- Joined
- Sep 11, 2020
- Messages
- 7
- Reaction score
- 7
Background:
I am a Bio major just now starting my Junior year. I didn't even know when I had to take the DAT so it was good doing some research online, and I kind of panicked when I realized you had to schedule it 2 months in advance. Also, a lot of breakdowns are scary talking about studying forever and ever. I felt like I could've taken it in less than 2 months tbh, but the extra time didn't hurt. And I feel like you shouldn't listen to the scary study forever breakdowns, but rather study the way that helps you learn most efficiently. Whenever I panicked, I found an efficient way to study or practice that helped me reduce some of the panic. Also, people love DAT Destroyer and the other destroyers, but I never used it because I felt like I would spend too much time learning things I didn't need to know.
Breakdown:
Hey guys, just finished taking my DAT yesterday. Going to do a quick breakdown of every section and how I studied. I mainly used Ari's study schedule on DAT Bootcamp and DAT Qvault. I only used Qvault for Biology, Organic Chemistry, and a little General Chemistry. Be forewarned, some of the DAT Qvault explanations are wrong. However, it has a lot of tricky questions which helps with conceptualization of knowledge. I found that Ari's schedule was amazing for the summer, especially if you give yourself time to do everything every day. Once my semester started, I had to stretch out the last couple days of Ari's schedule to fit my schedule. In the end I opted not to follow the last couple days of the schedule and instead just reviewed problems. Luckily, it seemed to workout. DAT BOOTCAMP IS BY FAR THE BEST SOURCE FOR THE PRICE. IT HAS EVERYTHING. I saw a lot of posts about DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer, but also saw how time-consuming they said they were. I didn't feel a need to learn more than I needed to. I also didn't have the motivation because it seemed like too much work lol. But I think the most helpful thing is to learn the knowledge and just reinforce it over and over using every question source in your disposal. SO MY MAIN RESOURCES WERE DAT BOOTCAMP AND DAT QVAULT. But if I had to choose just one, definitely DAT BOOTCAMP by a mile. I think I ended up studying 4-6 hrs a day, but sometimes shorter in the beginning. Also, towards the end when the semester started, there were a lot of days where I didn't even look at DAT stuff. So I don't think it's a matter of how long you study, but rather how efficiently you study. The study schedule with a lot of practice questions, along with some review was the most efficient for me.
Perceptual Ability(23):
I simply did 10 questions of every section of the DAT Bootcamp PAT generator daily. I also followed the schedule to almost a tee so maybe the PAT Trainer game helped in some way. Eventually the concepts all started to align and each section became much easier and I could handle them much more efficiently. The only section I was really bad in was the angles. I got half of them wrong no matter what and that's probably what dropped my PAT grade a bit. I also wasn't amazing at keyholes, but on the real thing the visual differences are a lot larger than bootcamp. I feel like I could tell when something was longer or different dimensions on the real DAT easier.
Quantitative Reasoning(30):
I followed Ari's schedule doing 20 questions every day. I went over the ones I got wrong until I knew how to do them. Eventually, everything started making sense. I got 19/20 on most of the DAT Bootcamp tests, but the exposure to the question types was amazing. By learning how to do every problem, I figured it out on the actual thing. Also, the actual thing seemed to have easier questions in terms of comparing 2 values or determining which of the 2 statements make the overall statement true.
Reading Comprehension(25):
I simply followed Ari's schedule with this. I feel like my SAT prep rolled over into this. Also, the articles on the real DAT were pretty easy as compared to the tests 6-10 on DAT Bootcamp. I felt like I had a good grasp of this since the beginning so didn't spend more time than that was on the schedule.
Biology(22):
I followed Ari's schedule to do the Bio. I made sure I learned everything on the first day of each chapter. Then I reviewed the info. on the second day. Whenever I felt like I was forgetting something from an earlier chapter I made sure to review it. Biology was kind of a rolling learning where I went back and reviewed while learning new info. I aided this by doing every DAT Qvault test after. I was delighted to see a lot of questions I'd seen before on the real DAT. However, there were some questions on the real DAT where it was very specific. I knew a wide range of Biology, but they had random very specific questions you either knew or your didn't. Kind of hard to prepare for every little detail, so even with a good grasp, narrowing down to the best possible answer choices probably aided me. For example, sometimes I knew one or two choices were wrong which probably increased my chances of getting the question right. I also spent time looking at a lot of the solutions to the questions I got right and definitely the ones I got wrong. Doing this helped clear up concepts I had wrong in my head or helped me to learn something new. Also, the daily 5 question quiz is pretty helpful because the first question always reviews a random aspect of bio. Learning every mnemonic along with what it meant was also very helpful. I felt like the mnemonics helped me grasp large concepts easier.
General Chemistry(24):
I was decent at chem in highschool and college so I wasn't worried about this section. I just followed Ari's schedule with Mike's videos. I also did a couple DAT Qvault gen chem tests. Its good to do all the practice tests Bootcamp has to offer to see the range of questions. DAT Qvault also gives good questions to reinforce the knowledge. I felt like I didn't have to pay too much attention to this section. After I learned it at the beginning of Ari's schedule, it only took me an hour or 2 to review everything and memorize all the equations like 2 days before the test.
Organic Chemistry(26):
I was terrible at Organic Chemistry when I was taking the class. This is the section I dreaded the most, but that in return made me spend more time preparing for it. I followed Ari's schedule. I also did all of the DAT Qvault questions after I had learned all the concepts. The reaction sheet is helpful, but I found doing the practice problems was an even better way to learn the reactions. I did every practice question on DAT Bootcamp, and marked every question I got wrong on DAT Qvault and did them over again. I remember one night I was so worried about Organic Chem approx. 1.5 months in that I did every reviewing and learning question on DAT Bootcamp with the app. I felt that the more I did the problems, the more reinforced I felt on how to attack every problem and better situated I was to the problems. I also felt that the actual DAT focused more on general concepts than specific reactions. But I knew how all of the specific reactions worked and, accompanied with knowledge of the general concepts, it helped me handle the section well. CARDIO is always a good concept to have down, among others.
I'll also post my DAT Bootcamp practice test results so everyone can compare to real DAT.(Side note, sometimes I got lazy during the end of the test and rushed through the QR and RC. Especially during the last few tests, so you can probably do better than me pretty easily.) I also felt tests 6-10 were more difficult than 1-5.
Test 1 : GC: 18, RC: 26, PA: 22, OC: 18, BIO: 21, QR: 20 (AA:21)
Test 2 : GC: 19, RC:22, PA: 21, OC: 17, BIO: 20, QR: 20 (AA: 20)
Test 3 : GC: 23. RC: 25, PA: 22, OC: 21, BIO: 22, QR: 20 (AA: 22)
Test 4 : GC: 21, RC: 22, PA: 21, OC: 21, BIO: 23, QR: 19 (AA: 21)
Test 5 : GC: 20, RC: 28, PA: 21, OC: 20, BIO: 20, QR: 19 (AA: 21)
Test 6 : GC: 20, RC: 20, PA: 20, OC: 20, BIO: 21, QR: 19 (AA: 20)
Test 7 : GC: 19, RC: 25, PA: 21, OC: 17, BIO: 20, QR: 19 (AA: 20)
Test 8 : GC: 22, RC: 21, PA: 21, OC: 18, BIO: 20, QR: 20 (AA: 20)
Test 9 : GC: 21, RC: 20, PA: 20, OC: 22, BIO: 20, QR: 20 (AA: 21)
Test 10 : GC: 19, RC: 20, PA: 20, OC: 21, BIO: 19, QR: 19 (AA: 20)
While I'm at it might as well post my abismal DAT Qvault scores. HAHA these are bad. But I used this source by marking and going over every question I got wrong, not just taking the tests to see what I know. More of a reinforcement tool than a DAT score evaluation. I've heard all the first tests for every section are the easiest in DAT Qvault so that's why I skipped the first gen chem test.
Biology: (T2: 20, T3: 22, T4: 20, T5: 22, T6: 18, T7: 17, T8: 20 T9: 19, T10: 18) I took the 1st test before I signed up for my account because it was free. I'd advise taking it.
Organic: (T1: 19, T2: 20, T3: 17, T4: 20, T5: 18, T6: 18, T7: 18, T8: 19, T9: 18, T10: 19)
Gen Chem: (T2: 18, T3: 18, T4: 20, T5: 22)
I took multiple of these tests in a row at times. Even when I was getting a lot of them wrong, it just calmed me down that at least I was doing practice problems to see my weaknesses. Plus I got to see what I didn't know so I could learn it.
Final side note: I've been hearing DAT Booster is pretty helpful recently. I'd take a look into that for the people who take their DAT after me. I never even heard of it, but a lot of people are starting to speak well of it so maybe give it a try? Might be better than DAT Qvault honestly, who knows haha.
I am a Bio major just now starting my Junior year. I didn't even know when I had to take the DAT so it was good doing some research online, and I kind of panicked when I realized you had to schedule it 2 months in advance. Also, a lot of breakdowns are scary talking about studying forever and ever. I felt like I could've taken it in less than 2 months tbh, but the extra time didn't hurt. And I feel like you shouldn't listen to the scary study forever breakdowns, but rather study the way that helps you learn most efficiently. Whenever I panicked, I found an efficient way to study or practice that helped me reduce some of the panic. Also, people love DAT Destroyer and the other destroyers, but I never used it because I felt like I would spend too much time learning things I didn't need to know.
Breakdown:
Hey guys, just finished taking my DAT yesterday. Going to do a quick breakdown of every section and how I studied. I mainly used Ari's study schedule on DAT Bootcamp and DAT Qvault. I only used Qvault for Biology, Organic Chemistry, and a little General Chemistry. Be forewarned, some of the DAT Qvault explanations are wrong. However, it has a lot of tricky questions which helps with conceptualization of knowledge. I found that Ari's schedule was amazing for the summer, especially if you give yourself time to do everything every day. Once my semester started, I had to stretch out the last couple days of Ari's schedule to fit my schedule. In the end I opted not to follow the last couple days of the schedule and instead just reviewed problems. Luckily, it seemed to workout. DAT BOOTCAMP IS BY FAR THE BEST SOURCE FOR THE PRICE. IT HAS EVERYTHING. I saw a lot of posts about DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer, but also saw how time-consuming they said they were. I didn't feel a need to learn more than I needed to. I also didn't have the motivation because it seemed like too much work lol. But I think the most helpful thing is to learn the knowledge and just reinforce it over and over using every question source in your disposal. SO MY MAIN RESOURCES WERE DAT BOOTCAMP AND DAT QVAULT. But if I had to choose just one, definitely DAT BOOTCAMP by a mile. I think I ended up studying 4-6 hrs a day, but sometimes shorter in the beginning. Also, towards the end when the semester started, there were a lot of days where I didn't even look at DAT stuff. So I don't think it's a matter of how long you study, but rather how efficiently you study. The study schedule with a lot of practice questions, along with some review was the most efficient for me.
Perceptual Ability(23):
I simply did 10 questions of every section of the DAT Bootcamp PAT generator daily. I also followed the schedule to almost a tee so maybe the PAT Trainer game helped in some way. Eventually the concepts all started to align and each section became much easier and I could handle them much more efficiently. The only section I was really bad in was the angles. I got half of them wrong no matter what and that's probably what dropped my PAT grade a bit. I also wasn't amazing at keyholes, but on the real thing the visual differences are a lot larger than bootcamp. I feel like I could tell when something was longer or different dimensions on the real DAT easier.
Quantitative Reasoning(30):
I followed Ari's schedule doing 20 questions every day. I went over the ones I got wrong until I knew how to do them. Eventually, everything started making sense. I got 19/20 on most of the DAT Bootcamp tests, but the exposure to the question types was amazing. By learning how to do every problem, I figured it out on the actual thing. Also, the actual thing seemed to have easier questions in terms of comparing 2 values or determining which of the 2 statements make the overall statement true.
Reading Comprehension(25):
I simply followed Ari's schedule with this. I feel like my SAT prep rolled over into this. Also, the articles on the real DAT were pretty easy as compared to the tests 6-10 on DAT Bootcamp. I felt like I had a good grasp of this since the beginning so didn't spend more time than that was on the schedule.
Biology(22):
I followed Ari's schedule to do the Bio. I made sure I learned everything on the first day of each chapter. Then I reviewed the info. on the second day. Whenever I felt like I was forgetting something from an earlier chapter I made sure to review it. Biology was kind of a rolling learning where I went back and reviewed while learning new info. I aided this by doing every DAT Qvault test after. I was delighted to see a lot of questions I'd seen before on the real DAT. However, there were some questions on the real DAT where it was very specific. I knew a wide range of Biology, but they had random very specific questions you either knew or your didn't. Kind of hard to prepare for every little detail, so even with a good grasp, narrowing down to the best possible answer choices probably aided me. For example, sometimes I knew one or two choices were wrong which probably increased my chances of getting the question right. I also spent time looking at a lot of the solutions to the questions I got right and definitely the ones I got wrong. Doing this helped clear up concepts I had wrong in my head or helped me to learn something new. Also, the daily 5 question quiz is pretty helpful because the first question always reviews a random aspect of bio. Learning every mnemonic along with what it meant was also very helpful. I felt like the mnemonics helped me grasp large concepts easier.
General Chemistry(24):
I was decent at chem in highschool and college so I wasn't worried about this section. I just followed Ari's schedule with Mike's videos. I also did a couple DAT Qvault gen chem tests. Its good to do all the practice tests Bootcamp has to offer to see the range of questions. DAT Qvault also gives good questions to reinforce the knowledge. I felt like I didn't have to pay too much attention to this section. After I learned it at the beginning of Ari's schedule, it only took me an hour or 2 to review everything and memorize all the equations like 2 days before the test.
Organic Chemistry(26):
I was terrible at Organic Chemistry when I was taking the class. This is the section I dreaded the most, but that in return made me spend more time preparing for it. I followed Ari's schedule. I also did all of the DAT Qvault questions after I had learned all the concepts. The reaction sheet is helpful, but I found doing the practice problems was an even better way to learn the reactions. I did every practice question on DAT Bootcamp, and marked every question I got wrong on DAT Qvault and did them over again. I remember one night I was so worried about Organic Chem approx. 1.5 months in that I did every reviewing and learning question on DAT Bootcamp with the app. I felt that the more I did the problems, the more reinforced I felt on how to attack every problem and better situated I was to the problems. I also felt that the actual DAT focused more on general concepts than specific reactions. But I knew how all of the specific reactions worked and, accompanied with knowledge of the general concepts, it helped me handle the section well. CARDIO is always a good concept to have down, among others.
I'll also post my DAT Bootcamp practice test results so everyone can compare to real DAT.(Side note, sometimes I got lazy during the end of the test and rushed through the QR and RC. Especially during the last few tests, so you can probably do better than me pretty easily.) I also felt tests 6-10 were more difficult than 1-5.
Test 1 : GC: 18, RC: 26, PA: 22, OC: 18, BIO: 21, QR: 20 (AA:21)
Test 2 : GC: 19, RC:22, PA: 21, OC: 17, BIO: 20, QR: 20 (AA: 20)
Test 3 : GC: 23. RC: 25, PA: 22, OC: 21, BIO: 22, QR: 20 (AA: 22)
Test 4 : GC: 21, RC: 22, PA: 21, OC: 21, BIO: 23, QR: 19 (AA: 21)
Test 5 : GC: 20, RC: 28, PA: 21, OC: 20, BIO: 20, QR: 19 (AA: 21)
Test 6 : GC: 20, RC: 20, PA: 20, OC: 20, BIO: 21, QR: 19 (AA: 20)
Test 7 : GC: 19, RC: 25, PA: 21, OC: 17, BIO: 20, QR: 19 (AA: 20)
Test 8 : GC: 22, RC: 21, PA: 21, OC: 18, BIO: 20, QR: 20 (AA: 20)
Test 9 : GC: 21, RC: 20, PA: 20, OC: 22, BIO: 20, QR: 20 (AA: 21)
Test 10 : GC: 19, RC: 20, PA: 20, OC: 21, BIO: 19, QR: 19 (AA: 20)
While I'm at it might as well post my abismal DAT Qvault scores. HAHA these are bad. But I used this source by marking and going over every question I got wrong, not just taking the tests to see what I know. More of a reinforcement tool than a DAT score evaluation. I've heard all the first tests for every section are the easiest in DAT Qvault so that's why I skipped the first gen chem test.
Biology: (T2: 20, T3: 22, T4: 20, T5: 22, T6: 18, T7: 17, T8: 20 T9: 19, T10: 18) I took the 1st test before I signed up for my account because it was free. I'd advise taking it.
Organic: (T1: 19, T2: 20, T3: 17, T4: 20, T5: 18, T6: 18, T7: 18, T8: 19, T9: 18, T10: 19)
Gen Chem: (T2: 18, T3: 18, T4: 20, T5: 22)
I took multiple of these tests in a row at times. Even when I was getting a lot of them wrong, it just calmed me down that at least I was doing practice problems to see my weaknesses. Plus I got to see what I didn't know so I could learn it.
Final side note: I've been hearing DAT Booster is pretty helpful recently. I'd take a look into that for the people who take their DAT after me. I never even heard of it, but a lot of people are starting to speak well of it so maybe give it a try? Might be better than DAT Qvault honestly, who knows haha.
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