How Sam Turned a Summer Into a 560 AA on the DAT

Hi everyone! My name is Sam and I am a rising senior at Tufts University majoring in Biology. I decided to take my DAT this summer because this was the longest block of free time I had before I apply next cycle. Plus, taking it early gave me some time if I needed to retake. I'd definitely recommend taking the exam over the summer so that you can fully dedicate yourself to studying for 2-3 months! I was also working part-time (only 2-3 days per week), but I think if anything that helped me because it provided a bit of a break from the monotony of studying every day.

The number one resource from Bootcamp that helped me succeed was the Dr. Ari's 90-day schedule. The daily assignments really helped me stay on track, especially in the first few weeks when everything felt so overwhelming. I was very diligent about completing all the assignments for each day, and if I missed any I could easily drag them to another day when I knew I would have time. It's also nice that when you initially create the schedule, Bootcamp will provide you with an approximate exam date. I scheduled my exam after purchasing Bootcamp and chose the date they suggested!

Bio (570):

This was probably my most surprising score. On all of my practice exams I was very consistently scoring around 470, so I do think I got a bit lucky with the specific questions that they asked me. The main method I used for biology was just watching and taking notes on all of the Bootcamp videos. This section has the most videos by far, so I'd recommend just staying on top of the schedule and treating the first few section tests as a review. With this section, the inventory of topics they can ask for this section is so large that it can be very unpredictable what they will actually ask you. I would recommend using the tagged questions feature to create small review sessions and work through those every day for the last week or two leading up to your test.

GC (540):

I love Dr. Mike!!! I found his content videos to be so engaging and I made sure to watch his explanations on the question banks and practice tests for the ones I got wrong. I also am a TA and tutor for Gen Chem at my school, so that really helped me. I would 100% recommend becoming a tutor or TA for any of the subjects that are tested on the DAT because it may have been a few years since taking the courses and it really helps to refresh the material. I also had an issue at the test center where a question was supposed to have an image but it wasn't showing up. I just raised my hand and they moved me to another computer (my timer was paused), so don't be afraid to ask for help if you have any technical difficulties!

OC (510):

I was also very happily surprised with this score because my Bootcamp average was around a 460. I watched all the videos for this section but my notes were not as detailed because, in my opinion, the videos go a little more in depth than is necessary. I also know that a lot of people use the Bootcamp Reaction Cheat Sheet, but I personally did not find this useful because there was just too much and it felt like nothing was sticking. I saw the most progress once I made it to the practice tests and I was able to recognize patterns in the questions and the mistakes I was making. I think the most effective strategy for this section was trying to actually understand as much as possible so that I could minimize the amount of material that I just straight up memorized. Again, I heavily relied on Dr. Mike's explanations for this.

PAT (580):

Another happy surprise! The biggest obstacle for me with PAT was timing. I always felt like when I made it to Pattern Folding I had to rush through the questions. I think the best way to address this is timed practice with the PAT generators and the practice tests. I also watched all the video explanations, even for the ones I got right, because they usually showed a more efficient way of answering the question. For most of the sections I saw a steady improvement throughout my studying, but that was not the case for Angle Ranking. I practiced so much using the generator but only saw a marginal improvement. For test day I decided to go in with the mindset that I was never going to feel confident with Angle Ranking and that honestly relieved a lot of anxiety for me with those questions.

RC (580):

Before I started studying I was really nervous for this section because I'm not the fastest reader and always struggled with the reading section on the SAT. I started out using search and destroy because I know that worked for a lot of people, but I was not getting great scores with that. I tried out a few more strategies and eventually settled on the "Vanilla" method. I would spend 8-10 minutes reading the passage while highlighting words like names, dates, and numbers. As you do more passages you get a sense of the kind of vocabulary and phrasing that will end up having a question (e.g. "the most important/common thing…", "there are three types of…"), so I would highlight those too. Overall I would recommend trying out a bunch of different strategies because it truly is different for everyone!

QR (600):

To be honest I have always been a math person so I wasn't super nervous for this section. That being said, on my first few practice tests I did not score as high because I still wasn't familiar with the question types and the timing. There are lots of patterns in the questions that appear on the practice tests, which I felt were very representative of the real test. The most effective resource for me with QR was definitely the practice tests and closely reviewing the ones I got wrong. It was also helpful to mark questions that I knew were going to take a few minutes to solve so that I could come back to them later if I had time.

Overall Advice:

I obviously am very happy with the score that I got, but the actual studying process was one of the most anxiety-inducing periods of my life. Apart from committing yourself to studying, it is equally important to prioritize your mental wellbeing. I took three days off per week and took my last practice test three full days before my exam to give myself time to relax as much as possible (which was very difficult!). Remember that you are taking a massive test that demands so much knowledge, and giving yourself grace is the best thing you can do for yourself. A few things I did in the week leading up to my exam to relieve some anxiety was taking my full length exams at 8:30AM in the library so that I could simulate how test day might actually feel. I also started going to sleep earlier so that my sleep schedule would be adjusted by the time of test day. Overall, DAT Bootcamp is a phenomenal resource for this exam and you will be more prepared than you know!