How does the DAT compare to MCAT?

[metukah]

Has anyone written both the DAT and MCAT? How do they compare in difficulty, time to prepare, etc?

 

I have written the MCAT.

Thanks

[mrsweasley]

I've written both, and got similar scores on both. There's no orgo or physics on the Canadian DAT. The DAT has carving and perception which some ppl find difficult to wrap their head around. So be sure to prepare for those sections. There's a lot of threads that go through this same topic so do a search... but most people will say they are kinda hard to compare. I'd say the MCAT science content is harder than the DAT because they are passaged based and the DAT's isn't. But remember both are scaled tests so it depends on how well you relative to everyone else... so if you think it's easy so will a lot of other people.

 

PS. It also helps that most school's dont look at the 2 science sections separately... so doing poorly on chem can be brought up with a good bio score unlike on the MCAT where each section counts.

[stresso]

I've written both, and I thought the MCAT was harder hands down. Personally, I found it more stressful and more reading is required for the MCAT. There are no passages for the science section of the DAT, and the reading comprehension section of the DAT is a lot easier to understand. No philosophy/social science/humanities etc passages on the DAT. The passages I've gotten in the past were pretty straightforward like stuff on ANS, xray, even the piano. The perception and carving portion of the DAT requires practice practice practice and it can get difficult for a lot of people since you can either do it or you can't. There's really no way to study it. Also, the canadian DAT is written on paper.