1 week to DAT... FREAKING OUT

[avocado234]

So I have my DAT in exactly one week from today. I have been studying since June when my classes ended. I've been mainly been using Bootcamp and Destroyer for practice questions, and I find them both to be extremely helpful.

Here is my dilemma: When I do untimed practice on any subject, I score anywhere from an 18-26 in each subject. When I do the timed exams on BC, my scores range from 15-19 in every subject. I have yet to even break a 20 the first go. I am extremely freaking out at this point! I'm not sure if it's just my nerves, but when I review the answers I realize all the stupid mistakes I made. I can't afford below 20's on any subject!

I start classes again next week and don't really want to postpone my exam because I know my schedule will be crazy enough as is. But would it be a wise choice to push it back to the second week of September? It's already getting towards the late stage in the cycle, so that's worrying me as well. I know everyone says not to use BC scores to gauge actual performance, but it's hard to do that when I see a lot of people on here who got very similar, if not higher, scores on their exams compared to their BC scores.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

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[Promethean]

Stop freaking out.

Do more timed practice, since that is going to simulate exam conditions.

But seriously, panic only makes things worse. Stop it. Take deep breaths. Drink some herbal tea, whatever works for you, but do NOT indulge in your anxiety. Just let it go and do the thing without stressing about doing it. The more you practice at it, the easier it will be. It is this simple.

 

[LuckBloodandSweat]

This sounds exactly like me the first time I took the DAT. Huge practice ranges and major panic. Don't PANIC . Ik it may seem hard and you're going to want to beat yourself up for stupid mistakes (I always want to beat myself up lol) but you need to calm down and focus. If you're making a dumb mistake write down what that dumb mistake is and a strategy on how to fix it. For me, sometimes I read the question twice or maybe three times just to make sure I didn't do something dumb.

 

[8_man]

If it helps, I averaged an 18.2 in biology for Bootcamp (across all 5 tests). I got a 21 on the real thing.

Don't sweat it. Just take the real exam with the mentality that it's just another practice test.

 

[Charles_Darwin]

My practice score ranges were similar to yours if you check out my breakdown

My advice would be to spend this last week giving one final solid review to all your materials, and then spend the rest of your time building up confidence! The way I did it was review all my materials for 4 days, then review my flash cards and any questions I had marked as hard.

Easy confidence booster - if you're feeling jittery open up a random destroyer/bootcamp page and see if you can solve the question. Calmed me down!

Good luck

 

[avocado234]

Thank you! All of this has been great advice, I'm definitely going to try to stress about my practice scores less, and more on reviewing everything. I hope I can get over my test anxiety before the exam

 

[fayevalentine]

Deep breaths! I got under 20 on both ada official practice tests and ended up fine. Just keep reviewing the questions you.got.wrong. You know the material. I would advise you quit.taking practice tests as they are destroying your confidence. Focus on untimed practice problems don't reschedule. You've got this! (Sorry for random periods, my phone does this and wont let me delete them lol)