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Nov 2 DAT thoughts


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Since no one started...

 

MDT:  as well. It was one of the patterns from crusher with dimensions being 17mm rather than 15mm, but nothing new. 

Biology : 10 embryology q, weird questions like what type of gene defect cause immobile sperm, apart from that piece of cake. Also, there was ZERO plant questions, which was saddening. I prepared for that.

Chemistry: questions were too wordy to qualify as chem. Nothing hard here except few curveballs. I felt crusher’s tests were very useful here. Chad covers it very well. You only need 1-2 weeks to really get this all down imo.

PAT: timing is key, missed 3 KH q because took too long to transfer to scantron and ensure I didn’t mis-mark em. Apart from that every single Question was easy and reasonable. (Ironically, couldn’t finish in time)

RC: Search and destroy does not work as well as it did for Crusher. I shoulda just read the thing instead of skipping to questions so often. I feel I coulda done a lot better if I actually read the passage rather than scanning all the time to cherry pick the answers. 

 

 

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Ok so this is my second time writing the DAT (first time on Nov 2018)

- I found the PAT to be really fair (kinda leaning to the easier side). No stones for Key Holes!

- Bio was also fair, and yeah no plants lol.

- Chem was not bad, but tooooo many calculations compared to Crusher, where it had a balance between calculations and theory. I guessed the last 3 questions cuz I ran out of time.

- RC was also fair tbh, very similar to what you see on crusher/bootcamp, even though I don't think I did very well on it. (English is not my first language so don't trust me too much here).

- And I didn't do MDT.

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Majority of the people at my test centre  thought that bio was kinda tricky, chem=easy, PAT= easy and fairly representative of crusher, and  RC= was kinda hard because S&D didn't work.

Heres my take: 

RC:  I think RC wasnt too bad ( thats coming from someone whos weakest section was RC, lol). My strategy was using the balanced approach: where I read like the first 2 parags thoroughly, skim thru first few questions, circle the key words from the questions, go back and read + look for answers but QUICKLY skimming thru now.  I found a lot of answers very earlier on and the leftover ones - I used S&D for that. The questions asking for tone of author were also easy to answer this way. As for the 3 passages - I read the titles first and started with the one i felt most comfortable with, aka -shortest ones lol -( for me it was 3rd , then 2nd and 1st Passage at the end). This way, I answered confidently for the first two passages and didnt feel too bad, if i had to guess a few from the last passage.

NS: As a Bio major, I felt more confident going in for bio than chemistry. However,  some bio questions defn required more detailed studying.  Q's like this experiment was used to explain _____ concept/theory. As mentioned above, defn more embryo/developmental questions, no plants- none on products/location of glycolysis etc. ALSO, know your lab techniques.  Lastly, b/c I ended up spending longer on bio, i had to guess the long calc ones from chem :(. Overall, my weakest section was defn Science. 

PAT: The key is to practice a lot and get faster. I left TFE for last, and had to guess last 4-5. But considering someone who hasnt practiced much ( only 12 PAT practice sets to learn and get fast), I still think it wasnt too bad and defn easier than the ones I practiced with. 

This was my first ever DAT exam- just wanted to come out and share my experience because before giving my DAT- I spent a lot of time reading threads/watching youtube videos to learn from people, use their advice for DAT.  I just wanted to do the same for others. Hope it helps. 

Cheers,

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Here is what I thought (I did not do MDT):

SNS: I thought Bio was pretty straightforward (I am doing a Bio minor FYI) . Although I totally didn't review lab techniques which I should have so that tripped me up. Chem was fine for me too although I found it took me a longer time because there were more calculation questions. That unfortunately had me rushing the other chem questions. 

PAT: PAT has always been my weakest section because of the timing. I found CC and AR pretty easy the other sections for me were meh but I found near the end I just had to make random guesses because I was running out of time. 

RC: I thought this was my best section. I generally scored the highest on this section when it came to my practice tests. I thought the passages weren't too difficult to read. I'm a pretty fast reader so my approach was I quickly scanned the questions then as I read the passage I underlined key words that related to it. I found a lot of the questions were easy to S&D and since I underlined key points it made it even easier. Although I will say I only finished the section in the last 5 minutes of the exam, as some of the questions weren't as easy to S&D. 

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I thought it went really well.

Biology: I spent a bit too much time on biology than I should have. Luckily some questions were identical to the ones from DATcrusher like the germ layer and genetic questions. Overall I'm pretty confident I did well on this section.

Chemistry: Really heavy with calculation questions which pressed me for time. I barely managed to finish with seconds to spare but overall not bad.

PAT: Was super straight forward. I think I flew through these and finished with 5 minutes to spare. I practiced using PATBooster from Crusher and those questions were slightly tougher so it made the real exam feel like a breeze.

RC: This was usually my weakest section so fingers crossed. I used search & destroy for the most part  but some questions were hard to search & destroy. At the end I ended up having to guess 2 questions.

 

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On 11/2/2019 at 6:29 PM, PororoY said:

Mind me asking those of you who thought the bio section was easy, what did u use to study?

I thought it was easy. For context, I just graduated so it was a little easier since I took many biology courses and already had a strong foundation. To review though, I made my own notes using Campbell's powerpoint slides, DAT Princeton review, and Kaplan. I also would watch YouTube videos and added to my notes. After this (which took about a month), I only did practice tests off of crusher, bootcamp, DATReady, IQ publications. I would record my scores and usually got between 36-37/40 in 12-15 minutes. On the actual DAT, I finished biology in 12 minutes and then did chemistry..then I had about 20 minutes left over to go back to biology to double check every answer. I'm not going to lie, sometimes it comes down to luck in the biology section. This November, we got about 10 developmental biology questions, which I got 100% in at my university and tutored it in following terms so those were piece of cake for me. I am not so good at plants and actually was worried about it but we just had the definition of xylem function.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, at least TWO out of the developmental biology questions were questions that I have never seen on any prep book or website before. Someone above mentioned a mutation of the acrosomal vesicle, this is a fair question. But fast block to polyspermy in SEA URCHINS? I've only ever seen that in the course I took so I had to use knowledge from that course NOT the prep books/other resources. 

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MDT: Soap was quite a bit different to the blue ones that I ordered several months before the DAT but I kind of expected that. The soap felt almost "tacky" and sticky. Overall the carving was fine despite some slight measurement errors on the "complex" end. Make sure you review the 5 different carvings the CDA posts online.  Guess score: 16-17.

SNS: I felt Chem was going to be my strongest section, and I'd like to think it was, overall very straightforward. Using Chad's Videos made this section a cake walk. Bio was a bit trickier but again, nothing that was unfair with the questions. Overall I feel like I did the worst on Bio (neglecting the soap) as I don't have a strong background in it coming from engineering and only having spent ~6 months with the material. Guess score: CHEM: 20+/BIO: 18-19.

PAT: In comparison to DATCrusher I feel like the real DAT was a complete step down in terms of difficulty for the keyholes and TFE. Despite the questions being fairly easy I still managed to have to make educated guesses on two questions as I was running out of time. Guess score: 20.

RC: By far the hardest section, though not totally a wash. I think this section becomes a challenge for people as it's the last part of the exam and people are burnt out. Thankfully I tend to read fairly quickly and I was able to go over all three articles and their questions again to find several mistakes I made with my first pass through. Some people have been saying that search and destroy methods didn't work here, and I would tend to agree in that there was a limited amount of keywords that could be picked out from the passages. Searching for the context of words tended to work best. Guess score: 19-20.

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9 hours ago, Genetics123 said:

MDT: Soap was quite a bit different to the blue ones that I ordered several months before the DAT but I kind of expected that. The soap felt almost "tacky" and sticky. Overall the carving was fine despite some slight measurement errors on the "complex" end. Make sure you review the 5 different carvings the CDA posts online.  Guess score: 16-17.

SNS: I felt Chem was going to be my strongest section, and I'd like to think it was, overall very straightforward. Using Chad's Videos made this section a cake walk. Bio was a bit trickier but again, nothing that was unfair with the questions. Overall I feel like I did the worst on Bio (neglecting the soap) as I don't have a strong background in it coming from engineering and only having spent ~6 months with the material. Guess score: CHEM: 20+/BIO: 18-19.

PAT: In comparison to DATCrusher I feel like the real DAT was a complete step down in terms of difficulty for the keyholes and TFE. Despite the questions being fairly easy I still managed to have to make educated guesses on two questions as I was running out of time. Guess score: 20.

RC: By far the hardest section, though not totally a wash. I think this section becomes a challenge for people as it's the last part of the exam and people are burnt out. Thankfully I tend to read fairly quickly and I was able to go over all three articles and their questions again to find several mistakes I made with my first pass through. Some people have been saying that search and destroy methods didn't work here, and I would tend to agree in that there was a limited amount of keywords that could be picked out from the passages. Searching for the context of words tended to work best. Guess score: 19-20.

I agree with you on RC. It was the hardest section for Nov 2019 DAT. I think the CDA was trying to force us to read entire passage before answering questions. I usually do 1/2 read then answer as many questions but I found this did not work and it caused me to stress out a little bit as time was flying by during this test so the next two passages I just read and answered all the questions right away (then would flip back if I was unsure on a couple). Hard to predict the score for this section. Oh well it is what it is. RC has stopped me from getting into dentistry before..

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21 hours ago, Genetics123 said:

MDT: Soap was quite a bit different to the blue ones that I ordered several months before the DAT but I kind of expected that. The soap felt almost "tacky" and sticky. Overall the carving was fine despite some slight measurement errors on the "complex" end. Make sure you review the 5 different carvings the CDA posts online.  Guess score: 16-17.

SNS: I felt Chem was going to be my strongest section, and I'd like to think it was, overall very straightforward. Using Chad's Videos made this section a cake walk. Bio was a bit trickier but again, nothing that was unfair with the questions. Overall I feel like I did the worst on Bio (neglecting the soap) as I don't have a strong background in it coming from engineering and only having spent ~6 months with the material. Guess score: CHEM: 20+/BIO: 18-19.

PAT: In comparison to DATCrusher I feel like the real DAT was a complete step down in terms of difficulty for the keyholes and TFE. Despite the questions being fairly easy I still managed to have to make educated guesses on two questions as I was running out of time. Guess score: 20.

RC: By far the hardest section, though not totally a wash. I think this section becomes a challenge for people as it's the last part of the exam and people are burnt out. Thankfully I tend to read fairly quickly and I was able to go over all three articles and their questions again to find several mistakes I made with my first pass through. Some people have been saying that search and destroy methods didn't work here, and I would tend to agree in that there was a limited amount of keywords that could be picked out from the passages. Searching for the context of words tended to work best. Guess score: 19-20.

Considering how self aware you are, your score estimates are very conservative. Tbh, I thought I did well for bio and chem but now I think about it, I think I made some errors for sure.., and each error costs like 2 points or more on scaled score. (28 > 26 etc)....

I'm still not sure whether given constant temperature, delta G or Ksp changes. I said delta G since Ksp is only affected by temperature...

also that bio q about flagella and atp? Idont even remember what the answer I wrote was.

RC was a nightmare. I really hope my guesses are lucky. Didn’t even finish and had to guess like 5 questions.

Strangely, Though I guessed four KH PAT q’s I have this baseless confidence I wrecked the section. On crusher when I ran out of time, I usually got everything I solved correct (give or take 1 q) and crusher calculates 85~86/90 to 27. Given 15 questions are not scored, it’s really down to luck which questions are not counted. Theoretically.. if they don’t count all ur errors, u could end up with 30...?

MDT - thinking back, my carving lacked smoothness and symmetry, the saddles didn’t have perfect 90 degrees and the triangle notch edges weren’t razor sharp... there are so many ways I could lose marks here that my confidence kinda drained. 
 

I think it’s criminal that it takes 8 weeks to grade these. It’s a torture beyond measure... nightmare after nightmare.. of all possibilities both real and imagined... I would rather face the consequences now rather than later.

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My score estimates are super conservative because I don't want to disappoint myself when the real scores come out (lol), I'm just trying to keep my expectations low and my hopes high. They're also low because of how the exam is graded, and from what I've gathered from people's posts online it doesn't seem like anyone found the exam extremely challenging except for the RC.Though the people who are posting on these forums and otherwise are probably some of the outliers, both good and bad.

I think it's worth noting that the grade you receive is not a raw score per se but instead a score relative to how well everyone else does, or doesn't. Even if you were to theoretically end up getting zero questions wrong on any of the sections it doesn't guarantee that you'll receive a 30. 

I don't remember the Ksp question you're talking about tbh haha. Was the bio question with the acrosomal reaction? 

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13 hours ago, Genetics123 said:

My score estimates are super conservative because I don't want to disappoint myself when the real scores come out (lol), I'm just trying to keep my expectations low and my hopes high. They're also low because of how the exam is graded, and from what I've gathered from people's posts online it doesn't seem like anyone found the exam extremely challenging except for the RC.Though the people who are posting on these forums and otherwise are probably some of the outliers, both good and bad.

I think it's worth noting that the grade you receive is not a raw score per se but instead a score relative to how well everyone else does, or doesn't. Even if you were to theoretically end up getting zero questions wrong on any of the sections it doesn't guarantee that you'll receive a 30. 

I don't remember the Ksp question you're talking about tbh haha. Was the bio question with the acrosomal reaction? 

The Ksp question was something about what changes at constant temp if not at equilibrium. I think many put delta G. But now that I think about it, could've been the E cell potential if you think of how a battery works.

And yeah you are correct. Last year for example, 20 was highest for biology, 21 highest for PAT. So hard to tell about the scores. I am glad that majority found RC hard though gives me relief. 

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I'm really hoping the test scale isn't similar to Nov 2018.

MDT: I think I did alright, definitely not perfect. The one thing I didn't want to do was the notched triangle and of course that ended up being there! Gonna guess a score of 18-19.

SNS: I think it was fair. A few questions I was iffy on but overall I felt pretty confident. Science has always been pretty straightforward to me, so I'm gonna guess 20 for bio and 20+ for chem.

PAT: Definitely my best section. DATCrusher was amazing in prepping me for this; it was much easier than their practice tests imo. Hopefully I'm not feeling too confident aha. Fingers crossed for 20+.

RC: I hate being timed to read. I get nervous and then nothing gets retained. Hopefully I did *decent* enough on this. Last year I guessed on like 5 questions and somehow still got a 20. This year I still guessed on some questions lol, so I'm hoping at least a 19.

Good luck everyone and try not to think too much about it :)

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I just realized I didn't post my take on everything 

MDT: Soap was different material, I think it was fine but not perfect. First time doing this section so can't estimate a score but not a 30. Pattern was simple.

SNS: Biology was a walk in the park for me since I did well in developmental biology at my university and tutored it in subsequent terms. Other questions were straight forward. I think I got 1 wrong for sure but other than that I am most confident about this section. Gonna go with 24-27 depending on scale this year. Chemistry I found to go great as well but definitely 2-3 questions tripped me up. Gonna go with low 20s.

PAT: Thank you Crusher and thank you CDA. A lot easier than last year and easier than Crusher. 20+ for sure. It is all practice so do practice tests everyday leading up to the DAT in October and you should be good to go.

RC: I commented above on this. Got a little stressed out. Last year I didn't do as well as I thought and definitely got PTSD from this section. Gonna go with 18-20 I am no pro at comprehending my first language but do have a photographic memory when it comes to science. I think it will come down to "lucky guesses".

Only about a month until we get our scores back (around Dec 10-11 I believe).

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  • 1 month later...

Awesome scores guys! :)

 

Here is my breakdown:

Reading: 22

Bio: 21

Chem: 20

AA: 21

PAT: 22

MDT: 23

 

It was my first time writting it and I honestly thought I would need to retake it because of Bio and Chem. I'm happy I won't need to retake in Feb :) Although I may retake it next year if I don't get accepted

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Is it worth applying to dental school in Ontario with these stats, specifically UWO 

DAT score AA 20, PAT 19, RC, 21

GPA best 2 years: 82%

ECs: 200+hrs of shadowing, founded non-profit, 2 research positions, 1 future publication, hospital volunteering, case competition winner + internatiol experience

Undergraduate + Masters Degree

I also have spent a really long time writing the supplemental application, which I would say is a solid 8/10.

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