Hi everyone! I wanted to write a breakdown of my DAT experience. 

Background:

I have 4.0 sGPA and a 4.0 GPA and a strong science background. I have taken a lot of chemistry and biology-heavy coursework, so I definitely did not go into DAT studying from scratch. I want to be honest about that because my actual dedicated DAT studying was very short, around a grueling 30 days.

For the sciences especially, I relied heavily on repetition and active recall. I would watch the videos, summarize the material out loud to myself, go back through the notes to fill in gaps, and then use question banks to test whether I actually knew it. Since Bio is so broad, I tried to expose myself to the material as many times as possible in a short window. By the end, I had essentially brute-forced the science content through repeated review, practice questions, and constant reinforcement. I will say if you are cramming like this, short naps throughout the day are essential. They honestly work like magic for retention.

Materials Used:

1. DATBooster Videos

DATBooster was my main resource and the one I relied on the most. I felt like the sciences were very representative, and the practice questions helped me quickly figure out what I actually knew versus what I only thought I knew. The biology resources were especially helpful because Bio can feel endless, and Booster helped me narrow my focus toward what was actually testable.
For general chemistry and organic chemistry, Booster was also very useful. I already had a strong chemistry background, so I mainly used the questions and explanations to sharpen timing, catch careless mistakes, and make sure I was comfortable with DAT-style wording.

2. Feralis Biology Notes / Biology Review (in DATBooster)

 

For biology, I used Feralis-style notes and videos heavily. Since my timeline was compressed, I did not have time to slowly memorize everything over several months. Instead, I focused on repeated exposure, high-yield concepts, and making sure I understood the major systems, processes, and vocabulary.

I think Bio rewards both breadth and pattern recognition. You do not need to know every microscopic detail, but you do need to be familiar with a lot of topics so that nothing feels completely foreign on test day.

3. Qbanks Practice Questions and Practice Exams / Wrong Answer Review (All in DATBooster)

 

This was probably the most important part of my studying. Since I only had about a month, I could not afford to passively reread notes for hours and assume I was improving. Practice questions showed me immediately where I was weak. The DATBooster Qbanks really helped me reinforce concepts right after learning them, and the logic from the explanations was very helpful.
Whenever I got something wrong, I tried to understand the reason. Was it a content gap? Misreading? A careless math mistake? Not knowing a formula? Confusing two similar concepts? That helped me decide whether I needed to relearn the topic or just be more careful.

Study Timeline:

My timeline was very compressed. I studied for about 30 days total, with the most intense period being around 25 days. I want to emphasize that this was not a relaxed schedule, and I would not recommend waiting this long unless you already have a strong science foundation.

Because my time was limited, I prioritized the sciences. Looking back, this helped my TS and AA a lot, but it also meant I did not give PAT and RC as much attention as I should have. That is probably the biggest thing I would change.

My general approach was:

1. Review high-yield content quickly from videos and notes.
2. Summarize what I have learned by speaking it loud to myself.
3. Doing questions banks.
4. Review mistakes carefully.
5. Repeat weak areas.
6. Take practice tests to build stamina and timing.
   I did not try to make everything perfect before moving on. With only about 30 days, I had to accept that some topics would be weaker and focus on improving the areas that would give me the biggest return.

Day of Exam / Section Breakdown:

Biology:

Bio felt manageable overall. The section is broad, so I think the best preparation is repeated exposure to high-yield material and lots of practice questions. My advice is not to get stuck trying to know every tiny detail. Make sure you understand the major concepts and can recognize them in different wording. I cannot understate how effective Feralis’s notes and videos were.

Prep: For prep, I started with the units I was most comfortable with and usually watched the videos on 1.5x speed. After watching the videos, I would summarize what I learned and then rewatch the videos on 2x speed. After completing a full unit, I would go to the Feralis notes and fill in any missing gaps or reinforce what I had already learned. Toward the end, I would complete that unit’s question banks. I did this process for all 6 biology units. My approximate study time for biology was around 72–81 hours.

General Chemistry:

GC felt very comfortable for me. I have a strong chemistry background, so this section was one of my strengths. My biggest advice is to focus on conceptual understanding, not just calculations. 
A lot of DAT general chemistry is knowing what should happen and why. For calculations, my recommendation is to practice until you begin to understand what each part of the formula represents, rather than just memorizing equations.

Prep: I used a similar process to biology, except I broke the 13 chapters into 3 chunks. After reviewing the videos and notes, I would do the Qbanks. I spent a total of 30 hours of prep.

Organic Chemistry:

OC was also manageable, but I would recommend knowing acid/base trends, stability, spectroscopy basics, lab techniques, and the major reaction patterns. Do not just memorize reactions blindly. Understanding why a reaction happens makes it much easier to answer unfamiliar questions.

The way I like to think about reactions is that each one is a mini story with a climax. If you understand the movement of electrons and the stability behind the intermediates, the exceptions become much easier to understand.

Prep: For prep, I used a similar process to GC, except I also reviewed the reaction bits after doing the Qbanks. I spent a total of 30 hours here too.

PAT:

PAT was my weakest area and the section I neglected the most. I honestly did not practice it enough due to the time constraints. My advice is simple: do not ignore PAT just because it feels annoying or less content-based. It is a skill section, and it improves with consistent practice over time. I would recommend practicing around 1 hour every day until your exam because it has a gradual learning curve.

Prep: For prep, I spent a total of around 18 hours, with most of my energy going into keyholes, angle ranking, hole punching, and cube counting. Since I had limited time, I prioritized those sections to squeeze out a 420. If you have ample time to prepare, also really practice TFE and pattern folding and spend the bulk of ur PAT hours on them after getting the other 4 sections down. Try to understand why you got problems wrong.

Reading Comprehension:

RC was another section I should have respected more. I focused so heavily on the sciences that I did not train RC enough. My advice is to practice timing and find a strategy that works for you before test day.

I would have benefited a lot from a higher reading speed. I think reading 30–45 minutes per day leading up to the exam would have helped a lot, but do not just read passively for pleasure. Practice retaining what you are reading. If you do not have much time to improve your reading speed, practice forming a passage map so you can use a more effective search-and-destroy method. Highlight important names, terms, dates, lists, and transitions as you read.

Prep: I did roughly 3 passages daily and review the types of questions I missed. I was honestly too scared to do a full-length reading comprehension test, so I mostly used the RC Qbank passages. I completed around 21 passages total and spent roughly 10–12 hours prepping for RC.

Quantitative Reasoning:

QR was mostly algebra, probability, rates, and word problems. My advice is to drill common question types and be very careful with wording.

A lot of QR mistakes come from rushing or setting up the problem incorrectly rather than not knowing the math. Reread the problems a couple of times and try to solve them without looking at the answer choices if possible unless the question is data sufficiency or value comparison. 

Prep: For prep, I completed the DATBooster QR Qbank and felt that it prepared me adequately.

Practice Exams:

I took all 10 practice exams for Bio, QR, GC, and OC. During the last 10 days of my prep, I would take one practice exam for each of these subjects, for a total of 4 subject exams per day. Afterward, I reviewed the questions I missed.

For RC and PAT, I only took 1 practice exam each due to prioritizing the other subjects. I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT NEGLECT THESE SECTIONS.

Time wise I spent a total of around 35-40 hours on all the practice exams I did put together. This includes the time it takes for the exam and the review process.

Biggest Takeaways:

The biggest thing I learned is that a strong science foundation can carry you very far on the DAT, but it does not replace targeted practice. My previous coursework in college helped me a lot, especially for the science sections, but the DAT is still its own exam with its own timing, wording, and strategy.

I also learned that you should not neglect your weaker sections. For me, that was PAT and RC. I put most of my energy into the sciences, and while that worked out well for my TS and AA, I definitely could have had a more balanced score if I had practiced those sections earlier.

I spent over half my time answering and reviewing questions, and I feel like that is the best way to learn. You need those constant shots of dopamine from answering questions to reinforce the concepts. 

Advice:

If you have several months, use them. Studying for the DAT in around 30 days is extremely stressful and risky, especially if you are learning a lot of the science material for the first time. 

However, if you are on a short timeline, be honest with yourself, prioritize high-yield material, do a lot of practice questions, and review your mistakes carefully. Passive studying is not enough when time is limited.

Also, if you are pulling very long study days, make sure to take breaks and protect your sleep. Short naps helped me a lot during my prep. I would take around 3-4 x 30 minute naps per day with then being spaced roughly 3 hours apart. Sleep works like magic when it comes to learning and retention.

Overall, I am very grateful for how things turned out. The DAT is stressful, but your hard work does show. Focus on understanding, stay consistent, and do not let one weak section make you feel like your whole score is ruined.

I’ve been stuck around the 440–480 range on most of my booster practice tests and finally got a 510 AA on Test 10 😭 feels so good to finally see some improvement lol. I’m testing in about 3 weeks and not really sure what I should be focusing on from here. Also for anyone who took the DAT recently, how close were your booster scores to the real thing? Any advice would be appreciated

Hi guys! I recently finished my dental applications. I took my DAT back on July 22 and my scores came in August 3. I knew I wanted to make a breakdown because I read so many of these while I was studying and they genuinely helped me. I used DAT Booster and wanted to share what I thought about Booster vs. the real exam, how I studied, and the things I wish I knew beforehand.

How I studied:

I graduated college around the middle of May and started studying pretty much right after. Since I took my DAT July 22, I studied for around 2 months total.

I will say the first couple weeks I was not locked in. I had no real schedule, I was mostly studying at night, and I almost never finished my Booster to-do list for the day. I eventually realized I wasn't retaining information or improving like I wanted to, so I completely changed my routine.

I started waking up around 8 every morning, ate the same breakfast (eggs and chai), and studied downstairs instead of sitting in my bedroom. That honestly made a huge difference. From then on, I followed the Booster schedule pretty closely and usually studied for 5-6 hours every day, taking a lunch break in between. I didn't really take designated rest days, but there were definitely days where I was exhausted and didn't finish everything. If that happened, I just finished it the next day.

My biggest advice here is get into a routine. Wake up, go to a designated study spot (I sometimes switched this up if I was struggling to focus with my loud dogs, so sometimes I went to the library), and start at around the same time every day. At least for me, studying whenever I felt like it was not working.

Another thing is that towards the end I tried to go through a few cheat sheets every day and refresh myself. The cheat sheets are very good and helpful and I wish I had reviewed them even more.

The week before my DAT I actually relaxed a little more because I didn't want to completely burn myself out right before the exam.

I took 12 full-length practice tests, redid a couple of them, and did all of the Booster mini tests. Full lengths are so draining, but do as many as possible!!! A huge part of the DAT is just building the stamina to sit there staring at a screen and think for that long.

Biology: (470)

I was a biology major, so I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well in bio. This was probably the subject I studied the most because there is just so much information. I thought the real biology section was a bit easier than Booster. A little more straightforward. I was also really worried about anatomy because I had never taken an anatomy class before. It ended up being completely fine. I only remember getting a few anatomy questions and I knew them.

General Chemistry: (450)

This was the opposite of bio for me. I thought my real GC section was harder than Booster. I honestly walked out having no idea how I did on it. There were many questions where I didn't feel confident in what I was doing. I wish I had more specific advice here, but my brain deleted half the exam the second I walked out. The questions were not familiar to me so I would say they weren't very similar to booster.

Organic Chemistry: (410)

Okay obviously a 410 is not an amazing score, but I am proud of my wimpy 410.

Organic chemistry was consistently my worst subject on my practice tests. I struggled with it throughout college too, so I knew going into studying that it was going to be my weakest section. Because I was so bad at it in college, I was so scared of it I hardly put any time in studying for it (which is clearly the opposite of what you should do). I had my mind made up that I was bad at orgo and just kinda.... didn't study for it. I did not watch the videos on booster for these and instead used the organic chemistry tutors 11 hour orgo video. But that is really all I did to prepare.

I did also take the Booster Orgo crash courses legit a few days before my exam. I found it kinda helpful, but I found them too boring. Maybe that's a me problem. I just don't learn very well sitting through something like that. Or maybe I just hate organic chemistry.

That being said, I actually didn't think the questions on the real DAT were insanely complicated. I don't remember having any multi step questions on mine and I thought they made it doable. Orgo is just not my subject, and I definitely could (and should) have prepared for it more.

PAT: (480)

Please practice with the lag!!!!!!! This is probably the #1 thing I wish I could go back and tell myself.

PAT was BY FAR my favorite section while studying. I love puzzles and genuinely enjoyed practicing it. I would get excited for my PAT time every day. Then, I got to the real DAT and the lag absolutely destroyed my timing.

I was stupid and never practiced Booster with the lag turned on. Do not do what I did.

At my testing center, the lag between questions was super slow. I literally started counting in my head while the screens changed because I couldn't believe it, and yes, the timer was going down while it loaded. You cannot rely on being able to skip a bunch of questions and come back later. Every time you move between questions, you are wasting more time. Practice with the lag from the beginning so your timing accounts for it.

I also thought my real PAT was harder than Booster, especially keyholes and pattern folding. Angle ranking immediately threw me off too. I usually use the answer choices to eliminate angles, and my first 5 questions didn't give me the nice 2-and-2 answer patterns I was used to seeing.

I ended up running out of time and freaking out toward the end. Considering that, I'm really happy with my 480, but I genuinely think I could have done better if I had practiced under the actual lag conditions.

Reading Comprehension: (470)

I thought RC was noticeably easier than Booster, which is why this is probably the score I was most disappointed by.

On Booster, the questions were more complex/application-based and were not in order. On my real DAT, the questions were in order and were much more straightforward.

I finished really early. Like early enough that I went back through my answers multiple times. I walked out genuinely thinking I had just gotten a 100%, so I was surprised by the 470. I wish I could see what questions I got wrong because I would love to know what I missed. Still a decent score, just not what I expected based on how confident I felt.

Quantitative Reasoning: (430)

QR was weird because I prepared for so many question types that just... never appeared.

I was ready for rate problems, age problems, distance problems, etc. because I felt like I saw them every day while studying. I did not get a single one of any of those. I am still bothered by this clearly lol.

There were probably around 30/40 questions where I felt like I knew what I was doing and then around 10 where I was unsure how to do them.

I also got questions involving graph transformations/directions that I wasn't really expecting to see much of. So my advice for QR would be don't assume something won't show up just because it barely appeared on your practice exams.

Final takeawayyysss

If I could go back and tell myself a few things before studying/taking the DAT:

• Follow a routine
• Use the cheat sheets
• Turn on the lag (seriously go do it now)
• Take as many full lengths as possible
• Relax the days before your exam
• I found the prometric test drive helpful for anxiety so I recommend you do that. I did it 2 days before my exam and I wouldn't have wanted to do it any earlier. All the staff remembered me so it was nice.

Overall, I am happy with my scores. Obviously there are sections where I wish I scored higher, but I'm proud of myself and very happy to never study organic chemistry again lol.

I hope this helps somebody!! I read so many DAT breakdowns while I was studying, so I wanted to give back now that I'm finally on the other side. If anyone has questions about Booster, my study schedule, practice tests, or the actual testing experience, feel free to ask :)

pls tell me yall relate lol

Going into my senior year and am planning on taking the DAT in 10 days (literally driving up to school right after the exam since my first day of class is in 11 days). I've been studying for 3 months and these are my scores. I really want to get a 460 since I have a gpa=3.2 and sgpa=3.0. I plan on taking the remaining practice tests every other day until my exam with the days in between as review and have been making error logs like chat and other people have told me. I just took practice test 5 today and am feeling so cooked.

i want to be realistic with myself but also believe that if i grind i can get the score i want. is that me being delusional or just ambitious, i can't even tell at this point.

please help, i only want to take it once and know once school starts i wont be able to actually lock in and study. what should i do?? push back? just take it? grind lock in? any tips or reassurance would be greatlyyyy appreciated. also on the schedule i'm on rn, i would only be able to take 8/10 full practice tests :/

I only used booster/crusher for my prep and am pretty happy with how it turned out. I've posted the scores before, some people asked for a detailed breakdown so here it is. 

Timeline:
Technically I had 3 months for it, but the first 2 were very unproductive, like 2-3 hrs of work max, some videos, some Qbanks, almost no Anki. It was the last 4 weeks when this score was built, I ramped up to 8-12 daily hours, it was miserable, but it paid off.

Reading Comprehension (27): I started in the 16-18 range here and didn't really have hopes of making it beyond 22. I did half the Qbanks and all of the practice tests. Started with standard approach, noticed that it worked fine unless the passage was too long, played around with some other approaches to build my own hybrid approach that got me to 24 once I nailed it down after a few revisions. The key to building my own approach was studying each mistake and finding out what caused it, was it lack of time? lack of comprehension? lack of being actively engaged? Here's the final revision of my method which got a 28 on the last practice test, and 27 on the real thing: Read actively for first 4 minutes, highlight what i feel needs highlighting, this intuition gets better with experience, by the end of my prep, I was highlighting exact phrases that were asked about, I could see the questions coming. If I'm close to half done after 4 minutes, keep standard approach and finish. If not, switch to reading the first and last sentence of each of the following paragraphs, highlighting enough so that your highlight can tell you what the paragraph is about. Try to read the last 3 paragraphs fully, last 1 if really crunched for time. 11 minutes is the hard limit to move on to questions, try to be done in 8. Move to questions, answer what I know, and what I didn’t know I usually knew where to find because of the skimming.

RC Advice: Following exactly this may not work for you, what's more likely to work is following the underlying principles to build your own strategy. 1) mistake analysis, figure out the nature of your mistakes and what needs to change for that mistake to not happen again. 2) Flexibility, passages range from 5-25 paragraphs, you can't have a rigid approach, that will either be too time consuming if you get a long one, or you'll leave marks on the table if you get a short one, build flexibility into your approach so you can adapt on the spot.

Biology (25): I mainly used Anki here, the deck booster provides. I would either dive straight into the deck if I was fresh on the material from my classes or quickly skim the videos or notes before starting the deck. Anki makes me miserable, it hurts how hard it is, because it constantly tests the material you are weakest in, but that's also why it's the highest return on time invested. It's the only way I know how to study bio anymore, having used it since high school, so I was pretty grateful for the booster deck. When I moved onto practice tests, I got consistent 24s, and again, used rigorous mistake analysis, I never made the same mistake twice. I had a journal that broke down the thinking and concept behind each mistake. I reviewed this journal every day.

Bio Advice: Try Anki, I know some people just can't bear it. Try to understand that misery is part of the learning. If you really can't bear it, try to apply the underlying principles of the Anki algorithm in your own studies. 1) spaced repetition, Anki shows a card just as it predicts you're about to forget that information, this re encodes it in your memory for much longer. 2) Active learning, you have to take a guess at what the answer may be before you get to see it, this helps encode memory, try to minimize passive learning like watching videos or reading notes, try bio bits or brain dumps instead. And of course, mistake analysis.

Chemistry (30): Similar approach to bio, no Anki tho, I don't think its necessary for chem. Just skimmed videos and moved to Qbank then practice tests and the mistake journal, made many mistakes but never repeated a mistake type. 

Chem Advice: memorize formulas, work on your mental math, analyze the cause of your mistakes and don't repeat them.

PAT (21): I'm pretty bad at this, I had accepted the fact and was banking on the other sections to pull me up. High scorers will tell you to practice consistently and everyday for months, and thats exactly what I didn't do. I would do ~15 questions 3-4x a week and figured I'd just dial this in if I had to retake, so I guess I kinda got away with it.

PAT Advice: don't be like me lol

Final Advice: Be forgiving to yourself, and trust in your abilities. I didn't finish any Qbank, didn't keep up with Anki reviews, missed many days in the first 2 months and beat myself up a lot over it, when clearly I did not need to (maybe except PAT lol). Analyze the cause of your mistakes, towards the end of my prep, I felt happier to get a question wrong rather than right, because I had shifted my mindset to think of mistakes as data that allowed me to further improve rather than a failure or a sign of lack of intelligence.

Bootcamp says its an estimated 420-440. Ochem is genuinely stupid because I look over my answers and it's something so minor that I get wrong (+ second guess myself). For PAT, I keep running out of time on pattern folding.

QR 590 · RC 590 · Bio 470 · GC 560 · OC 600 · Survey of Natural Sciences 540 · PAT 430 · AA 560

I'm posting because my breakdown came out backwards from everything I was told to expect, and I think the shape of it is more useful than the average is.

Organic Chemistry was my highest section. PAT was my lowest, by 170 points.

Every guide and every thread said the same two things: Orgo is the section that wrecks people, and PAT is the one you can grind down because it's pattern recognition rather than knowledge. I believed both. I walked out of Orgo thinking I'd gotten an easy form, and out of PAT genuinely unsure I'd taken the test everyone else studied for.

Here's what I think the gap actually says.

Orgo rewards depth in a small system. There's a finite set of mechanisms, they compose predictably, and once you can reason from where the electrons go you can answer questions about reactions you never specifically memorized. It's a narrow, deep subject wearing an intimidating costume — and that's exactly the kind of subject that rewards understanding over volume.

Which I think is why my Bio came out 130 points lower. Biology is the opposite shape: enormous surface area, shallow depth, and almost no way to reason toward an answer you don't already know. My Orgo and my Bio came out of the same plan and the same hours. The spread between them is the clearest evidence I have that how you study has to match the shape of the subject — and I studied Bio like it was Orgo. It isn't.

PAT is where I'd tell you not to copy me. I don't think my approach was wrong in kind so much as too late and not timed. The section isn't testing whether you can solve a keyhole. It's testing whether you can solve one in forty seconds, on question 70, when you're tired. Everything I'd change is about starting earlier and training under the clock from day one rather than easing into it.

Reading Comp and QR were both 590 and got the least attention from me. I'd rather say that than let the average imply otherwise — a real chunk of my AA came from two sections I was already comfortable with. If those come naturally to you, your average will flatter you. If they don't, budget for them properly, because I got lucky there in a way that isn't really advice.

If any of this is useful, I'm glad to go deeper on any section — what I actually did for Orgo, where I think Bio went wrong, or my full timeline. Ask in the comments or reach out directly, whichever's easier. And if you scored well on PAT, I'd genuinely like to hear what you did differently, because it's the one section I still don't feel like I understand.

I thought you can’t do friedel rxns if OH or NH2 group is present