The "Be Careful" DAT BREAKDOWN 20AA 1/14/17

[digzthis]

Whats up, everyone? First of all thank you to those who are always helping out on here with their breakdowns and what not. Also thank you to Ari, Feralis, Nancy (seriously the nicest woman on the planet) and Dr. Romano with DAT DESTROYER, and whoever owns Dat Qvault for all the great prep material.

I was a little hesitant to write this since it is not a 28 and may fall on deaf ears but I figured maybe someone can learn from my mistakes so here I am! I'm a non-traditional student that literally knew nothing about science 2 years ago so while I am proud of my scores I am really disappointed in my gen chem score! Here they are...

Science GPA-3.9
Cumul. GPA-3.5
Studied for 2/2.5 months, really didnt go hard until after finals 12/8

DAT
Perceptual Ability-20
QR-18
RC-20 (1/2 and 1/2 s&d and tone)
Biology-23
GenChem-17
Organic-20
TS-19
AA-20

2007 scores- 19 BIO, 24 GC, 28 Orgo
2009 scores- 20 BIO, 24 GC, 20 Orgo


I don't want to beat a dead horse with reviewing all of the material but I found all of them to be very helpful in studying. Obviously Chad is amazing, bootcamp is amazing (most similar in question type to exam), bio the subject i reviewed most in destroyer is amazing, qvault all around was great, and Feralis bio notes were fantastic once I had everything dialed in conceptually.

I want to go over my mistakes because I think they will help.

#1- DO NOT think that just because you are scoring any type of score on practice tests or whatever will guarantee you that on your exam. I fell in to the trap of reading breakdowns from people who scored very similarly to their practice tests and since I was scoring very well in mine I began to assume that would be the case for me as well. Well guess what? THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES My gen chemistry section was the hardest and trickiest out of any practice exam and made the 2009 and 2007 exams look like a coloring book. I saw so many breakdowns claiming very little calculations and guess what?? Mine had a ton and not typical chad's or bootcamp calculations either. Be prepared for everything!!

#2- TAKE FULL LENGTH PRACTICE TESTS- I really got to study hard after finals until my test and was putting in 10 to 14 hr day study sessions. I would do 1 or 2 practice tests, review material, and then maybe do more practice tests but I never once did a full test. I figured "Oh, what is 2 1/2 hrs when im studying for 10?" Big mistake!!! As painful as it is, just do it..It will seem like you have a ton of material to cover and might not be the best usage of time but it will be worth it to simulate test day!

#3 NOTHING IS OVERKILL- This should actually be number one. I see Nancy on here all of the time preaching this and I chose not to listen! The problem I have with bootcamp and chads quizzes are they arent the hardest questions and can give you a false sense of confidence. Don't get me wrong, its fantastic material, but once i mastered all of it I got comfortable and I should have kept learning. I assumed that the level of diffuculty of the dat would be the same and it wasn't. Organic and Biology were pretty much the same but gen chem was just in a different world as far as the diffuculty of the conceptual questions. Actually the gen chem calculations werent bad except they rearranged alot of the answer choices weirdly and really through me off. I didn't even really mess with genchem or orgo in destroyer because of everyone saying it was overkill. Don't do that. I wish I would have gone through the chemistries in destroyer like I did the biology section (3 or 4 times btw). KEEP LEARNING.

#4 DONT GET COMFORTABLE-Always be grinding to get to that next level, never be satisfied. Keep practicing, keep learning, keep challenging yourself. Drop the tv shows and extracurriculars for a month so you can sit back at the end of this and be proud of what you accomplished. Netflix will always be there. OVERPREPARE Test day jitters really affected my performance in some areas and had i practiced a little more at some things i could have done better.

#5 PREPARE FOR TEST DAY- I touched on this a little before but try and get a plan for test day. I didn't take any full length practice tests. You should. I wore shorts. It was cold in the center, don't do that. Do you get anxiety when you drink coffee? Don't drink coffee. I did and with my adrenaline rushing i had so much energy I could barely keep still. Don't do that. They offer these huge noise canceling headphones that were literally squeezing my head like a pea but I couldn't take them off because the noise of other people ruffling their papers was worse. Then you have the guy coming in to clean off the desks with windex every now and then so you start smelling windex and its all just very distracting!! Sit at home and do full length practice tests with your music blaring and have your little brother spray the back of your head with windex every now and then to simulate! Seriously, just think about these things and how you'll handle it and hopefully you'll be better prepared.

#6 DONT ASSUME SOMETHING WON'T BE ON THERE- Don't assume a topic won't be on there because you didn't see it on the prep material. I got burned on a few because of this. Just don't assume anything!!

#7 BELIEVE IN YOURSELF- You have to. With all of the resources out there there's no reason you can't end up with the score you want. There is a ton of info to master but you can do it. You've made it through everything else and now you're here studying for this exam and you owe it to yourself to stay strong and work HARD for everything you want from this. Expect to win


Eric Thomas, great motivator, youtube him.

I didn't really address a lot of test specifics or comparisons with material so if you have any questions, let me know! My number one recommendation, get destroyer, go through everything and anything until you are emailing Dr. Romano and Nancy to release a monthly version because you just ate everything up.

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[Bingwen]

I really appreciated your breakdown a lot. I love breakdowns but I think that I know the materials I want to use and what I need to do, so I really like that you gave a list of what not to do and what to expect. Great job on the scores, especially only being involved in science for this little amount of time.

 

[kimball]

What were your bootcamp scores if you don't mind?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[8_man]

#1- DO NOT think that just because you are scoring any type of score on practice tests or whatever will guarantee you that on your exam. I fell in to the trap of reading breakdowns from people who scored very similarly to their practice tests and since I was scoring very well in mine I began to assume that would be the case for me as well. Well guess what? THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES.

Excellent advice, and great scores! A 20AA is very competitive.

 

[digzthis]

I hope so easy to feel like they're not around here!!

 

[digzthis]

What were your bootcamp scores if you don't mind?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

I don't know if you can really draw too much from my scores because i took those and qvault a bunch of times. My last scores were all mid 20's. I will say my first bio score was a 15 or something and i literally went through and retaught myself everything because i was so rusty. I took organic 1 over summer and 2 over fall so i was ok in that, scored in the 90th percentile on an acs test. Rely on bootcamp for a general idea but if you end up getting 4 or 5 questions you've never practiced like i did things are going to get a little hectic. Also i didn't really mention this but skip questions you don't know. I spent 5 minutes on the first gen chem question because it was so easy but the answer choices were rearranged in a way that was so weird i was determined to conquer it and resulted in not having enough time for all the other calculations which just messed me up!

 

[DAT Destroyer]

Whats up, everyone? First of all thank you to those who are always helping out on here with their breakdowns and what not. Also thank you to Ari, Feralis, Nancy (seriously the nicest woman on the planet) and Dr. Romano with DAT DESTROYER, and whoever owns Dat Qvault for all the great prep material.

I was a little hesitant to write this since it is not a 28 and may fall on deaf ears but I figured maybe someone can learn from my mistakes so here I am! I'm a non-traditional student that literally knew nothing about science 2 years ago so while I am proud of my scores I am really disappointed in my gen chem score! Here they are...

Science GPA-3.9
Cumul. GPA-3.5
Studied for 2/2.5 months, really didnt go hard until after finals 12/8

DAT
Perceptual Ability-20
QR-18
RC-20 (1/2 and 1/2 s&d and tone)
Biology-23
GenChem-17
Organic-20
TS-19
AA-20

2007 scores- 19 BIO, 24 GC, 28 Orgo
2009 scores- 20 BIO, 24 GC, 20 Orgo


I don't want to beat a dead horse with reviewing all of the material but I found all of them to be very helpful in studying. Obviously Chad is amazing, bootcamp is amazing (most similar in question type to exam), bio the subject i reviewed most in destroyer is amazing, qvault all around was great, and Feralis bio notes were fantastic once I had everything dialed in conceptually.

I want to go over my mistakes because I think they will help.

#1- DO NOT think that just because you are scoring any type of score on practice tests or whatever will guarantee you that on your exam. I fell in to the trap of reading breakdowns from people who scored very similarly to their practice tests and since I was scoring very well in mine I began to assume that would be the case for me as well. Well guess what? THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES My gen chemistry section was the hardest and trickiest out of any practice exam and made the 2009 and 2007 exams look like a coloring book. I saw so many breakdowns claiming very little calculations and guess what?? Mine had a ton and not typical chad's or bootcamp calculations either. Be prepared for everything!!

#2- TAKE FULL LENGTH PRACTICE TESTS- I really got to study hard after finals until my test and was putting in 10 to 14 hr day study sessions. I would do 1 or 2 practice tests, review material, and then maybe do more practice tests but I never once did a full test. I figured "Oh, what is 2 1/2 hrs when im studying for 10?" Big mistake!!! As painful as it is, just do it..It will seem like you have a ton of material to cover and might not be the best usage of time but it will be worth it to simulate test day!

#3 NOTHING IS OVERKILL- This should actually be number one. I see Nancy on here all of the time preaching this and I chose not to listen! The problem I have with bootcamp and chads quizzes are they arent the hardest questions and can give you a false sense of confidence. Don't get me wrong, its fantastic material, but once i mastered all of it I got comfortable and I should have kept learning. I assumed that the level of diffuculty of the dat would be the same and it wasn't. Organic and Biology were pretty much the same but gen chem was just in a different world as far as the diffuculty of the conceptual questions. Actually the gen chem calculations werent bad except they rearranged alot of the answer choices weirdly and really through me off. I didn't even really mess with genchem or orgo in destroyer because of everyone saying it was overkill. Don't do that. I wish I would have gone through the chemistries in destroyer like I did the biology section (3 or 4 times btw). KEEP LEARNING.

#4 DONT GET COMFORTABLE-Always be grinding to get to that next level, never be satisfied. Keep practicing, keep learning, keep challenging yourself. Drop the tv shows and extracurriculars for a month so you can sit back at the end of this and be proud of what you accomplished. Netflix will always be there. OVERPREPARE Test day jitters really affected my performance in some areas and had i practiced a little more at some things i could have done better.

#5 PREPARE FOR TEST DAY- I touched on this a little before but try and get a plan for test day. I didn't take any full length practice tests. You should. I wore shorts. It was cold in the center, don't do that. Do you get anxiety when you drink coffee? Don't drink coffee. I did and with my adrenaline rushing i had so much energy I could barely keep still. Don't do that. They offer these huge noise canceling headphones that were literally squeezing my head like a pea but I couldn't take them off because the noise of other people ruffling their papers was worse. Then you have the guy coming in to clean off the desks with windex every now and then so you start smelling windex and its all just very distracting!! Sit at home and do full length practice tests with your music blaring and have your little brother spray the back of your head with windex every now and then to simulate! Seriously, just think about these things and how you'll handle it and hopefully you'll be better prepared.

#6 DONT ASSUME SOMETHING WON'T BE ON THERE- Don't assume a topic won't be on there because you didn't see it on the prep material. I got burned on a few because of this. Just don't assume anything!!

#7 BELIEVE IN YOURSELF- You have to. With all of the resources out there there's no reason you can't end up with the score you want. There is a ton of info to master but you can do it. You've made it through everything else and now you're here studying for this exam and you owe it to yourself to stay strong and work HARD for everything you want from this. Expect to win


Eric Thomas, great motivator, youtube him.

I didn't really address a lot of test specifics or comparisons with material so if you have any questions, let me know! My number one recommendation, get destroyer, go through everything and anything until you are emailing Dr. Romano and Nancy to release a monthly version because you just ate everything up.

Congratulations!

Thank you for the post and your honest assessment of your DAT experience. Not everyone gets a 30 on the DAT and it takes guts to post scores when things don't go as planned. Thanks again for giving back to the SDN community.

Wishing you the best!

Nancy

 

[wizkidz]

Congratulations!

Thank you for the post and your honest assessment of your DAT experience. Not everyone gets a 30 on the DAT and it takes guts to post scores when things don't go as planned. Thanks again for giving back to the SDN community.

Wishing you the best!

Nancy

Would love your thoughts Nancy on the seemingly increased difficulty of the chemistry section. Any insight here/just random harder exams?

 

[digzthis]

I doubt the test is getting harder..maybe it is..the reality is when you're reading a 22 23 or greater breakdown these people really know their stuff and are equipped to handle the questions that push the envelope a little bit. The reality is that 86 to 87% are going to get a 20 or lower and you will very rarely hear from them on here. Go through chads, go through bootcamp, go through destroyer, but keep pushing yourself to get outside of your comfort zone and you will be forced to grow and learn. In hindsight i got too comfortable and if i would have spent more time learning than repeating material i already knew (which is important to a certain extent too) than i would have probably done better. I'm kicking myself for that score!!

 

[DAT Destroyer]

Would love your thoughts Nancy on the seemingly increased difficulty of the chemistry section. Any insight here/just random harder exams?

IMO the Chemistry part of the test is not necessarily getting harder, the ADA is testing in areas that are stated in the DAT Guide. The problem is students under estimate the test and rely too much on scores they get using timed test programs. I am not hating on the those testing programs, just warning students no timed test, including the 2007 and 2009 ADA tests can accurately predict exactly what you will score. You might score higher, but often I get emails from students who score lower. That is why it is very important not to take any shortcuts and spend more time on learning and less time on testing.

Nancy

 

[IcedChai]

Thanks for this post. So good. lol #5 is everything. You are my spirit animal. Non-trad and non-science major right here, I feel ya.

 

[minionphil]

Thanks for the post! The windex part made me laugh, but sorry it happened to you...

 

[whatisit350]

Dude, thanks so much for this post. I really needed to see this. I'm kind of in a similar boat.. Non-traditional and haven't taken anything other than a biology course since 2009. I've actually been thinking some of the same things, so it was good to see someone who already went through the experience, having the same thoughts. Especially about the don't get comfortable part. It's so easy to get complacent when you learn something, only to go the next question and then BAM! you gotta tank for like 5 minutes because you can't figure out the question.

I'm pretty worried about the reading section. Typically that's a bad section for me. I noticed you put 1/2 S&D and 1/2 tone. Would you mind expanding a little on that? I've read several posts about it, and it seems to be a mixed review of people saying it's mostly s&d and then people saying like you where it's half tone. Not really sure what to expect there. But then again, I guess that's kind of the name of the game; expect anything.

Btw, ET is definitely the man. I've watched pretty much all of his youtube stuff. I even have his "I can. I will. I must." posted on my wall in front of my study area. It's certainly gotten me through some sticky points!

Thanks again for your honest and real post.

 

[whatisit350]

spend more time on learning and less time on testing

That's some super wise advice. Thanks for that

 

[FeralisExtremum]

Great advice!

 

[digzthis]

Dude, thanks so much for this post. I really needed to see this. I'm kind of in a similar boat.. Non-traditional and haven't taken anything other than a biology course since 2009. I've actually been thinking some of the same things, so it was good to see someone who already went through the experience, having the same thoughts. Especially about the don't get comfortable part. It's so easy to get complacent when you learn something, only to go the next question and then BAM! you gotta tank for like 5 minutes because you can't figure out the question.

I'm pretty worried about the reading section. Typically that's a bad section for me. I noticed you put 1/2 S&D and 1/2 tone. Would you mind expanding a little on that? I've read several posts about it, and it seems to be a mixed review of people saying it's mostly s&d and then people saying like you where it's half tone. Not really sure what to expect there. But then again, I guess that's kind of the name of the game; expect anything.

Btw, ET is definitely the man. I've watched pretty much all of his youtube stuff. I even have his "I can. I will. I must." posted on my wall in front of my study area. It's certainly gotten me through some sticky points!

Thanks again for your honest and real post.

ET is great! So what i mean by 1/2 and 1/2 is it was pretty well mixed between the two. My strategy going into reading was the mapping method where id number a sheet of paper 1 thru whatever and take really good notes while reading. During practice I got pretty good at spending the first 10 minutes writing notes and the other time answering questions. I rarely had to go back to the material to get the answers and this is how i pretty much study for everything and works for me. On test day things were way different. They give you laminated paper and a marker and its super hard to read what you write. I still tried it through and wasted a lot of time on the first passage + the first one was almost all tone I went into panic mode. It is a hard feeling to describe and such an intense experience I think it is important to try and prepare for that just as much as the material. With reading get comfortable with a few different methods and when practicing try and switch things up mid passage. As et says "practice makes permanence" lol good luck bro you got it

 

[deleted738762]

This is refreshing advice.

 

[Faefly]

Wow, great advice, this is a must read for all the people who haven't taken the DAT yet. Thank you so much!!!!!
I hope you get into your dream school!
You are still somewhat above average DAT wise! and your gpa is awesome!
Best of luck!

 

[digzthis]

Thanks, cant wait to finally apply this summer. Good luck to you too.

 

[Zesta]

#3 NOTHING IS OVERKILL- This should actually be number one. I see Nancy on here all of the time preaching this and I chose not to listen! The problem I have with bootcamp and chads quizzes are they arent the hardest questions and can give you a false sense of confidence.

+1
This is absolutely true. I fell into this trap too thinking bootcamp is alone good enough to do well.
Although it's a good resource, you can't soloely rely on it to do well.

 

[LuckBloodandSweat]

If your sgpa weren't so high I'd ask you to retake .........



(goes to cry in a corner bc own sgpa is skrub af).

 

[Trigeminal08]

#7 BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

This came to mind when I read that statement lol