much things to know and you just cannot cover everything. There's so many ways for them to twist and turn the things you know into asking completely strange questions. A lot of my bio questions were things I've never seen before and I covered a lot. I knew taxonomy from (everything archaea to animalia) and ecology and all that plant crap like the back of my hand and none showed up on my exam. I think it's better if you prepare yourself thinking you're going to use this knowledge as a foundation to formulate answers for advanced, complicated questions than thinking that that topic would appear again.

 

[GypsyHummus]

This is really helpful, thank you!

Do you by chance have a schedule? I'm looking to start studying hardcore for 8 weeks in October, and have no clue where to start

 

[JCE96]

Thanks for the info on DAT prep! What classes did you take before the DAT? I am currently a sophomore and I'm in organic 1 and bio 2. I am soon to be registering for spring semester and advice on scheduling would be helpful. I will be in organic 2, but I do not know if it would be best to take 2 upper level bio classes (most likely genetics and cell biology) or 1 upper level bio along with biochem. I have looked through several different threads looking for the best classes to take beforehand with varying answers. I planned on taking the DAT at the end of the summer for 2017 so I could add an additional class over summer semester if need be.

 

[DAT Destroyer]

Hey I'm in a similar position as you, so I appreciate you posting! I keep postponing and postponing and now I'm stressing the eff out because I'm already late in this cycle :/

What were your practice/bootcamp scores? (Even if you just finished a section).

When did you know you were ready?

From my experience students that continue to take timed tests near the test DAT often suffer from anxiety. No timed tests are going to guarantee what you will score on the actual DAT. If you stop taking timed test I can almost assure you that you will feel much more calm.

No timed test is 100 percent accurate, I have received many emails, pm from students who have scored lower than what a timed test indicated but then again you could score higher. IMO, the 2009 is the best test for predication of the actual DAT and even that is not exact. Should you take the 2009 DAT if you score 18 or above you should be ok on the actual DAT. But if you score lower than that IMO you are not ready.

I do hope this helps and feel free to pm if you want additional help. I have worked with thousands of students through the years. My goal is for students to face the DAT Beast once and Destroy it.

Wishing you the best..Nancy

 

[Bersabeh]

what is the fast and best strategy to follow to deal with RC, please donot say BC startegy reading scientific America or news paper daily, because it did not help me at all!!

 

[22tran]

This is really helpful, thank you!

Do you by chance have a schedule? I'm looking to start studying hardcore for 8 weeks in October, and have no clue where to start

No. I actually don't have a schedule because I was never able to stick to one...
I also kept thinking I would go hardcore in.... Abc time and personally it never happened.
If you plan to study hardcore starting October, I suggest you at least spend an hour or two a day doing a little bit of DAT material to get your foot in the door. It doesn't hurt to do a little more than you planned. That way when the day comes you don't feel overwhelmed like I did!
I said I was going to study hardcore sooo many time and after the first or second day and I couldn't keep up with the crazy schedule I planned out I started feeling defeated and it felt really disappointing and ****ty.. And it make it a lot harder for me to get back up and study again. I hope you don't end up in the same situation.

 

[22tran]

what is the fast and best strategy to follow to deal with RC, please donot say BC startegy reading scientific America or news paper daily, because it did not help me at all!!

What I felt worked best for me was just reading the question first and try to find the answer. I skip through questions like tone/purpose and stuff that requires me to read a whole passage to answer. And then if I hit a question I can't answer in the 2 paragraphs I read then I'll skip and go to the next one and keep reading on and on... I think that's what they call search and destroy.. Not sure tho

For reading it's really just practice practice. I didn't even bother going over the answers afterwards. If your reading score is constantly below 20 I'd suggest you do one practice reading a day a week or two before the exam

 

[22tran]

Thanks for the info on DAT prep! What classes did you take before the DAT? I am currently a sophomore and I'm in organic 1 and bio 2. I am soon to be registering for spring semester and advice on scheduling would be helpful. I will be in organic 2, but I do not know if it would be best to take 2 upper level bio classes (most likely genetics and cell biology) or 1 upper level bio along with biochem. I have looked through several different threads looking for the best classes to take beforehand with varying answers. I planned on taking the DAT at the end of the summer for 2017 so I could add an additional class over summer semester if need be.

hmm.. I don't know if I'm in a position to advise you for what classes to take. I study for the DAT after I've already gotten my bachelor so I pretty much had to relearn everything. If you have the advantage of time, I think you should do a lot of practice constantly, a little bit every day. The DAT looking from the outside is a super scary and overwhelming thing but if you start early you'll gradually have a feel of how it works and maybe it'll help you decide on what to do!

 

[krisnocaries]

Do you have any tips on the day of your DAT? I've been told by previous test takers that one technique ppl do is using the 15 min tutorial as extra time for memory dumping formulas, facts, etc.

For those that have taken the DAT, Has anyone ever done this ? Any tips ? Was it worth it or a waste of time ?

I'm low key going to have an anxiety attack since my test is on Monday. . I already feel like I forgot everything.




Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[22tran]

Do you have any tips on the day of your DAT? I've been told by previous test takers that one technique ppl do is using the 15 min tutorial as extra time for memory dumping formulas, facts, etc.

For those that have taken the DAT, Has anyone ever done this ? Any tips ? Was it worth it or a waste of time ?

I'm low key going to have an anxiety attack since my test is on Monday. . I already feel like I forgot everything.





Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Yeah that's what I also did. It does help. Most likely you probably won't need it or would remember right away when you do but it's just peace of mind, because sometimes when there's too many things going on I would forget the simplest stuff.
So every time I take the practice DAT in the end I make sure to write down all the formulas I need and the ones I haven't remembered and make sure I write them down during the 15 min during practice too just so I know that I remember to write everything.
So for the first 15 minutes I write down the hole punching grids and the table to count the squares and gen and orgo formulas, mostly conversions.

During your 30 minute break you're allowed to go get your stuff in the locker so you can actually look at your math notes if you have to before coming back in. I didn't get the 30 minutes break though so I'm no sure if you're allowed to come in early or how exactly it works

I was getting really nervous when I first started my hands were actually sweating so much it was smearing all the stuff I was writing on the scrap paper (disgusting) lol. So it would also help if you power through ALL the easy answers first. It will boost your confidence and calm you down before trying to tackle the hard ones. Then go back to skipped and marked ones after.

I wish you the best! Think about how it will all be over soon!!

 

[Bersabeh]

Yeah that's what I also did. It does help. Most likely you probably won't need it or would remember right away when you do but it's just peace of mind, because sometimes when there's too many things going on I would forget the simplest stuff.
So every time I take the practice DAT in the end I make sure to write down all the formulas I need and the ones I haven't remembered and make sure I write them down during the 15 min during practice too just so I know that I remember to write everything.
So for the first 15 minutes I write down the hole punching grids and the table to count the squares and gen and orgo formulas, mostly conversions.

During your 30 minute break you're allowed to go get your stuff in the locker so you can actually look at your math notes if you have to before coming back in. I didn't get the 30 minutes break though so I'm no sure if you're allowed to come in early or how exactly it works

I was getting really nervous when I first started my hands were actually sweating so much it was smearing all the stuff I was writing on the scrap paper (disgusting) lol. So it would also help if you power through ALL the easy answers first. It will boost your confidence and calm you down before trying to tackle the hard ones. Then go back to skipped and marked ones after.

I wish you the best! Think about how it will all be over soon!!

how can u just answer only easy quest's? they donot show up one after d other, on my test actually I was bombarded with really wt tough ones one after the other and chem one calculation after the other and that's it, choosing d easy one was just not possible, skipping seemed like waste of time. What to do in that case?

 

[krisnocaries]

Yeah that's what I also did. It does help. Most likely you probably won't need it or would remember right away when you do but it's just peace of mind, because sometimes when there's too many things going on I would forget the simplest stuff.
So every time I take the practice DAT in the end I make sure to write down all the formulas I need and the ones I haven't remembered and make sure I write them down during the 15 min during practice too just so I know that I remember to write everything.
So for the first 15 minutes I write down the hole punching grids and the table to count the squares and gen and orgo formulas, mostly conversions.

During your 30 minute break you're allowed to go get your stuff in the locker so you can actually look at your math notes if you have to before coming back in. I didn't get the 30 minutes break though so I'm no sure if you're allowed to come in early or how exactly it works

I was getting really nervous when I first started my hands were actually sweating so much it was smearing all the stuff I was writing on the scrap paper (disgusting) lol. So it would also help if you power through ALL the easy answers first. It will boost your confidence and calm you down before trying to tackle the hard ones. Then go back to skipped and marked ones after.

I wish you the best! Think about how it will all be over soon!!

Thanks ! I'm def going to draw out the hole punching grids and set up my table for cube counting.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile