DAT BREAKDOWN 23AA
Hi guys! I took the DAT on March 25, 2023 and have finally gotten around to posting a breakdown of how I studied. I only used DAT Bootcamp and that is literally it. I got a 23 AA. My scores were:
PAT: 20
QR: 23
RC: 25
BIO: 21
GC: 21
OC: 24
I was a biology major in college and took the DAT in what would have been the spring semester of my senior year after graduating a semester early. I began working as a dental assistant when I graduated and studied every day after work and most weekends. I would not go crazy after work because it’s pretty draining after coming home from a long day, but I would try and fit in at least 2 hours on most week days. I would try to do at least 5 hours on both days on the weekends or until I felt satisfied with my progress. I studied from the second week of January to the end of March, so just around 3 months.
On the week days, I would try to get in 1-3 modules of GC, OC, or BIO. By modules I mean doing the videos, practice questions (like bio bites or reaction bites), and question banks for everything under that topic. If I still felt shaky on some things by the next day, I would go through the questions I tagged as red or yellow until I felt more confident that I would retain the information. To end most study sessions I would try to do a few PAT questions from each subject, a few QR questions, or a reading passage. At work between patients I would use the Bootcamp app on my phone to go through my tagged questions or do the daily warmups. On the weekends I would do 3-4 modules a day and really focus on reviewing all of the stuff that I learned from that week. This I think made a big difference because instead of just plowing through content and moving on, I was able to actually retain the information and keep going over it in my head as a continued to learn more modules.
PAT:
I probably should have done more PAT looking back, I definitely think I was almost too focused on the other content sections. I did 20 questions a day at first because they take longer when you first start them, and then tried to get at least 10 questions right from each PAT section as I got a little faster/better at them. I did a few of the practice tests and consistently scored right at 20. Again, probably could have devoted more time to this section because I did not finish all of the questions available on Bootcamp, so I highly recommend to not overlook this section. TFE and pattern folding were my hardest sections, so I focused a lot on those practice questions since it definitely gets easier with more repetition.
QR:
The literal only trick to doing well on this section is to do as many of the practice tests on Bootcamp as possible. There are certain question styles that they like to ask and once you figure out how to answer them, you are golden. Definitely take the time to memorize some of the equations and the easiest methods for you for solving the different frequent question types. I did all 10 practice tests at least 2-3 times through until I somewhat memorized the questions that they ask. Also, I found that Bootcamp’s questions were a little harder than the real thing.
RC:
Not much to say here, I honestly only did 2 practice tests and that was it. I would read through the whole reading once and then highlight where I found the answer for each question so I know that I had solid evidence each time.
BIO:
I did every bio bites section and question banks multiple times for each topic. When something was hard to grasp in the questions, I would watch the videos for that specific topic. They were definitely incredibly well made and useful videos. Memorization was important here so I reviewed my notes frequently from previous topics. I was scoring 23-24 at my highest on the practice tests, but scored lower at a 21 on the real thing. I definitely felt the nerves on test day since BIO was the first topic, but then I settled in.
GC:
Same here with scoring 23-24 on the practice tests at my highest, but ended up scoring a little lower on test day. Dr. Mike’s videos for this section are AMAZING. I feel like I learned so much more than I ever did in college GC. I did all of the videos and practice questions for each topic because I felt like I just did not remember anything from taking the class. Basically just pay attention to everything Dr. Mike says in the videos!!!
OC:
Again, Dr. Mike is amazing with his videos here. I was never strong in Orgo but ended up scoring way higher than I thought I would in this section. I did the reaction bites, question banks, and alllll of the videos a few times through. The explanation videos after a lot of the questions were incredibly useful because you could directly test your knowledge of the reactions and see if your reasoning stood up by watching the answer explanations videos. I definitely feel like that is where I learned the most.
Once I finished content, I had a month to focus on review and the practice tests. DEFINITELY recommend doing all 10 of the practice tests. To be honest, I only did 1 FULL practice test before the real thing. Most days, I would do 3-4 practice tests of some sections. I struggled a lot on OC and QR at first here. Like I was scoring in the low teens on the first few. I kept doing them over and over again and those two ended up being my highest scores!!! I so believe that if I did that with GC and Bio, I would have done better on those sections too. Repetition is key on those practice tests because the questions are really so similar!