Those of you who have taken the DAT BIO section

[buffdoctor]

Biology is the only section that I feel like I am struggling on. I found this sample test online from ADA and the bio section seemed pretty straight forward on it. For those of you that have taken the DAT recently is the difficulty of this Bio section equivalent to the real deal? Also, what would you make of the rest of this sample exam compared to the actual test as well (mostly curious about biology though). Thanks a bunch guys!

http://www.ada.org/sections/educationAndCareers/pdfs/dat_test_sampleitems.pdf

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[denticle]

I wrote the DAT yesterday and I found the difficulty (for bio) to be on par with the 2007 ADA sample. Some questions may have been a tad bit harder because of wording but in general everything was pretty much straight forward (I ended up with a 24 in bio). Ochem is harder than the sample and chem was the same difficulty.

 

[spikers220]

My DAT was harder than the 2007 sample test. The questions I had were based more on concepts rather than the more basic 2007 style questions. About 60% of the BIO questions are easy/basic, the next 25% require some thought, the last 15% require thought and application of concepts.

You do NOT need to go into depth when studying for this section but you need to be well rounded in all aspects of BIO.

 

[buffdoctor]

Awesome! Thanks for gettin back guys! I think I'm just gonna keep gettin a good breadth for the bio section then. So switching the subject, for Organic Chemistry was there more conceptual question or were there a lot of reaction's to know and solve?

 

[TheDentist16]

Awesome! Thanks for gettin back guys! I think I'm just gonna keep gettin a good breadth for the bio section then. So switching the subject, for Organic Chemistry was there more conceptual question or were there a lot of reaction's to know and solve?

Just to reiterate the DAT bio section, I found mine to be harder than the 2007 and 2009 ADA sample exams. To that end, I used Cliff's AP Biology to study for the bio section for my exam and did pretty well. For OChem, I found that there was an even number of conceptual as well as reaction-based questions. So definitely know concepts (for example, what makes a molecule an acid vs. a base, and what makes a molecule a good nucleophile). You should also know the reactivity series. And for the reactions, definitely go over schemes, especially aromatic ring substitutions. They love to ask questions on those. If you have DAT Destroyer, study the Road Maps. They provide you with a comprehensive overview of what reaction schemes you will need to memorize.

 

[ScarletKnight24]

Just to reiterate the DAT bio section, I found mine to be harder than the 2007 and 2009 ADA sample exams. To that end, I used Cliff's AP Biology to study for the bio section for my exam and did pretty well. For OChem, I found that there was an even number of conceptual as well as reaction-based questions. So definitely know concepts (for example, what makes a molecule an acid vs. a base, and what makes a molecule a good nucleophile). You should also know the reactivity series. And for the reactions, definitely go over schemes, especially aromatic ring substitutions. They love to ask questions on those. If you have DAT Destroyer, study the Road Maps. They provide you with a comprehensive overview of what reaction schemes you will need to memorize.

Did you study EVERY SINGLE details on cliff? I found the biological diversity and plants chapters to be insane. There are so much details and few conceptual understanding.

Should I memorize EVERY SINGLE vocabulary words? lol
I try to get as much conceptual understanding as possible.

 

[robboyle10]

Did you study EVERY SINGLE details on cliff? I found the biological diversity and plants chapters to be insane. There are so much details and few conceptual understanding.

Should I memorize EVERY SINGLE vocabulary words? lol
I try to get as much conceptual understanding as possible.

Plants are a drag, but I would probably learn most of the terms. If you break it down it isn't too terrible. You certainly must understand photosynthesis and the difference between Calvin & light dependent/non-dependent. Reproduction / alternating generations is important. For the most part, the rest of the information feeds off of those concepts, so integrate those terms into them as much as possible.

And if you can't stand plants, I guess you can just hope to get lucky and not get any questions on them....