Just finished taking the DAT and figured I would share my experience and what I've would have done differently. Probably reiterating things on other posts, but here it is:
* How I studied:
I did about 2 months studying. You should splurge on study material. I used a variety of books and practice tests including:
- Cliff's AP bio and Princeton Review books were pretty good together (Princeton Review was a little bit more detailed than Cliff's, which was a good thing)
- Use Chad's Video's for areas that you might not understand well; you can purchase individual sections or individual video's. I struggled in QR until the end, since I hadn't taken math in 10 years. Chad's were okay for QR, but left out a bit.
- Math Destroyer is great! Tons of tests with explanations.
- DAT Destroyer is good for both Gen Chem and Organic chem; bio section of destroyer was insanely broad, but good if you have extra time and want to kill the bio section
- Crack the DAT - I got the Amazon bundle; all around pretty good representation of the difficulty of real DAT. PAT section of Crack the DAT was the best.
- Topscore Pro tests - these were also pretty good representation of the difficulty of real DAT
- DAT Achiever - I thought these practice tests did the least for me. I was scoring 16's and 17's and it was more discouraging than helpful. The DAT is not that hard for sure, but some people find the Achiever's challenging questions helpful
- There were some things not in my bio books (or at least not in detail) that I just used wikipedia for
- I supplemented bio and both chems with my college text books
*Notes on individual sections:
- Natural Sciences: not to be underestimated, but this section seemed a little bit easier than some of the practice tests I took. By easier, I guess i mean more straight forward, as there were still a few random questions on the bio section that might catch you off guard. Your best bet is to study the AP bio well (maybe in conjunction with Kaplan, or in my case it was Princeton Review) and maybe the week before your test, squeeze in some reading on topics that you might not necessarily want to study in detail, but just want to familiarize yourself with (i.e. basic brain, eye, ear anatomy, various Eukaryotic phyla details, etc).
- PAT - much harder than I expected. I'm actually convinced that some of the figures for choice were exactly the same (though they were probably just very similar). Crack the DAT was the best for PAT, thought the difficulty of Achiever's PAT section is more accurate. IMPORTANT FOR PAT: SCALE IS IMPORTANT. For example, Topscore Pro's PAT section was pretty simple and gave choices for keyhole problems that were easier to differentiate, though the real DAT required you to look for minor variations in scale
- Reading Comprehension - my reading was terrible both because my brain was hurting by that time, and because I underprepared for this section. I thought there was no real way to prepare for this section, but I was wrong. There are many ways to improve the way you score on RC. For me, the first passage was hard, the second a bit easier, and the third the easiest. So maybe a quick glance over the articles before you start would be advantageous.
- Quantitative Reasoning - my other terrible section; not impossible, but a little challenging mainly because of time management. I would say Crack the DAT and Topscore Pro were pretty accurate as far as difficulty of the real DAT. DAT Achiever was too difficult and required ridiculous calculations. Math Destroyer was great practice too.
so...
Practice scores averages:
- Crack the DAT - BIO/20, GC/18, OC/21, PAT/24, QR/18
- Topscore Pro - BIO/21, GC/19, OC/22, PAT/23, QR/19
- DAT Achiever - 17's and 18's all across
Real DAT:
BIO/20, GC/22, OC/21, PAT/21, RC/19, QR/19, AA/20
Not sure if those scores are good enough, so considering taking it again.
Good luck to everyone out there. Hope this info was helpful.
* How I studied:
I did about 2 months studying. You should splurge on study material. I used a variety of books and practice tests including:
- Cliff's AP bio and Princeton Review books were pretty good together (Princeton Review was a little bit more detailed than Cliff's, which was a good thing)
- Use Chad's Video's for areas that you might not understand well; you can purchase individual sections or individual video's. I struggled in QR until the end, since I hadn't taken math in 10 years. Chad's were okay for QR, but left out a bit.
- Math Destroyer is great! Tons of tests with explanations.
- DAT Destroyer is good for both Gen Chem and Organic chem; bio section of destroyer was insanely broad, but good if you have extra time and want to kill the bio section
- Crack the DAT - I got the Amazon bundle; all around pretty good representation of the difficulty of real DAT. PAT section of Crack the DAT was the best.
- Topscore Pro tests - these were also pretty good representation of the difficulty of real DAT
- DAT Achiever - I thought these practice tests did the least for me. I was scoring 16's and 17's and it was more discouraging than helpful. The DAT is not that hard for sure, but some people find the Achiever's challenging questions helpful
- There were some things not in my bio books (or at least not in detail) that I just used wikipedia for
- I supplemented bio and both chems with my college text books
*Notes on individual sections:
- Natural Sciences: not to be underestimated, but this section seemed a little bit easier than some of the practice tests I took. By easier, I guess i mean more straight forward, as there were still a few random questions on the bio section that might catch you off guard. Your best bet is to study the AP bio well (maybe in conjunction with Kaplan, or in my case it was Princeton Review) and maybe the week before your test, squeeze in some reading on topics that you might not necessarily want to study in detail, but just want to familiarize yourself with (i.e. basic brain, eye, ear anatomy, various Eukaryotic phyla details, etc).
- PAT - much harder than I expected. I'm actually convinced that some of the figures for choice were exactly the same (though they were probably just very similar). Crack the DAT was the best for PAT, thought the difficulty of Achiever's PAT section is more accurate. IMPORTANT FOR PAT: SCALE IS IMPORTANT. For example, Topscore Pro's PAT section was pretty simple and gave choices for keyhole problems that were easier to differentiate, though the real DAT required you to look for minor variations in scale
- Reading Comprehension - my reading was terrible both because my brain was hurting by that time, and because I underprepared for this section. I thought there was no real way to prepare for this section, but I was wrong. There are many ways to improve the way you score on RC. For me, the first passage was hard, the second a bit easier, and the third the easiest. So maybe a quick glance over the articles before you start would be advantageous.
- Quantitative Reasoning - my other terrible section; not impossible, but a little challenging mainly because of time management. I would say Crack the DAT and Topscore Pro were pretty accurate as far as difficulty of the real DAT. DAT Achiever was too difficult and required ridiculous calculations. Math Destroyer was great practice too.
so...
Practice scores averages:
- Crack the DAT - BIO/20, GC/18, OC/21, PAT/24, QR/18
- Topscore Pro - BIO/21, GC/19, OC/22, PAT/23, QR/19
- DAT Achiever - 17's and 18's all across
Real DAT:
BIO/20, GC/22, OC/21, PAT/21, RC/19, QR/19, AA/20
Not sure if those scores are good enough, so considering taking it again.
Good luck to everyone out there. Hope this info was helpful.
