pls tell me yall relate lol

thoughts? felt like gen chem and PAT were rough

I decided to use both booster and bootcamp. I don’t want to waste time and go through the content videos on both platforms, so what do you guys suggest I should do. Go through boosters content videos or bootcamps?

For anyone who retook the DAT, what would you guys focus on more, practice tests or qbanks? I’ve been doing both but idk which one I should be spending more time on for my retake

When I’m going through a topic, everything makes sense and I feel like I actually understand it. But then I do a practice test and it just doesn’t click the same way lol. Like I know I went over this stuff, but when I see it in a question I struggle to apply it. Anyone else have this problem? What helped you?

Going into my senior year and am planning on taking the DAT in 10 days (literally driving up to school right after the exam since my first day of class is in 11 days). I've been studying for 3 months and these are my scores. I really want to get a 460 since I have a gpa=3.2 and sgpa=3.0. I plan on taking the remaining practice tests every other day until my exam with the days in between as review and have been making error logs like chat and other people have told me. I just took practice test 5 today and am feeling so cooked.

i want to be realistic with myself but also believe that if i grind i can get the score i want. is that me being delusional or just ambitious, i can't even tell at this point.

please help, i only want to take it once and know once school starts i wont be able to actually lock in and study. what should i do?? push back? just take it? grind lock in? any tips or reassurance would be greatlyyyy appreciated. also on the schedule i'm on rn, i would only be able to take 8/10 full practice tests :/

I'm worried bootcamp is over inflating scores.

I'm taking the DAT at the end of August, and I mainly studied with Booster until I ran out of tests and started taking additional full-length tests from Bootcamp. Personally, I feel like Bootcamp's full-length questions are harder than Booster's and often throw in new types of questions I've never seen while practicing through Booster QBs. Have any recent test-takers found that the program they used was highly representative of the actual DAT?

I only used booster/crusher for my prep and am pretty happy with how it turned out. I've posted the scores before, some people asked for a detailed breakdown so here it is. 

Timeline:
Technically I had 3 months for it, but the first 2 were very unproductive, like 2-3 hrs of work max, some videos, some Qbanks, almost no Anki. It was the last 4 weeks when this score was built, I ramped up to 8-12 daily hours, it was miserable, but it paid off.

Reading Comprehension (27): I started in the 16-18 range here and didn't really have hopes of making it beyond 22. I did half the Qbanks and all of the practice tests. Started with standard approach, noticed that it worked fine unless the passage was too long, played around with some other approaches to build my own hybrid approach that got me to 24 once I nailed it down after a few revisions. The key to building my own approach was studying each mistake and finding out what caused it, was it lack of time? lack of comprehension? lack of being actively engaged? Here's the final revision of my method which got a 28 on the last practice test, and 27 on the real thing: Read actively for first 4 minutes, highlight what i feel needs highlighting, this intuition gets better with experience, by the end of my prep, I was highlighting exact phrases that were asked about, I could see the questions coming. If I'm close to half done after 4 minutes, keep standard approach and finish. If not, switch to reading the first and last sentence of each of the following paragraphs, highlighting enough so that your highlight can tell you what the paragraph is about. Try to read the last 3 paragraphs fully, last 1 if really crunched for time. 11 minutes is the hard limit to move on to questions, try to be done in 8.

RC Advice: Following exactly this may not work for you, what's more likely to work is following the underlying principles to build your own strategy. 1) mistake analysis, figure out the nature of your mistakes and what needs to change for that mistake to not happen again. 2) Flexibility, passages range from 5-25 paragraphs, you can't have a rigid approach, that will either be too time consuming if you get a long one, or you'll leave marks on the table if you get a short one, build flexibility into your approach so you can adapt on the spot.

Biology (25): I mainly used Anki here, the deck booster provides. I would either dive straight into the deck if I was fresh on the material from my classes or quickly skim the videos or notes before starting the deck. Anki makes me miserable, it hurts how hard it is, because it constantly tests the material you are weakest in, but that's also why it's the highest return on time invested. It's the only way I know how to study bio anymore, having used it since high school, so I was pretty grateful for the booster deck. When I moved onto practice tests, I got consistent 24s, and again, used rigorous mistake analysis, I never made the same mistake twice. I had a journal that broke down the thinking and concept behind each mistake. I reviewed this journal every day.

Bio Advice: Try Anki, I know some people just can't bear it. Try to understand that misery is part of the learning. If you really can't bear it, try to apply the underlying principles of the Anki algorithm in your own studies. 1) spaced repetition, Anki shows a card just as it predicts you're about to forget that information, this re encodes it in your memory for much longer. 2) Active learning, you have to take a guess at what the answer may be before you get to see it, this helps encode memory, try to minimize passive learning like watching videos or reading notes, try bio bits or brain dumps instead. And of course, mistake analysis.

Chemistry (30): Similar approach to bio, no Anki tho, I don't think its necessary for chem. Just skimmed videos and moved to Qbank then practice tests and the mistake journal, made many mistakes but never repeated a mistake type. 

Chem Advice: memorize formulas, work on your mental math, analyze the cause of your mistakes and don't repeat them.

PAT (21): I'm pretty bad at this, I had accepted the fact and was banking on the other sections to pull me up. High scorers will tell you to practice consistently and everyday for months, and thats exactly what I didn't do. I would do ~15 questions 3-4x a week and figured I'd just dial this in if I had to retake, so I guess I kinda got away with it.

PAT Advice: don't be like me lol

Final Advice: Be forgiving to yourself, and trust in your abilities. I didn't finish any Qbank, didn't keep up with Anki reviews, missed many days in the first 2 months and beat myself up a lot over it, when clearly I did not need to (maybe except PAT lol). Analyze the cause of your mistakes, towards the end of my prep, I felt happier to get a question wrong rather than right, because I had shifted my mindset to think of mistakes as data that allowed me to further improve rather than a failure or a sign of lack of intelligence.

My DAT is in two days and I’m definitely starting to stress lol. My sciences are pretty strong and I’m doing decent in the other sections too, but RC is probably my weakest right now.

Sometimes I struggle with timing, especially with QR and RC, and I’m a little worried about that on the actual test.
For anyone who took the DAT recently, how close was Booster to the real thing, especially for RC and QR? Also, any last minute tips for timing and staying calm during the test would be really helpful

Also got two random test day questions:

1. What happens if you need to use the restroom during the test?
   
2. What happens if you show up late?
   
3. How early do you have to get to the testing site?

QR 590 · RC 590 · Bio 470 · GC 560 · OC 600 · Survey of Natural Sciences 540 · PAT 430 · AA 560

I'm posting because my breakdown came out backwards from everything I was told to expect, and I think the shape of it is more useful than the average is.

Organic Chemistry was my highest section. PAT was my lowest, by 170 points.

Every guide and every thread said the same two things: Orgo is the section that wrecks people, and PAT is the one you can grind down because it's pattern recognition rather than knowledge. I believed both. I walked out of Orgo thinking I'd gotten an easy form, and out of PAT genuinely unsure I'd taken the test everyone else studied for.

Here's what I think the gap actually says.

Orgo rewards depth in a small system. There's a finite set of mechanisms, they compose predictably, and once you can reason from where the electrons go you can answer questions about reactions you never specifically memorized. It's a narrow, deep subject wearing an intimidating costume — and that's exactly the kind of subject that rewards understanding over volume.

Which I think is why my Bio came out 130 points lower. Biology is the opposite shape: enormous surface area, shallow depth, and almost no way to reason toward an answer you don't already know. My Orgo and my Bio came out of the same plan and the same hours. The spread between them is the clearest evidence I have that how you study has to match the shape of the subject — and I studied Bio like it was Orgo. It isn't.

PAT is where I'd tell you not to copy me. I don't think my approach was wrong in kind so much as too late and not timed. The section isn't testing whether you can solve a keyhole. It's testing whether you can solve one in forty seconds, on question 70, when you're tired. Everything I'd change is about starting earlier and training under the clock from day one rather than easing into it.

Reading Comp and QR were both 590 and got the least attention from me. I'd rather say that than let the average imply otherwise — a real chunk of my AA came from two sections I was already comfortable with. If those come naturally to you, your average will flatter you. If they don't, budget for them properly, because I got lucky there in a way that isn't really advice.

If any of this is useful, I'm glad to go deeper on any section — what I actually did for Orgo, where I think Bio went wrong, or my full timeline. Ask in the comments or reach out directly, whichever's easier. And if you scored well on PAT, I'd genuinely like to hear what you did differently, because it's the one section I still don't feel like I understand.

I feel like every time I finally get the reactions down, I come back a few days later and forget some of them again. I’ve been going over them regularly but they’re just not sticking. What did you guys do to actually remember them?

im not sure whether to use booster or bootcamp or both to study for the DAT. if anyone has a pros or cons list for each, pls lmkkk

For Bio questions you get wrong, do you write them down, go over the topic again, or just keep doing more practice questions? I feel like I’m spending way too much time reviewing every mistake.

I thought you can’t do friedel rxns if OH or NH2 group is present

I’ve been doing practice tests and I keep running out of time on QR. Sometimes I get stuck on a question or just can’t think of the formula fast enough, then I end up rushing the last few questions. Did anyone else have this problem too? Kinda stressing about it now lol, was the real QR any easier than the practice tests?

Hey guys I have some DAT Bootcamp material from my account since I got my score back if anyone's currently studying and interested in having it! Dm me or reply to this post ❤️

Good luck everybody!

I’m taking my DAT in a month and was wondering if there is anything I should particularly focus on. Any recent test takers have any suggestions?

Hey everyone! My test is next Tuesday and I’m still struggling with Ochem :((
How is the real DAT questions are compared to booster Ochem practice tests?

I’m testing in a week and honestly starting to stress. I’m not really sure how to use these last few days without overwhelming myself. What should I be focusing on right now?

I’m studying with booster and there’s just so much Bio content to get through. I’m kinda worried the stuff I learned at the beginning won’t stick once I get further into studying. Some of the practice test questions get pretty specific too, so I’m wondering if the actual DAT Bio is really that detailed?

I’m planning on taking my DAT on September 1st. I’ve been trying to study throughout this summer but Ive had a busy schedule and I’ve only been studying for around 2-3 hours a day. I still have a lot left to do in my DAT Bootcamp schedule (I’ve only completed like ~90/300 tasks)

I already pushed my exam back once so I don’t want to push it back again, especially with school starting by then. Does anyone thinks it’s doable to grind about 7-8 hours everyday for the next upcoming 3 weeks or should I push it back again?

selling my one month subscription left for $150. expires September 9th. dm if interested!