RealHarsh111
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DAT Breakdown: 22AA 21TS
What is up peeps! I can say that I am officially done with the DAT and could not be anymore relieved. There are some things I hope to share that might be helpful to you guys in this journey, and some things I wish I did differently that may guide you. First, here are my scores:
View attachment 357662
PAT: 18
RC: 21
QR: 21
BIO: 20
GC: 20
OC: 26
TS: 21
AA: 22
Background: I am a senior applying this cycle and decided that I would study from March to May so that I could have my DAT in time before applications. Well… life happens. I was taking a 21-credit load spring semester so I don’t know what I was thinking, trying to cram DAT studying on top of classes, extracurriculars and my own free time. For me personally, I decided this was not realistic and opted to study right when the semester ended til July. I studied for a total of 8 weeks. I averaged about 4-6 hours everyday, then ramped that number up to 10 hours the last week before the exam. I used DATBooster, the premade Anki decks from DATBooster, and DAT Bootcamp High-Yield Notes. These are all you really need to do well on the exam.
I used the DATBooster 8-week schedule only up until content review and took my exam yesterday (July 21). Originally, I watched all the videos Booster had to offer but then decided to quit ¾ of the way through (wish I stopped earlier) because I found myself spacing out too frequently and not being able to focus from the videos. My advice is to adjust where you think is necessary - you know yourself best.
BIO: 20
This section overwhelmed me the most. You’d think as a Biology major myself I would be more knowledgeable in this area but there was so much content it was overwhelming for me. Anki is predominantly what I used for this section. I would do 100-200 cards a day until I grew tired of Anki (lol). There have been admittedly many times where I would be doing Anki while laying in bed and then just… fall asleep. My advice is if you find yourself dozing off from doing Anki to take a break and work on something else, or watch a Biology video, do practice questions, etc. Also… BREADTH-OVER-DEPTH! I cannot emphasize this enough. I wasted so much time on learning anatomy… then come exam day and the questions are the most basic, straight-forward definitions. I spent so much time studying anatomy that I neglected the most basic concepts of other sections. Get a broad understanding of the topic you’re studying and move on! DAT Bootcamp High-Yield notes are absolutely exceptional and the DAT Booster exams are highly representative. I don’t know if I had any of the “same” questions per say, but definitely similar and/or pertaining to the same concept.
GC: 20
Not gonna lie I thought I aced this portion. The questions were also more simple than Booster exams and I didn’t have any questions that I had never seen before/were overly challenging. Booster over prepares you for this section and were also extremely similar to the Booster PTs. My advice for this section is to similarly, not dwell too much on the “harder” level questions. There were many Booster Chemistry Qs I would struggle with because the math with all the decimals was such a pain. Rest assured the math is nowhere near the difficulty of Booster’s Gen. Chem problems.
OC: 26
Know your acidity/basic rules and nomenclature! Booster was HIGHLY representative of OC on the DAT. I know they recently updated the exams but it was actually insane how similar it was, it legit felt like I was just taking another Booster exam. For this section I memorized all of the reactions via Booster’s pre-made Anki and did most of the practice tests. Review what you missed and redo the missed questions closer to your exam date.
PAT: 18
I started off decent-ish with this one, then grew tired quickly. I started my initial studying phases GRINDING PAT. I would do 2-3 hours of PAT straight and admittedly burnt out. The last four weeks I did little to no studying for PAT at all, with the exception of the practice tests. I found this section to be more difficult than PAT practice tests on Booster, though the different sections ranged in difficulty. Keyhole was the same, TFE was WAY easier, angle ranking was more difficult, hole punching was slightly more difficult, cube counting was the same, pattern-folding was the same. TFE practice question banks are more representative than Booster practice tests. My advice is to do your absolute best to trust yourself. I found myself second-guessing on cube-counting and hole-punching which ate up a lot of my time. Also, aiming to do 10 Qs a day will most definitely sharpen your skills, increase confidence, and help you with time. A little a day goes a long way.
RC: 21
I swear I thought I was going to get a 15 on this section after the first passage. RC is a lot easier when you enjoy the passage you’re reading. I had a thick passage about an uninteresting topic to start and it was absolutely the worst. The lag was horrible, most of the questions were not directly in the passage, and if they were, it was really difficult to find. My advice here is to do your best not to freak out if your first passage is more difficult. The 2nd and 3rd in my experience were much easier, and went more smoothly. I used a combination of vanilla and search-and-destroy, where I would read the question and keep it in mind while reading the passage. I did no preparation other than Booster PTs and half of Boosters RC question banks.
QR: 21
I was most worried about this section. I had none of the geometric equations on the sheet memorized and I am not so great at math. Booster tests were HARD compared to the real DAT. I couldn’t believe how straight forward most of the questions were because I just wasn’t used to it. As weird as it sounds, I would recommend “breadth-over-depth” on QR, because I found myself going back to my practice tests and really focusing on getting the difficult questions I missed wrong. The night before my exam, I quickly went over all the easier questions I missed and skipped the hard ones. This helped a ton as I was able to fix simple mistakes in time before the exam. The problems were similar to the DAT Booster practice tests.
TLDR; do all of Booster’s practice tests and don’t dwell on the insanely difficult ones. Booster is way, way harder than the DAT and as long as you review your mistakes it will prepare you in preventing them in the future. The most challenging aspect of the DAT is training yourself mentally while preventing burnout from studying for months. It’s a slow and gradual process and if you feel yourself getting frustrated/overwhelmed, take a break and take the time to reset. If you guys have any questions or are in need of advice do not hesitate to reach out.
What is up peeps! I can say that I am officially done with the DAT and could not be anymore relieved. There are some things I hope to share that might be helpful to you guys in this journey, and some things I wish I did differently that may guide you. First, here are my scores:
View attachment 357662
PAT: 18
RC: 21
QR: 21
BIO: 20
GC: 20
OC: 26
TS: 21
AA: 22
Background: I am a senior applying this cycle and decided that I would study from March to May so that I could have my DAT in time before applications. Well… life happens. I was taking a 21-credit load spring semester so I don’t know what I was thinking, trying to cram DAT studying on top of classes, extracurriculars and my own free time. For me personally, I decided this was not realistic and opted to study right when the semester ended til July. I studied for a total of 8 weeks. I averaged about 4-6 hours everyday, then ramped that number up to 10 hours the last week before the exam. I used DATBooster, the premade Anki decks from DATBooster, and DAT Bootcamp High-Yield Notes. These are all you really need to do well on the exam.
I used the DATBooster 8-week schedule only up until content review and took my exam yesterday (July 21). Originally, I watched all the videos Booster had to offer but then decided to quit ¾ of the way through (wish I stopped earlier) because I found myself spacing out too frequently and not being able to focus from the videos. My advice is to adjust where you think is necessary - you know yourself best.
BIO: 20
This section overwhelmed me the most. You’d think as a Biology major myself I would be more knowledgeable in this area but there was so much content it was overwhelming for me. Anki is predominantly what I used for this section. I would do 100-200 cards a day until I grew tired of Anki (lol). There have been admittedly many times where I would be doing Anki while laying in bed and then just… fall asleep. My advice is if you find yourself dozing off from doing Anki to take a break and work on something else, or watch a Biology video, do practice questions, etc. Also… BREADTH-OVER-DEPTH! I cannot emphasize this enough. I wasted so much time on learning anatomy… then come exam day and the questions are the most basic, straight-forward definitions. I spent so much time studying anatomy that I neglected the most basic concepts of other sections. Get a broad understanding of the topic you’re studying and move on! DAT Bootcamp High-Yield notes are absolutely exceptional and the DAT Booster exams are highly representative. I don’t know if I had any of the “same” questions per say, but definitely similar and/or pertaining to the same concept.
GC: 20
Not gonna lie I thought I aced this portion. The questions were also more simple than Booster exams and I didn’t have any questions that I had never seen before/were overly challenging. Booster over prepares you for this section and were also extremely similar to the Booster PTs. My advice for this section is to similarly, not dwell too much on the “harder” level questions. There were many Booster Chemistry Qs I would struggle with because the math with all the decimals was such a pain. Rest assured the math is nowhere near the difficulty of Booster’s Gen. Chem problems.
OC: 26
Know your acidity/basic rules and nomenclature! Booster was HIGHLY representative of OC on the DAT. I know they recently updated the exams but it was actually insane how similar it was, it legit felt like I was just taking another Booster exam. For this section I memorized all of the reactions via Booster’s pre-made Anki and did most of the practice tests. Review what you missed and redo the missed questions closer to your exam date.
PAT: 18
I started off decent-ish with this one, then grew tired quickly. I started my initial studying phases GRINDING PAT. I would do 2-3 hours of PAT straight and admittedly burnt out. The last four weeks I did little to no studying for PAT at all, with the exception of the practice tests. I found this section to be more difficult than PAT practice tests on Booster, though the different sections ranged in difficulty. Keyhole was the same, TFE was WAY easier, angle ranking was more difficult, hole punching was slightly more difficult, cube counting was the same, pattern-folding was the same. TFE practice question banks are more representative than Booster practice tests. My advice is to do your absolute best to trust yourself. I found myself second-guessing on cube-counting and hole-punching which ate up a lot of my time. Also, aiming to do 10 Qs a day will most definitely sharpen your skills, increase confidence, and help you with time. A little a day goes a long way.
RC: 21
I swear I thought I was going to get a 15 on this section after the first passage. RC is a lot easier when you enjoy the passage you’re reading. I had a thick passage about an uninteresting topic to start and it was absolutely the worst. The lag was horrible, most of the questions were not directly in the passage, and if they were, it was really difficult to find. My advice here is to do your best not to freak out if your first passage is more difficult. The 2nd and 3rd in my experience were much easier, and went more smoothly. I used a combination of vanilla and search-and-destroy, where I would read the question and keep it in mind while reading the passage. I did no preparation other than Booster PTs and half of Boosters RC question banks.
QR: 21
I was most worried about this section. I had none of the geometric equations on the sheet memorized and I am not so great at math. Booster tests were HARD compared to the real DAT. I couldn’t believe how straight forward most of the questions were because I just wasn’t used to it. As weird as it sounds, I would recommend “breadth-over-depth” on QR, because I found myself going back to my practice tests and really focusing on getting the difficult questions I missed wrong. The night before my exam, I quickly went over all the easier questions I missed and skipped the hard ones. This helped a ton as I was able to fix simple mistakes in time before the exam. The problems were similar to the DAT Booster practice tests.
TLDR; do all of Booster’s practice tests and don’t dwell on the insanely difficult ones. Booster is way, way harder than the DAT and as long as you review your mistakes it will prepare you in preventing them in the future. The most challenging aspect of the DAT is training yourself mentally while preventing burnout from studying for months. It’s a slow and gradual process and if you feel yourself getting frustrated/overwhelmed, take a break and take the time to reset. If you guys have any questions or are in need of advice do not hesitate to reach out.
