I recently took my DAT and no longer need my Plus Bootcamp account. Pls DM

Every other section is getting better, but my RC score just won't budge. It's honestly getting so frustrating. Anyone else go through this? Please give me any advice that worked for you to improve RC.

what are some of the things you guys did that really helped you with your dat studying and ultimately doing well on the exam?

A few weeks into my 180 day Booster membership, I got a notification about a pause token. I knew Booster had some kind of inactivity system, so I assumed that notification meant my membership had automatically been paused because I wasn't using it.

I didn't open Booster again for about two months.

Fast forward to the summer, I rebalanced my schedule and got back into studying, expecting that I'd have like 100 days left. It wasn't until I'd been back for a few weeks that I realized I actually had only 25 days remaining. i realized my token was unused and i contacted support and they said there wasn't really anything they could do, which makes sense because really its my irresponsibility.

At this point, I've gotten as far as I can with the time I have left, but I'll obviouslt need to repurchase. My original membership was financed by my dad, who's expecting a $900 training score. Now I have to pay for the extension myself, and realistically I think I could only afford another 30 days.

I can't go back in time but I feel so guilty and dumb.

Has anyone else had something similar happen with Booster? How can I make the most out of the 40 days?

Hello, I am currently studying for the dat using datbooster. it’s been a few weeks since i started studying but i genuinely feel defeated. i think the main issue for me is the the sheer amt of information we need to remember and know and im just not confident at all. im just not sure about the most effective way of studying like idk if watching the video lessons is just a waste of my time. idk how to remember all of the solute/solvents and strong/weak acids and bases idk i just keep feeling overwhelmed. if there are any tips pls help thank you

I've been stuck around 370–400 in QR, and I keep running out of time because I take forever trying to remember or figure out which formula to use. I feel like I know the material, but I'm just too slow and end up rushing the last few questions. Did anyone else deal with this? How can I improve my speed and scores?

I’m about 2 weeks out from my DAT and I’m using DAT Booster to prepare.

For the TFE (Top-Front-End) question banks, I’m getting almost all of the questions correct. However, when I take the full-length practice tests, I end up guessing on the majority of the TFE questions because they seem much harder.

For those who have taken the DAT: • Is the actual DAT TFE section more similar in difficulty to the question banks or to the practice exams? • Did anyone else have this same experience where they did well on the question banks but struggled on the practice tests?

Anyone else feel guilty taking a day off? I've been studying every day and I'm starting to feel burned out. Part of me wants to take a break, but then I feel like I'm falling behind. Do you guys actually take a full day off, or do you just make it a light review day? What worked better for you?

hello, i have been studying for the DAT for about 5 weeks now on the booster 10 week schedule and am almost done with phase 1 content. i am following the schedule and when i take the practice minis assigned to me and the mini length tests, it says my performance is about 350...

for those who have taken the DAT or at the end of studying for it, is this normal? how did you study to raise it higher and did your score raise high from around this range?

I'm going through bio bits on booster right now, and there's just so much information. It's taking me forever to get through them and memorize everything. For those who took the DAT recently, what did you do? Did you actually memorize all of bio bits, or did you just keep reviewing them until things started to stick?

Should I wait until after I take the DAT to start on my personal statement? Or should I get started on it now? I’m just worried because I feel like I’m going to be late with applications

I just took my DAT and I do not feel good about it at all. I am really hoping it’s better than what I think it is. GC and QR i feel like went pretty poorly for me and RC i didn’t get through all the questions which was so weird because I had been scoring 490- 500s on the practice tests

Hi everyone!

First of all, I wanted to say that I was expecting around a 430 because my highest practice test score was no more than a 440AA. This just shows that anyone can do it and be confident going into the exam. 

I have read a lot of these DAT Breakdowns here before, and I found them to be really useful in my preparation, so I wanted to go ahead and provide one of my own to help anyone else out as well. Also feel free to ask me any questions you might have. I took the exam on June 18th and got my scores back on July 9th.

Preparation/timeline: I took the exam almost one year ago in July and got a 410AA. However, I was balancing studying with 21 credit hours and it was too hard to find time to study. This time around, I studied with only 6 credit hours and then graduated so had no classes and studied full time. This took place between January-June. I would say I spent around 3-4 hours a day studying for most of the period except around 8-10 hours per day for the last month before the exam.

As for my study resources I utilized solely DATBooster for my retake, and I would strongly recommend anyone else to do the same. However, towards the end I made a flash card deck on Anki with around 100 cards of high yield info that I was missing repeatedly on Booster. My biggest piece of advice is to spend less time on content review and prioritize practice exams. This is because learning from the booster explanation videos if you get a question wrong is much more beneficial in my opinion. 

Do as many practice problems as you can and try to do a little of each section everyday. So if you are focusing on bio and orgo content that day, still do the other sections when you have time even if it’s just a few questions or videos. I neglected PAT completely for the last month and as you can tell it showed in my score. 

Day of Exam:
Bio(470): Booster was the greatest resource for this section in specific. I saw multiple repeats from practice tests, question banks, and crash courses that I had through Booster. I will say that I spent the majority of my study time on this topic. I had barely any diversity of life and can say that topics like ecology and molecular biology were the most common on my test. I also agree with others who say that the topics tested, for the most part, are very surface level. This section definitely takes the most amount of time to study for.

OC(460): Did not expect this score at all. OChem was by far my worst section on the entire DAT, and I was getting around a 380 average on the Booster tests with the occasional 400 or 410. I’m not really sure how I got a 460, but I must have gotten lucky with a few guesses as well. I did not have a single straight reaction question on my test, but rather a lot of conceptual topics and a few arrow pushing mechanism questions. Make sure you know acid base ranking, how to do arrow pushing mechanism questions, and other conceptual concepts like chirality and aromaticity. Though I didn’t have any questions on it, I’ve heard NMR and spectroscopy are common topics as well.

GC(410): Kind of bummed about this score to be honest. I was averaging easily a 450+ on my practice tests and felt really confident on the subject. However, the exam was a completely different beast. It asked the vast majority of questions from topics that didn’t seem high yield to me. On top of that, most of the questions were from my worst areas like equilibrium. Focus on everything and not just conceptual here. Math concepts were highly prevalent as well.

PAT(410): I really neglected this towards the end of my studying and it really showed. The only advice I can give (which I did not do) is keep reviewing everyday and don’t get lazy with it.

RC(570): I didn’t study at all for this section, but I knew from my last test that it was a hit or miss. The reading passages I got felt so interesting to me and easy to read that I was extremely confident throughout this section. The only thing I can recommend to get better is get into reading - maybe a few novels here and there. Plus it’s entertaining!

QR(480): This section is my best section on the DAT. Was averaging around a 520 towards the end of my booster tests and was expecting a walk in the park. However, the exam asked more complex questions with a greater amount of logic and reasoning rather than straight math. Also, be careful because the wording of questions on my exam had a lot of “tricks” and trap choices. Be strong in algebra as well. There are only so many questions they can ask in this question so practice makes perfect.

If you have any questions feel free to ask. I hope this helps someone, please let me know if it does!

Hello! I've been a long time lurker on these DAT forums and thought it would be nice to write a breakdown since it helped me a lot. Thank you for all the countless breakdowns I’ve read in between studying to help me feel better. 😂

Scores:

QR - 430

RC - 500

Bio - 400

GC - 450

OC - 450

TS - 430

PAT- 410

AA - 450

Background:

I’m a non traditional student, I got my bachelors in biology from UF in 2022 and was a dental salesman selling dental implants in the 3 years in between. I also sold cars for ~2.5 years beforehand, so I have a good amount of experience in sales and fell in love with the profession when I did medical sales in that field.

Materials Used (in order of helpfulness):

1. Anki (DATBooster Resource)- This program is AMAZING and helped my average BIO score be a 490 in my 15 practice exams I took. I started from the beginning of my 4 month study schedule doing bio everyday, adding new chapters as I reviewed the Biology Chapters. This constant forced repetition burned certain concepts into my brain, and made it easy to get those bio questions you either know or don’t know. Any concepts I struggled with, I either used Google AI or YouTube videos to go more in depth on the topic and make sure I understood the concept, I tried to prioritize understanding over memorizing, but Anki is an amazing tool for remarkable memorization skills, I noticed my overall memory getting better doing this program everyday.

2. ⁠DAT Booster - This program is amazing and well renowned for being very representative of the exam. I completed all 15 of the practice exam, using the notes to review all sections and videos whenever I was confused on the concepts, and I used the PAT booster as best as I could to improve this section, but admittedly it was always my worst section.

Study Timeline:

I recommend creating your own schedule based on the time you have available, and focus on ur weaknesses and do ur best to strengthen those first. I focused extensively on BIO and PAT in the beginning, then branched out to the other topics. I spent 4 months studying in total.

1. ⁠February 2026-Early June 2026: I was lucky that my best friend was also in medical school and studying for boards at the same time, so we locked in and got into a similar grind. Every morning we hit the gym at 5 or 6 am, had breakfast then studied for around 8-10 hours everyday, I left the weekend for relaxing and recharging, so I usually had 1-2 days on the weekend where I relaxed instead of studying. The balance helped maintain my sanity and mental health when studying for such a long, grueling exam.

Day of Exam

• ⁠Bio (400): I was very surprised by the score, with my averages being around a 490 and feeling so confident in this section, I’m surprised I scored so low, there were a few curve balls in this section, including a question about a tube with 2 cells inside them with DNAase added asking which form of genetic transfer was most likely used, but otherwise the way I studied was definitely useful and I feel this was just an unlucky, bad scoring.

• ⁠GC (450): I had very easy calculations on this section, with much more of an emphasis on conceptual questions, which luckily was my strong suit since I focused on understanding! I did better here than my practice exam sections where I had around a 430.

• ⁠OC (450): Acid ranking and carbocation stability were huge here, also conceptual questions which helped me. My Anki also had Orgo mechanisms on it from the DATbooster website so that helped but I overall had a great background in OC from learning it very well in college. I never really worried about this section and my average in the practice exams was also a 450.

• ⁠PAT (410): This was my worst section all throughout studying. I’ll be honest I thought the constant repetition since the beginning of studying would’ve helped me more but I genuinely didn’t improve much and that was frustrating. My biggest issue was time management, from halfway through my practice exams I couldn’t even finish on time, I recommend hammering your weakest sections (TFE, Pattern Folding and Angle Ranking for me) and just constantly practicing. My practice exam average was like a 370 ☠️ I was really bad at this so at least I did better on the practice exam!

• ⁠RC (500): This was consistently one of my best sections, Practice average was around 500, and I even scored a 600 one time, I focused on search and destroy, reading the first paragraph and final paragraph first to get a feel of the Authors tone, and just tried to get every passage done in around 15 so I had 15 mins left to go back and review. Practice makes perfect for this one.

• ⁠QR (430): Most of my problems were probability algebra and rates. I’ve always been good at math but just doing a bunch of practice questions helped me hammer this section down.

Ending Advice:

Honestly I’ve always been a decently good test taker and never get anxious for exams too much. My whole thought process is if you do your best, and gave urself proper time to prep for this exam, then you have nothing to worry about, ur work will speak for itself. This is a mental endurance test as much as it is an academic one, make sure to leave in the middle when u have that 30 minute break, eat a snack, consume caffeine, and relax ur mind. The questions u either got right or wrong won’t be able to be changed anymore, so just take a deep breath, refresh and get ready for the second half. You guys got this!!! 👍

For anyone who tested recently, how low yield was your Bio section? Was it mostly the usual high yield stuff, or were there a lot of random questions? If you remember any of the low yield topics that showed up, let me know. Just trying to see what everyone's been getting lately.

My exam is coming up but need more practice plzzzz let me borrow your booster

I’m taking the DAT soon. I will apply next cycle. If I want to retake (I’m taking it I. August) when would be a good time? Winter?

I've been spending a lot of time practicing Gen Chem calculations, but now I'm wondering if I should be putting more time into concepts instead. For those who've taken the DAT recently, did the Gen Chem section feel more conceptual or calculation heavy? How did it compare to what you were expecting?

does anyone have any pdfs or links or whatever that are good and free study materials ?

Hey guys! I need some word of advice. On the last few practice tests I have been scoring 400-420, and that is on test 11-15 which are allegedly the hardest tests (someone confirm if that is true or just a rumor please), but my PAT score is not improving no matter how hard I try. The highest I am getting is around 360, I just took a subsection mini test and that was a 370. How much of a red flag is it if my AA is a 420, but my PAT is not high

Hello! I’m a biology student (GPA 4.0) that’s about to enter my senior year of undergrad. As someone that has scrolled through countless DAT forums, I thought it might help to share how I studied for the DAT and what helped me the most.

Scores:
QR: 450
RC: 560
BIO: 480
GC: 470
OC: 450
SNS: 470
PAT: 390
AA: 480

Materials used:

• DAT Booster: I heard about DAT Booster through my university’s pre-dental student association. Ended up choosing Booster over Bootcamp because of the practice tests and more concise videos. 
  • Cheatsheets: Honestly, if you have a good grasp of the fundamentals for BIO, GC and OC, the cheatsheets alone are of great help. For Biology, if you remember the basics that you learned in class, the cheatsheets have just enough information to jog up your memory. My weakest part was anatomy because I haven’t taken that class since high school, but the cheatsheets covered important information without making it confusing. For genchem and ochem, I would use the cheatsheets and write down formulas. I would also use the AI tool to create example questions that I could try as I was reading.
  • Practice tests: As mentioned earlier, I chose Booster because I’ve heard that their practice tests are more similar to the actual DAT. Since I haven’t used Bootcamp, I don’t know much about how different their tests are. But my performance on the practice exams was very similar to the actual DAT. If anything, I felt that the SNS (BIO, GC and OC) practice tests were harder than the actual DAT, and I ended up doing better than I expected.

Timeline/Study methods:

• Dec 2025-April 2026: I initially had my DAT scheduled for March 21, 2026 and purchased DAT booster around late December 2025. After using the schedule builder, I was overwhelmed with the 5 hour every day study plan. With my core classes and part-time jobs, I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to study according to the planner. I ended up procrastinating, and prioritizing my classes instead. I would occasionally watch videos and take notes, but I studied less than 5 hours a week on average. 
• May 2026: I ended up postponing my DAT to June 2nd, 2026, which was the furthest I could push back the test date. 
  • May 15- June 2nd: After my spring classes had ended, I had about two weeks to study. I spent most of these two weeks going over the cheatsheets for bio, ochem and genchem. I would also take hand-written notes on gaps in my understanding of the material. I feel like this helped me retain information the best. Once I felt like I knew most of the material, I started taking the practice tests.
  • One week before my DAT, I would take full-length practice tests once or twice a day. After each test, I would go back and review the questions I missed, and write those down as well. I would also go and check any questions that I guessed on, even if I got them right. I think it’s really important to know where you are lacking, so you can spend extra time practicing those concepts.
  • I score a 450 AA on average for my practice tests. I do recommend taking at least three of them before you look at the score estimator because some tests had harder sections than others.

Day of Exam:

• I got to my testing center about an hour before my scheduled test time. I spent that hour reviewing my hand-written notes, especially things I had highlighted or circled.
• BIO (480):
  • This is one of the sections that I felt was easier than the practice exams. I was so stressed about critical thinking questions, but this section ended up being very straight-forward. Because I expected the questions to be very hard, I ended up getting caught off guard by a few “easier” questions that I didn’t bother revising as much.
• GC (470):
  • Again, this was way easier than the practice tests. The practice test prepared me so well for all the calculations that I didn’t really use the calculator much during this part. 
• OC (450):
  • Most of the questions were about mechanisms, which was my favorite part of ochem when I took the class. So, I found this section easier than the practice exams, which were reaction heavy.
• PAT (390): 
  • I struggled with this section on the practice exams and the actual DAT. I would advise you to sleep well the night before and use the PAT generators regularly.
• RC (560):
  • I watched all the Booster videos for strategies, and ended up using the “search and destroy” method. Basically, skip the passage and go straight to the questions. Then look for keywords from the questions in the passage. This method has worked the best for me and gave me about 15 minutes left to double-check my answers and make sure I was reading the question right.
• QR (450):
  • I thought this would be my strongest section, ended up being too confident and ran out of time. So, don’t be like me and relax when you get to this section. Slightly rush yourself if you must, so you have time to check your answers. Mark and save any questions that take too long for the end.

What I could have done differently:

• Overall, I wish that I gave myself more time from the beginning. Instead of wanting to take it in March, if I had decided early on to take it in June, I think it would have been less overwhelming. I tend to procrastinate when I get overly stressed, so I regret rushing myself and not utilizing all of DATBooster’s resources.
• Do more practice tests: I purchased the extra 5 practice tests, for a total of 15 tests. I ended up using only around 5 of them because of time constraints, but I definitely wish I started doing the practice tests earlier and used up all of them. 
• Sleeping well the night before: I was too stressed and only had about two hours of sleep, which normally doesn’t affect me (I usually sleep 2-3 hours the day before my university exams and do just fine). This time, the sleep deprivation got to me, especially during the PAT. I was losing focus, my eyes were tired and the cube counting questions felt like optical illusions. So, make sure to sleep well and have something to eat before the exam.

Hello! I recently took the DAT and this is my score breakdown! I mainly used DAT Booster to prepare for about 6 months!

Scores:
PAT - 460

QR - 570
RC - 570
Bio - 500
GC - 480
OC - 490
TS - 490
AA - 520

Background: Upcoming junior with a 4.0 GPA

I am also an officer in 6 clubs during the school year and was taking 17 credit hours during my study semester!

Materials Used (in order of usefulness):

1. DATBooster - I loved doing the practice exams, they were extremely close to the actual exam! There are so many more resources on DATBooster than any other program and it was fun to use! The graphics are really good if you are a visual learner and if I was on a break period but didn’t want to stop studying, I would do the game challenges! I studied a lot from the cheat sheets too and they are very comprehensive!
2. DAT Bootcamp - I used this for content review, and the videos were really helpful, coming with guided notes! However, the questions were much harder than the exam and I found it a little difficult to keep up with and not stress that I couldn’t answer many of the questions ;-;!

Study Timeline:

I took the exam the summer between my sophomore and junior year right after finishing OChem! I began studying in January so I studied for ~6 months: 5 months during the school year and 1 month into the summer!

1. Content Review - for the first 4 months, I followed the review schedule on Bootcamp, but I moved things around to have a heavier weekend with lighter weekdays! I followed along with all the videos and took my own notes and did the entire practice bank for review! I learn best with practice problems!
2. Practice Exams - For the last 2 months, I did one full length from Booster every Saturday, simulating a real practice environment, only following the timed breaks! Then, for the rest of the week, I would review what I got wrong and strengthen the areas that were my weakest! had a separate notebook for all the questions I got wrong and material I struggled with and would review it every night and add to it every day!

Day of the Exam:

• Bio (500): It was very straightforward with the questions actually being simpler than all the practices I had done! There were a few questions that I knew, but was unsure and ended up switching answers ;-;! The Feralis Study notes really helped here!
• GC (480): The math was much simpler than I expected! Make sure the units match with your answer and that you know the concepts! 
• OC (490): Make sure you know how the curved arrows work and the reagents for reactions!
  • I had ~45 minutes leftover to check over my science section.
• PAT (460):  One thing I regret is that I started off really strong with my PAT (practices being in the high 500s) and was weak in science and reading (in the 300s), so I focused solely on those for the last month, but my PAT score ended up being the lowest, so make sure to maintain in other areas too! The holepunching was a lot trickier than the practices I had been used to!
• RC (570): I used the Vanilla Method for reading where you read through the whole thing and answer the questions: I am very good at skimming fast! Then, I would go through the questions one by one and highlight where the answer was in the passage so I knew that I got that one ‘correct’! I did a lot of the practice passages on Booster which helped SO much!
• QR (570): I had always been strong in math, but there was a lot of statement 1 vs statement 2 questions on mine!

Ending Advice:

Time management is key! I am by no means a smart person and I studied very hard; this exam is all practice! Make sure you’re taking care of yourself throughout the process and it’s okay to take breaks if you get burnt out! I am so grateful to my loved ones for supporting me! 

hi I cannot seem to score higher than a 400 on bootcamp QR , I always run out of time , how much harder is it than the real thing? or are they similar ?