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- Sep 21, 2003
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wow, i can't believe the DATs are over for me. first of all, i thank God, and i thank all of you on SDN for the great advice- i wouldn't have been able to do well on the DAT without you guys- for real. i've been reading the posts for a while, and now it's time for me to help others by sharing about my experience.
at first, i thought that i was going to do horribly on this test, because i only got 30 mins. of sleep last night. thirty blasted minutes! but then the adrenaline kicked in, i drank a red bull, and i was pretty alert throughout the test.
Academic Average: 22
PAT: 19
Ochem: 29
Bio: 20
Gchem: 20
RC: 23
QR: 20
Total science: 21
to prepare for the DAT, i studied for 2 months and during those two months i really just focused on the DAT. i took the Kaplan course, used my college textbooks a little bit, & took a few Topscore tests. i thought that the kaplan book, like everyone says, was essential. memorize it- seriously. i read that book 2 times and wrote notes on it the first time through. also, i am glad that i took the kaplan course. although the live classes are not that helpful (except for a PAT tip i learned that helped me), kaplan's materials (subject tests & explanations, practice tests on computer, etc.) are extremely helpful. the materials have some info that the kaplan book does not. the flashcards that kaplan gives you are essential. they are such a great review, especially right before the test. as for the scores i used to get on the kaplan practice tests, i used to get around 18-20 for Bio, 15-18 for Gchem, 18-20 for Ochem, 16-18 for QR, 18-20 for RC, and 23's consistently for PAT.
PAT: i got a 19, when i used to get 23's consistently on the kaplan tests. basically, the angles were insane! kaplan's angles are cake compared to the actual DAT's angles. also, slanted lines on the Prometric computers are just horrible (makes the lines look like jagged- although the 17 inch monitors compared to the 15 inch kaplan monitors were nice). i went with my gut on a lot of the angle problems. the other sections were pretty simliar to Kaplan. my advice is to just do as many PAT problems as you can, and if you run out of problems to do, then them all over again.
Ochem: a lot easier than kaplan or topscore. nothing was on here that wasn't covered in the kaplan book. the flashcards really helped me out on this section.
Bio: there were some questions that were not covered in Kaplan at all, but i remembered the answers to some of them from my college bio courses. still, there were other questions which i had no clue about, and so i just did my best to make good guesses by eliminating choices. the kaplan materials were really helpful for the bio section. like i said, kaplan's tests/materials cover stuff not in the kaplan book.
Gchem: simpler than kaplan's tests. less calculations, and for the calculations, really simple ones. the conceptual problems are pretty simple, too.
QR: a TON simpler than kaplan (kaplan's subject tests are totally overkill). simple trig, simple word problems, and my test had a lot of computation/simplification problems.
RC: this section was always the hardest section for me. i would score around 18-20 on kaplan tests, but on the actual DAT i landed a 23 (i still can't believe it). i even didn't finish answering the last two questions. my method for this section was to quickly read the passages, but to answer the questions as i read. but, it is wise to actually read the passage and not to just go straight to the questions because of the "infer/imply" questions. oh yeah, and the actual DAT's passages are around 18-20 paragraphs, compared to kaplan's 9-12 paragraph passages.
-i think that taking the full-length kaplan tests really helped me pace myself, cuz in the beginning i would waste my time on a particular problem.
-well, thank you once again SDN, and good luck to all of you who are taking the DAT soon! just remember, if i can do it (esp. with 30 mins. of sleep), you can do it!
at first, i thought that i was going to do horribly on this test, because i only got 30 mins. of sleep last night. thirty blasted minutes! but then the adrenaline kicked in, i drank a red bull, and i was pretty alert throughout the test.
Academic Average: 22
PAT: 19
Ochem: 29
Bio: 20
Gchem: 20
RC: 23
QR: 20
Total science: 21
to prepare for the DAT, i studied for 2 months and during those two months i really just focused on the DAT. i took the Kaplan course, used my college textbooks a little bit, & took a few Topscore tests. i thought that the kaplan book, like everyone says, was essential. memorize it- seriously. i read that book 2 times and wrote notes on it the first time through. also, i am glad that i took the kaplan course. although the live classes are not that helpful (except for a PAT tip i learned that helped me), kaplan's materials (subject tests & explanations, practice tests on computer, etc.) are extremely helpful. the materials have some info that the kaplan book does not. the flashcards that kaplan gives you are essential. they are such a great review, especially right before the test. as for the scores i used to get on the kaplan practice tests, i used to get around 18-20 for Bio, 15-18 for Gchem, 18-20 for Ochem, 16-18 for QR, 18-20 for RC, and 23's consistently for PAT.
PAT: i got a 19, when i used to get 23's consistently on the kaplan tests. basically, the angles were insane! kaplan's angles are cake compared to the actual DAT's angles. also, slanted lines on the Prometric computers are just horrible (makes the lines look like jagged- although the 17 inch monitors compared to the 15 inch kaplan monitors were nice). i went with my gut on a lot of the angle problems. the other sections were pretty simliar to Kaplan. my advice is to just do as many PAT problems as you can, and if you run out of problems to do, then them all over again.
Ochem: a lot easier than kaplan or topscore. nothing was on here that wasn't covered in the kaplan book. the flashcards really helped me out on this section.
Bio: there were some questions that were not covered in Kaplan at all, but i remembered the answers to some of them from my college bio courses. still, there were other questions which i had no clue about, and so i just did my best to make good guesses by eliminating choices. the kaplan materials were really helpful for the bio section. like i said, kaplan's tests/materials cover stuff not in the kaplan book.
Gchem: simpler than kaplan's tests. less calculations, and for the calculations, really simple ones. the conceptual problems are pretty simple, too.
QR: a TON simpler than kaplan (kaplan's subject tests are totally overkill). simple trig, simple word problems, and my test had a lot of computation/simplification problems.
RC: this section was always the hardest section for me. i would score around 18-20 on kaplan tests, but on the actual DAT i landed a 23 (i still can't believe it). i even didn't finish answering the last two questions. my method for this section was to quickly read the passages, but to answer the questions as i read. but, it is wise to actually read the passage and not to just go straight to the questions because of the "infer/imply" questions. oh yeah, and the actual DAT's passages are around 18-20 paragraphs, compared to kaplan's 9-12 paragraph passages.
-i think that taking the full-length kaplan tests really helped me pace myself, cuz in the beginning i would waste my time on a particular problem.
-well, thank you once again SDN, and good luck to all of you who are taking the DAT soon! just remember, if i can do it (esp. with 30 mins. of sleep), you can do it!
