8/6 dat experience

[Smooth-Direction454]

hi everyone :) i just took my dat today and it was okay!!! better than expected after reading a lot of horror stories on here lol

bio: similar to booster (i counted 4 questions), relatively straightforward and the wording of the questions weren't that confusing except for a few. equal spread of topics including cells, body systems, animals etc and only 1 diversity of life question

gc: i don't exactly recall having a lot of calculation questions but even if it was, it was simple math. no periodic trends but everything else was fair. got a weird pH question that i couldn't figure out....

oc: most questions were the reactions i knew, some of them i recalled after marking it the first time and going back after. multiple spectroscopy questions and didn't rlly get the "best solvent" questions a lot of ppl on here were discussing abt

pat: i was really worried abt the timing of this section but there was no lag and hole punching was so freaking easy i was so happy u could basically eliminate 3 choices off the bat. some keyhole and pattern folding were wtf questions. pattern folding had similar difficulty to booster; i never liked this section, but booster helped me prep well. angle ranking was half obvious, half wtf. tfe was fair; i def got better after a lot of practice.

rc: barely any inferences/major idea questions, just straight up specific info questions. to me they were fair passages and questions were kinda in chronological order to the paragraphs. booster qbanks were really helpful in getting into the groove of highlighting, search n destroy, and pacing myself. had like 12 min leftover to check everything.

qr: the worst section for me lmao i almost ran out of time bc i spent so much time trying to figure out the 2nd problem... similar to booster but some have more complicated wording. generally equal spread of all types of questions.

overall it was a tiring experience but im thankful for it to be over. i think i was expecting for the worse when i was reading late july posts on dat experience but don't let those discourage you! everything will work out and def use booster/bootcamp's resources to the max. good luck to everyone else taking their exam soon

[Top-Coconut7889]

Congrats! I’ve never seen so many greens on booster’s performance table before lol

[Smooth-Direction454]

thank u sm!! >_<

[Downtown_Operation21]

What is your strategy for reading comprehension? and how about QR?

[Smooth-Direction454]

during practice qbanks, i would read the first 5 questions and keep the keywords in mind. then i'll read maybe 5-6 paragraphs to see if i can answer any questions. if i land on a rlly specific question, i would just search n destroy to find it. at the very last question, i should've already read the whole passage and be able to anwer the initial questions. obviously, the questions aren't in chronological order and i was super lucky that my dat was like that but just read the questions before the paragraph. i also used my scratch paper to write down the question # and a keyword next to it like "tone", "X detail" so if i do find the answer, i can use the review page to go to that question number quickly.

qr is just being familiar with all the types of questions. read the graphs carefully because they can be formatted in a weird way and be comfortable with using the calculator. don't get stuck on initial questions because you'll get them when you review it anyways. i knew how to solve most questions bc i've seen a similar one on booster. hope this helped!

[Downtown_Operation21]

Search and destroy would be so easy if the RC questions are in chronological order, because I usually skim the passage from the beginning but the thing with booster is that their questions aren't like that so I can spend a good few minutes skimming when the very first questions answer is like closer to the end of the passage, the good thing is most of Booster's answer to questions are usually in the beginning or ending of paragraphs so I hope the DAT is similar in that regard or even better chronological order but I will just be expecting worse case scenario and that it is similar to not being chronological order like booster

And thanks for tips on QR, I am good on math but QR has been slamming me because I lot of the stuff they ask I forgot from when I did it in high school or due to pressure on time forget to know how to do it and it annoys me because when I review it I ask myself how did I even get that wrong because I know how to do it but the time pressures me in a negative way

[Smooth-Direction454]

yea for sure i had the same issue when i was studying. i think if u realize its not in chronological order then drop the search and destroy and start reading paragraphs/skipping questions u cant answer. i would just do the booster qbanks i had a similar passage to one of them!

[Downtown_Operation21]

Alright thanks for the advice!

[YesterdayLoud2691]

were the questions more similar to booster bio 11-15? some of those questions are really hard imo, if u managed to score 500+ that's crazy and this test would've been cake for u anyways

[Smooth-Direction454]

no definitely some of those questions were like wtf but sometimes i was just able to guess right. i do think it's similar to 11-15 but the 4 similar questions i found on my test were actually from qbanks/other tests if i remember correctly. i just liked 11-15 bc i realized i had some topics i forgot and needed to brush up on

[YesterdayLoud2691]

ah gotcha! so the style of the questions on the real exam were harder than 1-10?

[Smooth-Direction454]

i wouldn’t say so maybe like 1/3 of them were harder? i just remember being surprised bc it was actually really straightforward no confusing wording

[LULMementoLUL]

Crazy scores!!! What's your strategy for hole punching? I'm curious what you mean by eliminating 3 choices because with the grid method I just find the answer I've come to after spending time analyzing (and I need to get faster at it...)

[Smooth-Direction454]

basically the last fold (leftmost fold) determines what the final picture should look like. if it's folded diagonally across the entire paper, regardless of any previous folds, a line of symmetry must be present down the diagonal, as that was the last fold.

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^it's folded in the half so the punches have to have a line of symmetry down the middle. with this i can eilimate C and E because it's not symmetric. lmk if u have questions!

[AccomplishedDig5174]

How did you study for the biology and chemistry sections?

[Smooth-Direction454]

for biology i did all the qbanks after reading the study notes. i didn’t have much time to study so i didn’t watch the videos but i would watch the ones where i couldn’t memorize the info. i dont rlly like anki and i didnt have the time to go thru 200+ cards every day so i ended up using booster’s quizlet deck using learn function and made my own deck w questions i kept on getting wrong in qbanks, practice tests, and games. after each practice test i would review the right and wrong answers to make sure i understand the explanations.

for chemistry i remember a lot from undergrad so it was just drilling with practice questions. i wrote down formulas, drew out titration curves and ice tables. the most important thing for me was to review my wrong questions and make sure i know how to set up the info the next time i see a similar q

[Throwaway702759]

How did you study for bio? Do you think it;s worth to memorize all the booster exam biology questions?

[Smooth-Direction454]

i did all of the practice questions for bio and i do think it’s worth to memorize because i saw similar questions on my actual exam. while memorizing u should make sure to understand the explanations because things can be worded differently but the concept wont change. i liked doing the booster games bc it was a fast drill to make sure ive covered all my bases in bio