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Hey guys. Bare with me and my poor grammar as I am still mentally fried from taking this exam this morning. 2 stressful months ended up paying off in the end!
First off, huge thanks to @Ari Rezaei for the Study Guide. I followed it exactly for the first month or so, then did what I thought was necessary for myself as I had an idea what my strengths and weaknesses were somewhat early on.
Here are my scores below and my GPA:
Overall GPA: 3.83
Science GPA: 3.89
SCORES:
BIO / GC / OC / RC / QR / PAT / TS / AA
19 20 21 23 24 24 20 21
Before I dive into my study schedule, I was curious if I should be worried about my scores at all *cough cough* BIO *cough cough*. I know I did great overall, but will some schools such as a UIC (I'm an IL resident) look down on my Bio score, even though my TS hit a 20? Any thoughts would be helpful!
I began studying 11 weeks before my exam (gave myself an extra week after the study schedule to hammer home on topics I was unsure about). I also gave myself an extra week because I had a couple vacation weekends planned before summer such as a Vegas trip, wedding, and one other event that I had to attend. 3 days a week I was out of the house from 6:45 AM - 8 PM as I had work 45 minutes away from my house. I would come home and try my best to study, even if it was reviewing notecards for an hour and a half. On my off days, I studied 6-10 hours per day and grinded away. I only truly followed the study guide for the first 40 days or so, and then I reviewed my notecards as much as I could and took Bootcamp practice sections to find out what topics I was struggling with. I took all of the Bootcamp practice exams, as well as the other sections they offer and I did the 2009 practice exam.
Study Materials:
DAT Bootcamp (100000/10):
I lived on this. This is the reason why I received the scores that I did. These practice exams made me feel like the DAT was easy for some sections. Awesome job overall, and I will post my practice test scores below!
Chad's Videos (9/10):
These videos were awesome and cover everything that you need to know on the exam. Some people hate sitting through these videos and believe me, they can be an absolute drag to get through, but make sure you take good notes. To be honest, I didn't fully pay attention to these videos. I made sure I wrote down whatever Chad wrote down and went over it more in depth at a later time. I know this isn't the best and may have hurt me, but I personally am the type of student who teaches themselves, I guess you could say. It helps me grasp info when I read have it dumbed down for me see multiple Youtube videos of examples. The only thing I wish Chad's video had was a way to watch videos on faster speeds! Once I finished the videos, I went through my notes and made notecards based on facts, equations, periodic trends, etc. I'm big on notecards.
DAT Destroyer (?/10):
I did roughly 250 GC, 250 OC, and 400 bio problems. I didn't bother following the study guide and more so went at my own pace with this. I never timed myself doing working out problems in the book as well. I used this for additional practice problems and made sure that I read the in-depth answer key to learn as much info as possible.
Cliffs AP Biology Textbook (7/10):
I thought this book provided me with everything I needed to know, but it didn't as you can see above. I strongly recommend Ferali's Biology notes instead of using this textbook as he has more information that may be helpful to you. I memorized this Cliff's AP book pretty much and their were questions I had never seen before on the exa,.
2009 Practice Exam:
Make sure you take this...
Bootcamp Practice Exam Scores:
I MESSED UP AND DIDN'T READ THAT TESTS 1-5 IN THE SECTION SPECIFIC TESTS WERE WHAT WERE USED FOR THE PRACTICE EXAMS. Don't do what I did. Instead, for Bio, OC, and GC, I did tests 6-10 and paired them up PAT, RC, and QR tests 1-5. I took an exam every 2 days or so, depending on my work schedule leading up to 4 days until my exam. Those last 4 days I focused on notecards and my BIO, GC, and OC tests 1-5 that I took roughly 4 weeks before (not sure if that makes sense. Still mentally drained from this exam).
Bootcamps 1-5 w/ 6-10 Bio, OC, GC:
BIO / GC / OC / PAT / RC / QR
16 20 21 22 18 20
18 20 19 21 17 19
16 19 17 21 20 21
19 19 20 21 22 19
22 22 20 21 19 16
2009 DAT Scores (Didn't do reading or QR based on what I read on other posts)
BIO: 33/40
GC: 24/30
OC: 26/30
PAT: 84/90
Test day:
I ended up scheduling my exam at a Prometric test center 45 minutes away. I booked a hotel right across the street from the test center to make sure I didn't have to stress about good ol' Chicago rush hour traffic. My test was at 8 AM, so 3 days prior to the exam, I made sure I was waking up at 6:30 every morning to get into somewhat of a decent sleep schedule. Things went very smoothly at the test center actually. The day before the test, I reviewed my notecards for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. I relaxed and watched TV shows all day to get my mind off of it (Rick and Morty especially
).
BIO (19):
Honestly, I am disappointed with how I did on this. I honestly think I memorized the entire textbook (well 95% because I felt like some of the stupid Taxonomy I didn't need to know, and thankfully I was right). There were a few questions that were anatomy-based and I have not taken anatomy yet. Ferali's notes goes more into anatomy than Cliff's AP book, so I messed up there. There were also a few questions talking about diseases, which I did not expect at all. Biology is such a broad topic, so make sure you focus a lot of your time on memorizing as much as possible! Go figure I had a picture of cells and had to say which microscope was used -__-
GC (20):
Pretty straight forward. Pretty similar to BC. Nothing crazy hard.
OC (21):
I found this easier than BC. Do the BC practice exams and problems and you should be okay. Make sure you memorize every single mechanism as well, even though you'll end up only applying 5-10 of them.
PAT (24):
Honestly, all I did was bootcamp. I used that one site Ari recommends to use every night I think for a week straight then stopped... Practice, practice, practice. Found it easier than bootcamp and luckily had only 1 extremely difficult keyhole.
Tip for doing well:
Do your best to finish your science section 2 minutes before time expires so you can draw out your grids. For hole punching, I used the grid method and honestly think I got a 15/15 (maybe 14 because 1 was weird). For cube counting, use the counting method on a chart you draw up. The one section I struggled with most doing BC practice was angle ranking. What I ended up doing was hovered my thumb over the computer screen to block out the excess lines of the angles so I could focus on looking at the angle itself. To sum it up, with the 2 angles I was comparing, I turned the angles into 2 mini-triangles with my thumb and really focused on the angles themselves.
BREAK:
Use this. Go to the restroom and eat what you think is best. I chugged a monster during this time, which is definitely not healthy, but it gave me that extra energy I needed for the last 2 hours. Word of advice for the break: DO NOT THINK ABOUT THE PAST SECTIONS. There were 2 problems on GC and OC that were really bothering me, so during my break time, I really thought about them and what the answers were... turns out that I realized that I was wrong and began to like myself out. Luckily I snapped out of it before going into reading.
RC (23):
I'm blown away by this and am very lucky at the same time. I used the mapping method and found it was the most efficient. I'd skim each paragraph and write down 1-2 words about what occurs during it. I would also highlight any key facts OR names in the passage. In BC, some questions would ask about a certain person I noticed, and luckily my DAT did the same thing. Any small facts you find, highlight them.
To be honest, I am an extremely slow reader, which is why skimming and mapping the passage worked best for me. The reason why I am very lucky is because my 3 passages were very interesting to me. On BC practice exams, I found that I would get nearly a perfect on passages I was interested in. On passages that were extremely boring, I kid you not, I scored a 2/17. One passage on BC was about evolution compared to older mindsets and Christianity (if I remember correctly). Got a fat 3/16 right on that passage because it bored me to death. I lucked out big time in RC, and I couldn't be happier.
QR (24):
I've always been pretty good at math. Bootcamp is WAY harder than the DAT. What I found funny after I took the exam was that I caught myself rereading questions 2 or 3 times because getting to the answer seemed so easy to me compared to Bootcamp. I was extremely lucky and only had 1 data sufficiency question (still don't know how to approach those). For other quantitative comparison, like is x or y bigger, equal, or not enough data, I had roughly 7 of those. Those were easier though because I would plug in both +2 and -2 into them to see what the answers were and would compare. I factored where possible on the exam as well to help simplify questions. There was no crazy trigonometry questions about secant or cosecant, but there was SOH CAH TOA-based trig.
Overall, the exam went very well. I'm not sure if I should be worried about my bio score. Some of the schools I plan on applying to are UIC, Marquette, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Creighton.If anyone has any questions or comments, feel free to post away! Best of luck to everyone on their exams.
First off, huge thanks to @Ari Rezaei for the Study Guide. I followed it exactly for the first month or so, then did what I thought was necessary for myself as I had an idea what my strengths and weaknesses were somewhat early on.
Here are my scores below and my GPA:
Overall GPA: 3.83
Science GPA: 3.89
SCORES:
BIO / GC / OC / RC / QR / PAT / TS / AA
19 20 21 23 24 24 20 21
Before I dive into my study schedule, I was curious if I should be worried about my scores at all *cough cough* BIO *cough cough*. I know I did great overall, but will some schools such as a UIC (I'm an IL resident) look down on my Bio score, even though my TS hit a 20? Any thoughts would be helpful!
I began studying 11 weeks before my exam (gave myself an extra week after the study schedule to hammer home on topics I was unsure about). I also gave myself an extra week because I had a couple vacation weekends planned before summer such as a Vegas trip, wedding, and one other event that I had to attend. 3 days a week I was out of the house from 6:45 AM - 8 PM as I had work 45 minutes away from my house. I would come home and try my best to study, even if it was reviewing notecards for an hour and a half. On my off days, I studied 6-10 hours per day and grinded away. I only truly followed the study guide for the first 40 days or so, and then I reviewed my notecards as much as I could and took Bootcamp practice sections to find out what topics I was struggling with. I took all of the Bootcamp practice exams, as well as the other sections they offer and I did the 2009 practice exam.
Study Materials:
DAT Bootcamp (100000/10):
I lived on this. This is the reason why I received the scores that I did. These practice exams made me feel like the DAT was easy for some sections. Awesome job overall, and I will post my practice test scores below!
Chad's Videos (9/10):
These videos were awesome and cover everything that you need to know on the exam. Some people hate sitting through these videos and believe me, they can be an absolute drag to get through, but make sure you take good notes. To be honest, I didn't fully pay attention to these videos. I made sure I wrote down whatever Chad wrote down and went over it more in depth at a later time. I know this isn't the best and may have hurt me, but I personally am the type of student who teaches themselves, I guess you could say. It helps me grasp info when I read have it dumbed down for me see multiple Youtube videos of examples. The only thing I wish Chad's video had was a way to watch videos on faster speeds! Once I finished the videos, I went through my notes and made notecards based on facts, equations, periodic trends, etc. I'm big on notecards.
DAT Destroyer (?/10):
I did roughly 250 GC, 250 OC, and 400 bio problems. I didn't bother following the study guide and more so went at my own pace with this. I never timed myself doing working out problems in the book as well. I used this for additional practice problems and made sure that I read the in-depth answer key to learn as much info as possible.
Cliffs AP Biology Textbook (7/10):
I thought this book provided me with everything I needed to know, but it didn't as you can see above. I strongly recommend Ferali's Biology notes instead of using this textbook as he has more information that may be helpful to you. I memorized this Cliff's AP book pretty much and their were questions I had never seen before on the exa,.
2009 Practice Exam:
Make sure you take this...
Bootcamp Practice Exam Scores:
I MESSED UP AND DIDN'T READ THAT TESTS 1-5 IN THE SECTION SPECIFIC TESTS WERE WHAT WERE USED FOR THE PRACTICE EXAMS. Don't do what I did. Instead, for Bio, OC, and GC, I did tests 6-10 and paired them up PAT, RC, and QR tests 1-5. I took an exam every 2 days or so, depending on my work schedule leading up to 4 days until my exam. Those last 4 days I focused on notecards and my BIO, GC, and OC tests 1-5 that I took roughly 4 weeks before (not sure if that makes sense. Still mentally drained from this exam).
Bootcamps 1-5 w/ 6-10 Bio, OC, GC:
BIO / GC / OC / PAT / RC / QR
16 20 21 22 18 20
18 20 19 21 17 19
16 19 17 21 20 21
19 19 20 21 22 19
22 22 20 21 19 16
2009 DAT Scores (Didn't do reading or QR based on what I read on other posts)
BIO: 33/40
GC: 24/30
OC: 26/30
PAT: 84/90
Test day:
I ended up scheduling my exam at a Prometric test center 45 minutes away. I booked a hotel right across the street from the test center to make sure I didn't have to stress about good ol' Chicago rush hour traffic. My test was at 8 AM, so 3 days prior to the exam, I made sure I was waking up at 6:30 every morning to get into somewhat of a decent sleep schedule. Things went very smoothly at the test center actually. The day before the test, I reviewed my notecards for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. I relaxed and watched TV shows all day to get my mind off of it (Rick and Morty especially
).BIO (19):
Honestly, I am disappointed with how I did on this. I honestly think I memorized the entire textbook (well 95% because I felt like some of the stupid Taxonomy I didn't need to know, and thankfully I was right). There were a few questions that were anatomy-based and I have not taken anatomy yet. Ferali's notes goes more into anatomy than Cliff's AP book, so I messed up there. There were also a few questions talking about diseases, which I did not expect at all. Biology is such a broad topic, so make sure you focus a lot of your time on memorizing as much as possible! Go figure I had a picture of cells and had to say which microscope was used -__-
GC (20):
Pretty straight forward. Pretty similar to BC. Nothing crazy hard.
OC (21):
I found this easier than BC. Do the BC practice exams and problems and you should be okay. Make sure you memorize every single mechanism as well, even though you'll end up only applying 5-10 of them.
PAT (24):
Honestly, all I did was bootcamp. I used that one site Ari recommends to use every night I think for a week straight then stopped... Practice, practice, practice. Found it easier than bootcamp and luckily had only 1 extremely difficult keyhole.
Tip for doing well:
Do your best to finish your science section 2 minutes before time expires so you can draw out your grids. For hole punching, I used the grid method and honestly think I got a 15/15 (maybe 14 because 1 was weird). For cube counting, use the counting method on a chart you draw up. The one section I struggled with most doing BC practice was angle ranking. What I ended up doing was hovered my thumb over the computer screen to block out the excess lines of the angles so I could focus on looking at the angle itself. To sum it up, with the 2 angles I was comparing, I turned the angles into 2 mini-triangles with my thumb and really focused on the angles themselves.
BREAK:
Use this. Go to the restroom and eat what you think is best. I chugged a monster during this time, which is definitely not healthy, but it gave me that extra energy I needed for the last 2 hours. Word of advice for the break: DO NOT THINK ABOUT THE PAST SECTIONS. There were 2 problems on GC and OC that were really bothering me, so during my break time, I really thought about them and what the answers were... turns out that I realized that I was wrong and began to like myself out. Luckily I snapped out of it before going into reading.
RC (23):
I'm blown away by this and am very lucky at the same time. I used the mapping method and found it was the most efficient. I'd skim each paragraph and write down 1-2 words about what occurs during it. I would also highlight any key facts OR names in the passage. In BC, some questions would ask about a certain person I noticed, and luckily my DAT did the same thing. Any small facts you find, highlight them.
To be honest, I am an extremely slow reader, which is why skimming and mapping the passage worked best for me. The reason why I am very lucky is because my 3 passages were very interesting to me. On BC practice exams, I found that I would get nearly a perfect on passages I was interested in. On passages that were extremely boring, I kid you not, I scored a 2/17. One passage on BC was about evolution compared to older mindsets and Christianity (if I remember correctly). Got a fat 3/16 right on that passage because it bored me to death. I lucked out big time in RC, and I couldn't be happier.
QR (24):
I've always been pretty good at math. Bootcamp is WAY harder than the DAT. What I found funny after I took the exam was that I caught myself rereading questions 2 or 3 times because getting to the answer seemed so easy to me compared to Bootcamp. I was extremely lucky and only had 1 data sufficiency question (still don't know how to approach those). For other quantitative comparison, like is x or y bigger, equal, or not enough data, I had roughly 7 of those. Those were easier though because I would plug in both +2 and -2 into them to see what the answers were and would compare. I factored where possible on the exam as well to help simplify questions. There was no crazy trigonometry questions about secant or cosecant, but there was SOH CAH TOA-based trig.
Overall, the exam went very well. I'm not sure if I should be worried about my bio score. Some of the schools I plan on applying to are UIC, Marquette, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, and Creighton.If anyone has any questions or comments, feel free to post away! Best of luck to everyone on their exams.
