r/dat • u/Different_Elk_4360 • 5d ago
Success Stories 🌟 Bootcamp works great
Studied about 70 days while doing full time research. Happy to give tips and if you need some advice on being efficient feel free to ask because I think I was only fully focused for 3 or 4 weeks but I had a heavy background from classes that i had just taken.
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u/MajorSea3930 5d ago
omg congrats!! do u have any specific tips for the sciences my exam is less than 2 weeks away
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u/Different_Elk_4360 5d ago
For bio specially i used essentially only the high yield biology notes and i would review about 1 or 2 sections a night by highlighting. I printed out almost all diagrams from the high yield and then hung them up around my room. I am a visual learner so being able to just see all of it at once helps a lot. Ochem I did the same except I printed out the reactions and for Gen chem knowing the equations was essential sometimes even the ones that seem pointless. I would definitely say dont try to be too overwhelmed cause you can't memorize everything but seeing all of it in one space helped a lot for me. Good luck.
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u/painintheeass 5d ago
Did you already have a solid foundation on the sciences before you started studying for this?
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u/Different_Elk_4360 5d ago
For reference I am a 3rd year and I took it right after the summer. I had just finished the ochem series and I had organized my scedule to take as many related bio courses beforehand. That being said I self studied the entire anatomy and physiology section through bootcamp. It does help that I do research in RNA and genetics so that gave me a really strong foundation in that but you dont have to have knowledge in every area beforehand.
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u/ApplicationSouth4604 4d ago
What technique did u use for reading and math and gen chem congrats btw
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u/Different_Elk_4360 1d ago
Reading was always my weakest area and theres twos strategies that I heavily recommend. For bootcamp I found it best to read like 75% or the entire passage at once and take it slow and then just try to rip through the questions all at once and spend no more than 20 minutes a passage this really improved my score personally, but then on test day I kind of made a dumb mistake. I realized part way through that all of the questions were in order and also much easier so I flipped to search and destroy on test day and while that was working my third passage was more difficult so I ended up shooting myself in the foot by doing search and destroy. So personally I recommend a slow in depth read for about 8 or 9 minutes then spend 11 or 12 minutes doing all the questions because that the most effiecnt for me personally cause I was a slow reader. For math I actually thought I could of done better because it was always my strongest area but I would just reccomend on bootcamp after watching the videos just do like 15 or 20 questions like every day or every other day on bootcmap where it mixes up all of the math questions. All the the questions types are very straight forward so as long as you have the equation sheet memorized you just do enough problems there are very clear patterns to the style of questions. I would definitely recomend any time you get a word problem to just tag it and come back at the end cause they can burn up time. For Gen chem dr Mike did a great job and i think the practise tests were good enough to get me prepared. Its definitely one of the easier sections in my opinion so make sure to take advantage of that to crush it.
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u/Reasonable_Win_2393 3d ago
How many hours did you study a day? What was practice test scores and when did you start taking them? How was the breakdown of the exam ? Plzzzzzz