How Cedar Aced the DAT with a 30 OC and 30 GC

DAT BREAKDOWN - 26 AA / 28 TS

Overall: I studied for approximately 3 months in total. I had to take a break in the middle of my studying due to a family emergency, so it took me a while to get back on track. I used only Bootcamp for studying and roughly followed Dr. Ari’s 2.5 month study plan. I watched all the videos on Bootcamp, finished almost all questions, and completed most of the practice tests.

Note: I took most of these prerequisites in 2020-2021, so I had to relearn a lot of information (especially organic chemistry). The Bootcamp videos were great for relearning the material. I highly recommend watching them if you have not taken these prerequisites recently.

PAT - 22

I completed all of the videos on Bootcamp to first learn how to do each type of question. I continued to practice PAT every other day (~10 questions per section). I also watched a couple of Youtube videos to find the best techniques for each section. There’s not much I can recommend for this section as every individual has different methods to solve these. Cube counting, hole punching, pattern folding, and TFE were my best sections. Keyholes took me the longest per question and I scored anywhere from 60-100% in angle ranking depending on the test. I would say the Bootcamp problems are very helpful to prepare for the DAT questions.

QR - 23

I watched the videos for this section so that I would know what types of questions are commonly seen on the DAT. For this section, practice problems worked best for my studying. I completed the question banks and all practice tests. I reviewed each question to ensure I was understanding either why my answer was right or wrong. It is important to notice the patterns in each question type. As for the actual DAT, my QR questions were a little harder than the practice tests and contained a lot of word problems.

RC - 24

I want to first mention that I love reading in my free time, but I wouldn’t consider myself to be a fast reader. After completing the question banks, I was feeling a little nervous for this section. The search and destroy method did not work for me as I got overwhelmed with trying to find small details in such a long passage. I focused on reading the entire passage in under ten minutes and highlighting key details. This allowed me to map out the information in my head as I was able to recall where certain topics were discussed in the passage. This method was effective in both the practice tests and the actual DAT. The questions focused more on facts and statistics.

BIO - 25

The biology videos were very useful as I am a visual learner and prefer to reference pictures or diagrams. The videos are helpful to understand the information, while the high yield notes are beneficial to memorize the material. I read through the high yield notes multiple times and marked any information I couldn’t recall. I never took anatomy courses in university, so these sections were the most difficult and time consuming for me. I concentrated on lots of little details when I was studying. However, the actual DAT questions were more broad. There were a couple questions I wasn’t sure about, but I was able to make educated guesses or cross off answers based on my knowledge.

GC - 30

I watched all of Dr. Mike’s videos for this section and was able to remember a lot of the information from my university courses. The question banks and practice tests were very useful for applying the material. I went through all the questions I completed to confirm I knew why I got the questions right or wrong. For the actual DAT, I got a lot of calculation questions and had to quickly do the math in my head. It wasn’t necessarily difficult, but it was time consuming. The answers were integers and not just the fractions of numbers needed to solve for the answer.

OC - 30

This section took me the longest to review while studying. I watched all of Dr. Mike’s videos to first understand the material. Then, I spent a couple of days going through reactions to commit them to memory and recognize patterns. I completed the question banks, reaction bites, and practice tests. These were all great for continuous practice. For the actual DAT, this section was the easiest for me. I had lots of reaction questions to solve for the product, and I was able to quickly answer these. I also saw some very similar questions compared to the ones on Bootcamp and I felt very prepared. Also, remember to go over the OC lab tests as well.

Random Details:

One thing I did not expect was to have such a large screen for the actual DAT. The computer screen was very big compared to the laptop I was using to study. The RC passages took up the whole screen, and I feel like it was more difficult to read and highlight. Additionally, I want to mention that my markers were not working very well for the entire exam. This really affected my timing in PAT as cube counting took a lot longer than usual and I mainly had to do hole punching in my head. The last thing I want to emphasize is that timing is different on the actual DAT. For example, my reading passages had 10, 15, and 8 paragraphs. I was spending most of my time answering questions for the second passage and was afraid I wouldn’t finish in time. I was happy to see that the last passage was short and I was able to finish just in time.

If any of you have questions, feel free to message me or comment. I hope this is helpful for those studying and wish you all the best of luck with your exam! I will be applying next cycle and would love any recommendations for schools to apply to. I am a California resident, but I am also open to out of state schools.