Dat Wisdom

[Dr.Watson]

Hey guys,

 I am just wondering if anyone who has written the Canadian DAT, can recommend the most effective preparatory manual that they've used. I am currently starting out with IQ publications, which provides work books for chem, bio, reading, and PAT. Its from 2000 though, so Im curious as to what is else is out there. What is actually reflective of what we can expect on a modern DAT exam for bio and chem?

Im mostly curious about the structuring of each section. I wrote a practice MCAT today, which I found very surprising in that almost of the questions were focused on a written passage. For example, you would get a passage of 3-5 paragraphs, which was often fairly convoluted, and often included some diagrams, and then several questions of that topic, or questions related directly to the written passage. Is this normal for the DAT as well? I understand that the MCAT has been recently revised, so I'm wondering if thats how the newer version is? The DAT manual I have makes it seem more as though the questions would look like:

1. What are products of this reaction_____ 

2. Balance this reaction_____

3. The part of the human lung primarily involved in gas exchange is the____

4. Bifidobacterium is _____ shape of bacteria 

 

etc. 

 

Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

 

[Prof.A.DumbleDore]

Questions are DAT are more factual based like your examples. MCAT is mostly passage based. The two tests are completely different. 

[Dr.Watson]

Ok, thank you very much! I'm very glad to hear that. 

[Zaandrei.]

I will second what Prof.A. has stated. The MCAT is definitely very heavily passage based while the DAT is 95% knowledge based (absolutely no paragraph reading, just interpretation of a few questions), with the exception of the Reading Comprehension (RC) section. The IQ publications books were very representative of the DAT format and difficult of the questions... in my opinion. I have used the Bio, Chem, RC and PAT Test A books from IQ. I was able to score very high by practicing using: The online DAT Bootcamp software/website, the Kaplan Blue book for general review of the sciences (2008-2009 edition) (but I relied more on my own personal undergrad notes), as well as the Crack the DAT (although it was a lot more difficult than the actual exam). I managed to score unexpectedly high on all sections, especially chemistry and biology (biochem major), but I was more than happy with my RC and PAT score.

Any more questions, just ask!

[DDS_hopeful]

I didn't write the MCAT, but I've heard from several sources that the DAT is much more straightforward. I wrote the DAT in 2013, and was able to get pretty high scores using: Chad's videos for chem, Cliff's AP Bio, Crack DAT PAT, and DAT Destroyer for practice questions (although it is overkill). I didn't practice for the RC section because I used the search and destroy method (read the questions, and then find the answers in the article). This strategy doesn't work well for "tone" questions (for example, "what was the author thinking?"), but worked fairly well overall. The general consensus is that the DAT is a fair exam, and you can do very well if you have a solid science foundation and/or put in enough hours of studying. Good luck!