510 DAT Breakdown 

Hey everyone! I wanted to make a breakdown because I remember how helpful it was reading other people's experiences when I was studying for the DAT. I ended up with a 510 Academic Average and 550 Total Science, and I primarily used DAT Booster to prepare.

Scores

QR: 510

RC: 410

Biology: 530

General Chemistry: 510

Organic Chemistry: 600

Total Science: 550

PAT: 510

Academic Average: 510

I'm currently a student at Washington University in St. Louis, and when I started preparing for the DAT, I spent a decent amount of time looking through different prep resources. I ultimately decided to go with DAT Booster rather than DAT Bootcamp because I wanted something that was structured but also had a lot of practice material built into the program.

Why DAT Booster?

The biggest thing I liked about Booster was having the learning material and practice questions all in one place. I didn't want to spend my entire study period jumping between a bunch of different resources.

For me, the practice questions were probably the most important part of my preparation. I could learn a topic, test myself on it, see what I got wrong, and then go back and review that specific material.

Another thing that helped was the amount of condensed review material available. As I got closer to my exam, I didn't want to constantly reread huge sets of notes. The cheat sheets for Biology and Organic Chemistry were really useful for this because I could use them for quick reviews of the major concepts and topics I had already studied.

Biology — 530

Biology was one of the sections I put the most time into because there is just so much material that you can potentially be tested on.

I found Booster's Biology resources really helpful, especially Bio Bits. Having additional Biology questions that I could work through was useful because it made me realize pretty quickly which topics I actually understood and which ones I only recognized from reading the notes.

I would do questions and then spend time reviewing the ones I missed. I tried not to just memorize the correct answer—I wanted to understand why the answer was correct and why the other choices were wrong.

The Biology cheat sheet was also one of my favorite resources toward the end of studying. Once I had already learned the material, it was nice having a condensed resource I could use to refresh topics without going through all of my notes again.

For Biology, I would definitely recommend doing as many practice questions as possible. There is so much information that I think active recall and practice were much more useful for me than just repeatedly reading.

I ended up scoring a 530 in Biology, which I was really happy with.

General Chemistry — 510

For General Chemistry, I focused on understanding the concepts and then getting comfortable applying them through practice questions.

I tried to pay attention to the questions I consistently struggled with instead of just moving on after seeing the correct answer. Reviewing mistakes was important because sometimes I knew the underlying concept but made a calculation mistake or misunderstood what the question was asking.

I also found that practicing under time constraints helped me become more comfortable with the pace of the actual DAT.

I ended up with a 510 in General Chemistry.

Organic Chemistry — 600

Organic Chemistry ended up being my strongest section with a 600, so this was definitely one of the scores I was most excited about.

For OC, I really liked having the Organic Chemistry cheat sheet available. It was especially helpful when I was doing a quick review and wanted to refresh reactions, concepts, and important information without going back through everything.

I also tried to focus on understanding why reactions happen rather than simply memorizing a massive list of reactions. Once I understood the underlying concepts, I found it much easier to recognize what a question was testing.

I spent a lot of time doing practice problems and reviewing mistakes. I think that was one of the biggest reasons I felt comfortable with OC by the time I took the exam.

The 600 in Organic Chemistry was definitely a highlight of my DAT.

PAT — 510

For PAT, I found that consistency was more important than trying to do everything at once.

I practiced the different question types and tried to identify which subsections were taking me the longest. The more I practiced, the more familiar the question formats became.

I ended up scoring a 510 in PAT.

Reading Comprehension — 410

RC was definitely my weakest section, and I ended up with a 410.

If I could go back and change something about my preparation, I would probably spend more time practicing RC consistently from the beginning. Managing the amount of information in the passages while keeping up with the time was the biggest challenge for me.

My advice would be not to completely neglect RC just because you feel stronger in the science sections.

Quantitative Reasoning — 510

For QR, I focused on getting familiar with the different types of problems and becoming faster at solving them.

Practice was really important because I wanted to be able to recognize the type of problem I was looking at instead of having to figure out a strategy from scratch every time.

I also learned that you shouldn't spend too much time stuck on one problem. Being comfortable skipping a difficult question and coming back to it later helped me manage my time better.

I finished with a 510 in QR.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I'm really happy that I chose DAT Booster for my preparation. The combination of the practice questions and condensed review resources worked really well for the way I studied.

If I had to pick a few things that were particularly useful to me, I'd say Bio Bits, the Biology cheat sheet, and the Organic Chemistry cheat sheet were some of my favorites. Bio Bits gave me another way to actively test my Biology knowledge, while the cheat sheets were especially useful when I wanted to quickly review a large amount of material without going back through all of my notes.

My biggest piece of advice is to review your mistakes. It's easy to take a practice test, see your score, and move on, but I felt like I learned the most when I took the time to understand why I got a question wrong.

Don't get discouraged by your early practice scores either. Use them to figure out where you're weak and adjust your studying accordingly.

I ended up with a 510 AA / 550 TS, including a 530 Biology and 600 Organic Chemistry, and I'm really happy with how everything turned out. Good luck to everyone studying for the DAT!