Howdy everyone! I read a few of these while studying and was encouraged to write one after my test this past week. Here goes!
I’ll be going into my senior year as an accounting major taking all the science prerequisites for application on the side. I’ve currently still got my 4.0 in both business and science and see myself as more of a STEM student than a business major (STEM students try way harder).
PAT - 24
QR - 24
RC - 30
Bio - 27
GC - 30
OC - 24
TS - 27
AA - 27
Pre-Test
I almost exclusively studied with DATBooster and only used my ochem notes from my lecture course here and there to supplement. For an idea of where I started, I took a Kaplan practice test over winter break this past year, scoring a 21. At this point, I was coming directly out of ochem and had not taken any anatomy classes. I told myself that I’d study throughout the entire spring semester but ended up not studying at all. After coming home for summer break, I spent the last six and a half weeks going hard on the DAT to try to make the most of the time before my appointment.
For the first month or so I followed an accelerated form of Booster’s eight week study plan to get through the material. I felt like they did a great job splitting up days into relatively equal chunks. I’m not the kind of person who can spend 10-12 hours a day studying, so my weeks were closer to 6-7 hours a day with breaks on Sundays so that I wouldn’t completely burn out. As I went through Booster’s notes (I really preferred the written notes to the videos because I could get through them a lot faster), I went back to review body systems and ochem reactions every day to get periodic exposure to everything. Each week I would take time to write out a schedule for each day based on Booster’s study plan and having a tangible list of deliverables for each day made it easier to stay on top of the material and stay disciplined.
The last couple weeks I spent completely on review and taking practice tests. I had a decent idea of what I was lacking in so I would spend a couple hours reviewing and taking practice questions before jumping into tests. I took six practice tests at a pace of half a test per day and took note of what I missed to review. The last four tests I took were full length and timed to the real thing so that I could work on my testing stamina. At this point, a couple of my summer classes had started so being through the material and focusing on review was helpful as I also had to get through a finance course at the same time.
I consider myself a good student and I have a knack for having things stick in my brain after looking at something a few times and spending a few minutes digesting. I would really suggest that you don’t compare yourself to others when preparing and set a realistic goal as your endpoint. A phrase I like to repeat to myself is “the standard is the standard” and I try to remember that the only person that I can compare myself to is myself in the future. Don’t benchmark yourself with other people. I did this sometimes when I was scoring in the 20-22 range and not feeling like I was improving and it really hurt where I felt like I could end up.
Test Day
I procrastinated and didn’t book an appointment until a couple months before my test, so my dad and I had to drive a couple hours to spend the night at a hotel the day before the DAT. Funnily, I had gone to the dentist for a cleaning a couple days before and the hygienist asked if I was stressed about something when she took my blood pressure and I had hit a 130/82. I’m a light sleeper who needs at least eight hours of sleep a night to function for the whole of the next day, so naturally I slept for about five restless hours before waking up for the test.
Bio (27) - This section was very straightforward, you either know it or you don’t. Be really careful with reading the questions as the writers threw in one or two words that completely changed the complexion of the question multiple times throughout my test. Make sure to trust your gut here, a lot of the time changing your answer is a bad idea. Reading through the Feralis notes, annotating them, and reviewing with Booster’s cheat sheets helped me fly through these questions. Like they say, the test is very surface level so knowing a lot broadly instead of studying granular systems paid off.
GC (30) - Booster definitely over prepared me for this section. Again, make sure to read carefully and balance your reactions before answering. This section is pretty cut and dry. Going in, I felt like I had done enough practice to have seen every kind of question that could show up and after taking the test I feel that my sentiment was correct.
OC (24) - Going into the test, I felt that my weakest area was definitely ochem. I never had the energy to really buckle down and memorize the reactions in depth, so I had a pretty surface level understanding of a number of reactions and was banking on using the answer choices to help me figure out questions. I definitely wasn’t expecting to even score a 24 here, but the questions were much more simplistic than the practice I had done. Make sure to nail down your ortho-, meta-, and para- directors and to know how to rate molecules based on acidity/stability. I had a pretty big number of questions about those two topics.
I ended the sciences with about fifteen minutes extra, so I went back to double check marked questions and to close my eyes for a couple minutes and get ready for PAT. Make sure to set up any tools or strategies that you’re going to use on PAT during the end of the science section so you can use your entire time on the questions themselves!
PAT (24) - I also was not planning to do anywhere near as well as I did on this section. Do lots of practice and find strategies that work for you. I did questions 31-90 first, 16-30 second, and finished on keyholes. Again, just practice practice practice and you’ll be completely fine!
RC (30) - I’ve always been strong at reading sections on tests. For reference, I scored a perfect reading section both times I took the SAT. For the most part, the answers to the questions can be pulled directly from the passage. I followed the strategy of reading the first five paragraphs to find an answer for the first question or moving on if the answer wasn’t there. Try to work with pace and back up every answer with a specific sentence from the passage. There were two or three questions I remember not being able to find word for word in the passages, which threw me off since I hadn’t ever experienced a question like that in my study. Make sure to strike out answers that are obviously wrong so that when you do end up having to guess you’ve saved yourself some work and have increased your chances of guessing. The three passages I was given were the three hardest passages I’ve ever read so instead of finishing with about 20 minutes like I normally do I was working right up to the clock.
QR (24) - This is the one section that I thought I would have done better on. I was consistently only missing one or two per practice test but the lack of sleep finally caught up here. I had a decent number of probability and rate questions (travel time, boat on the river, and number of units per hour), so make sure to get plenty of practice. Just like GC, once you’ve done enough practice you’ve probably seen every type of question. Booster’s practice here was excellent and bite-sized.
Last Thoughts
You might have noticed that I didn’t use flashcards anywhere. There are some premade Anki sets but I have a hard time trusting other people with flashcards. Since I didn’t feel like I had enough time to both make flashcards and study them meaningfully, I relied more on just dumping everything I knew about a topic onto a blank piece of paper to memorize. I think that flashcards could have helped me for practice on the ochem section, but the practice questions more or less served the same purpose.
Overall, what helped me the best was just setting a schedule and sticking to it. It’s tough to remember everything that could possibly show up on the test so study as best you can and then be satisfied! Make sure to schedule breaks in, we aren’t robots so it’s impossible to be going indefinitely. I don’t have experience with any study materials other than Booster, but it worked amazingly for me so I’d definitely suggest that to anyone looking for a course. Study hard and good luck!
I’ll be going into my senior year as an accounting major taking all the science prerequisites for application on the side. I’ve currently still got my 4.0 in both business and science and see myself as more of a STEM student than a business major (STEM students try way harder).
PAT - 24
QR - 24
RC - 30
Bio - 27
GC - 30
OC - 24
TS - 27
AA - 27
Pre-Test
I almost exclusively studied with DATBooster and only used my ochem notes from my lecture course here and there to supplement. For an idea of where I started, I took a Kaplan practice test over winter break this past year, scoring a 21. At this point, I was coming directly out of ochem and had not taken any anatomy classes. I told myself that I’d study throughout the entire spring semester but ended up not studying at all. After coming home for summer break, I spent the last six and a half weeks going hard on the DAT to try to make the most of the time before my appointment.
For the first month or so I followed an accelerated form of Booster’s eight week study plan to get through the material. I felt like they did a great job splitting up days into relatively equal chunks. I’m not the kind of person who can spend 10-12 hours a day studying, so my weeks were closer to 6-7 hours a day with breaks on Sundays so that I wouldn’t completely burn out. As I went through Booster’s notes (I really preferred the written notes to the videos because I could get through them a lot faster), I went back to review body systems and ochem reactions every day to get periodic exposure to everything. Each week I would take time to write out a schedule for each day based on Booster’s study plan and having a tangible list of deliverables for each day made it easier to stay on top of the material and stay disciplined.
The last couple weeks I spent completely on review and taking practice tests. I had a decent idea of what I was lacking in so I would spend a couple hours reviewing and taking practice questions before jumping into tests. I took six practice tests at a pace of half a test per day and took note of what I missed to review. The last four tests I took were full length and timed to the real thing so that I could work on my testing stamina. At this point, a couple of my summer classes had started so being through the material and focusing on review was helpful as I also had to get through a finance course at the same time.
I consider myself a good student and I have a knack for having things stick in my brain after looking at something a few times and spending a few minutes digesting. I would really suggest that you don’t compare yourself to others when preparing and set a realistic goal as your endpoint. A phrase I like to repeat to myself is “the standard is the standard” and I try to remember that the only person that I can compare myself to is myself in the future. Don’t benchmark yourself with other people. I did this sometimes when I was scoring in the 20-22 range and not feeling like I was improving and it really hurt where I felt like I could end up.
Test Day
I procrastinated and didn’t book an appointment until a couple months before my test, so my dad and I had to drive a couple hours to spend the night at a hotel the day before the DAT. Funnily, I had gone to the dentist for a cleaning a couple days before and the hygienist asked if I was stressed about something when she took my blood pressure and I had hit a 130/82. I’m a light sleeper who needs at least eight hours of sleep a night to function for the whole of the next day, so naturally I slept for about five restless hours before waking up for the test.
Bio (27) - This section was very straightforward, you either know it or you don’t. Be really careful with reading the questions as the writers threw in one or two words that completely changed the complexion of the question multiple times throughout my test. Make sure to trust your gut here, a lot of the time changing your answer is a bad idea. Reading through the Feralis notes, annotating them, and reviewing with Booster’s cheat sheets helped me fly through these questions. Like they say, the test is very surface level so knowing a lot broadly instead of studying granular systems paid off.
GC (30) - Booster definitely over prepared me for this section. Again, make sure to read carefully and balance your reactions before answering. This section is pretty cut and dry. Going in, I felt like I had done enough practice to have seen every kind of question that could show up and after taking the test I feel that my sentiment was correct.
OC (24) - Going into the test, I felt that my weakest area was definitely ochem. I never had the energy to really buckle down and memorize the reactions in depth, so I had a pretty surface level understanding of a number of reactions and was banking on using the answer choices to help me figure out questions. I definitely wasn’t expecting to even score a 24 here, but the questions were much more simplistic than the practice I had done. Make sure to nail down your ortho-, meta-, and para- directors and to know how to rate molecules based on acidity/stability. I had a pretty big number of questions about those two topics.
I ended the sciences with about fifteen minutes extra, so I went back to double check marked questions and to close my eyes for a couple minutes and get ready for PAT. Make sure to set up any tools or strategies that you’re going to use on PAT during the end of the science section so you can use your entire time on the questions themselves!
PAT (24) - I also was not planning to do anywhere near as well as I did on this section. Do lots of practice and find strategies that work for you. I did questions 31-90 first, 16-30 second, and finished on keyholes. Again, just practice practice practice and you’ll be completely fine!
RC (30) - I’ve always been strong at reading sections on tests. For reference, I scored a perfect reading section both times I took the SAT. For the most part, the answers to the questions can be pulled directly from the passage. I followed the strategy of reading the first five paragraphs to find an answer for the first question or moving on if the answer wasn’t there. Try to work with pace and back up every answer with a specific sentence from the passage. There were two or three questions I remember not being able to find word for word in the passages, which threw me off since I hadn’t ever experienced a question like that in my study. Make sure to strike out answers that are obviously wrong so that when you do end up having to guess you’ve saved yourself some work and have increased your chances of guessing. The three passages I was given were the three hardest passages I’ve ever read so instead of finishing with about 20 minutes like I normally do I was working right up to the clock.
QR (24) - This is the one section that I thought I would have done better on. I was consistently only missing one or two per practice test but the lack of sleep finally caught up here. I had a decent number of probability and rate questions (travel time, boat on the river, and number of units per hour), so make sure to get plenty of practice. Just like GC, once you’ve done enough practice you’ve probably seen every type of question. Booster’s practice here was excellent and bite-sized.
Last Thoughts
You might have noticed that I didn’t use flashcards anywhere. There are some premade Anki sets but I have a hard time trusting other people with flashcards. Since I didn’t feel like I had enough time to both make flashcards and study them meaningfully, I relied more on just dumping everything I knew about a topic onto a blank piece of paper to memorize. I think that flashcards could have helped me for practice on the ochem section, but the practice questions more or less served the same purpose.
Overall, what helped me the best was just setting a schedule and sticking to it. It’s tough to remember everything that could possibly show up on the test so study as best you can and then be satisfied! Make sure to schedule breaks in, we aren’t robots so it’s impossible to be going indefinitely. I don’t have experience with any study materials other than Booster, but it worked amazingly for me so I’d definitely suggest that to anyone looking for a course. Study hard and good luck!
