thompson3606
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- May 14, 2022
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Hi! I took the DAT on May 10th and I found these breakdowns to be very helpful in the week up to my exam. I am very satisfied with my scores, even though they aren't the highest scores ever. Hopefully, my advice will help someone else out!
Scores:
PAT - 23
QR - 22
RC - 24
Bio - 19
GC - 21
OC - 19
TS - 19
AA - 21
Background:
I just finished my Junior year as a public health major. I currently have a cumulative GPA of 3.565 and completed all typical dental school pre-reqs in addition to biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, and microbiology.
Materials Used:
DAT Booster - I exclusively used Booster to study (in addition to my own class notes occasionally), and I am glad that I did. What attracted me to Booster was the price, being the cheapest option. I also read before purchasing it that it was the most representative resource for the DAT. After taking the test, I completely agree. All of the practice exams and question banks were, if anything, HARDER than the actual test, especially for bio, GC, QR, and RC. I thought the PAT and OC were pretty much spot on. The only difference that I noticed was that when taking the Booster exams, time was not an issue, but on the actual test, I ended up running out of time on PAT and QR. I’m thinking it was because of the lag on the computers used to take the test, but still important to note. If anything, I think Booster over-prepared me for the test! I feel like I knew more information than necessary! All in all, I would highly recommend Booster.
Study Timeline:
I started studying February 1st for my May 10th test. I studied 5 days a week and took one week off for Spring Break. It ended up being about 3-4 hours per day that I studied. Looking back, I think this definitely worked for me, but I am not sure if I would do it that way if I went back and did it again. I would have instead studied on the weekends as well to shorten up the time per day that I studied. I think this would’ve been a lot less overwhelming. I followed Booster’s 10-week study plan perfectly up until the week of my test. The week of my test, I just took a practice exam every day! I found that it was still necessary to review the material for Phase 1, but the practice exams were what helped the most. Also, Booster recommends resting the day before the exam and not studying. While I did get plenty of rest, I still did take a practice exam that day, and I don’t feel like it fatigued me at all. In fact, I actually got a question on the DAT that was almost identical to one I had on the practice test I took the night before!
Day of Exam:
- Bio (19): I was most worried about bio. In my opinion, it was the hardest material to digest and remember when studying. I consistently scored 15s and 16s on the practice exams. I am very happy with a 19 on bio considering I thought this was the subject that was gonna make me have to retake the DAT!!! If there is one thing I can say about bio, it’s BREADTH OVER DEPTH! You’ve probably heard that before but it is so so true. The notes that Booster provides honestly go much more in depth than necessary. One of the hardest sections for me to remember was taxonomy, but I ended up literally having ONE taxonomy question on the real thing. Don’t stress too much about bio.
- GC (21): Before I even started studying, I knew that gen chem would be my highest science score. I loved gen chem when I took the class and the material came very easy to me. I studied gen chem the least when studying for the DAT. I would recommend not stressing too much about calculations! You still have to know how to do them, but it isn’t as hard as the Booster questions. I feel like the actual DAT hit on Le Chatelier's principle and the ideal gas law a lot, which I didn't expect but it was fine.
- OC (19): I think ochem on the Booster exams was pretty much identical in terms of difficulty to the actual test. As long as you understand the foundation of ochem concepts, you can pretty much deduce the answers even if you don’t memorize every reaction. One thing that I think the DAT hit on a lot was acid/base chem! Be able to look at 5 molecules and rank their acidity, choose the most acidic proton on a molecule, determine which side of the equilibrium will be favored in an acid/base reaction, etc.
- PAT (23): PAT was really difficult when I first started studying, but it gets gradually easier with repetition, especially once you know the tricks for each section. I ended up guessing on a lot of keyhole and TFE questions, but I guess it worked out. Angle ranking was more difficult than I thought it would be, but hole punching, cube counting, and pattern folding ended up being easier that I anticipated. I did run out of time on this section, though. I definitely recommend skipping around; start with the section you are most confident in, end with the one you are least confident in. That’s true especially if you run out of time, because when it comes down to it, it’s better to guess on the section that you probably would’ve had to guess on anyway.
- RC (24): I don’t have much to say about RC. I feel like it is pretty self explanatory. I did notice that the questions lagged a lot because the articles were pretty long, so the best strategy in my option is search and destroy. Most of the questions I got on the actual DAT were just direct recall questions, so I was able to find the answers really quickly without even reading the entire article.
- QR (22): Don’t have much to say about QR either. Booster was harder than the actual test, so if you do well on Booster, QR will be a breeze. The level of difficulty of the questions honestly reminded me a lot of the math section on the ACT. I will say that this was the only other section I ran out of time on. I think it is because I spent too much time on questions that were tripping me up (which were few and far between) instead of marking them and moving on.
Ending Advice:
Overall, my biggest piece of advice is to calm down. The DAT is scary until you actually take it and realize that you are more prepared than you think you are. Still put in plenty of effort to study, but you will do fine! I hope this helps, and good luck!
