Hey everyone, I just wanted to share my experience using Bootcamp to study for the DAT since I have just taken the DAT on July 31st.
Some background information: I am a Biology (Foundations for Medical Science) major with a Business Administration minor and will be a junior this fall. I only used Bootcamp to study following Ari’s schedule and could not recommend it more!
I took a lighter class load during my sophomore spring semester, which allowed me to start doing a bit of studying. During this time, I only focused on watching the videos for PAT and QR Academy and doing PAT generators/practice problems. I was super stressed about PAT when I first started so the sooner you start practicing the better! As soon as school ended, I took a few days off and then studied every single day for about 10 weeks (some days I was studying for 10-12 hours). My initial plan was to work weekdays at a dentist from 8-12, study from 1-5, and then work my other job from 5-8:30, but it became too much and I needed more time to study so I only worked three days a week at the dentist. I also took the last week and a half off before my exam at the dentist. Working during this time gave me a nice mental break, and I felt that I would have gotten burnt out if I was not also working. I wish I had time for rest days, but at the beginning of my studying, I mapped out Ari’s 2.5 month plan and realized I did not have enough time (and had one week free before I took the exam). I followed Ari’s 2.5 month plan day-by-day for the first couple of days and then shadowed dentists for a week in June and went from being about 7 days ahead to being a few days behind. From this point on, I still completed everything from Ari’s plan but not necessarily on the correct day. I did eventually get caught up when I started taking full length practice tests!
Bio: 25 (20-30) I have a pretty strong background in biology since I took AP Biology in high school, am a bio major, and have taken basically all the classes that relate to content on the DAT (minus anatomy). For this section, I used Anki mainly. I spent about 2-3 days per chapter. My first day consisted of reading the high yield notes and doing 50 new anki cards for that chapter, my second day consisted of re-reading the high yield notes and doing 50 more anki cards for the chapter. If I had no more new Anki cards for the deck, then I would complete the Bio Bites and Qbanks. If I had more Anki cards, then I would basically repeat day 2 until I had no more new cards. On the actual exam, the bio questions were a lot less specific than BC practice exams and bio bites.
GC: 21 (19-30) For this section, I watched all of Dr. Mike’s videos and went through the Qbanks one time. I did not focus too much on the questions I missed on the Qbanks because I decided that I could better spend my time practicing something else. I’m very glad I decided to do this because I found the practice exam questions to be much more representative of the actual DAT. After getting through all the material, I started Booster’s GC Anki deck, which I found helpful for keeping the material fresh. I also made an Anki deck during my studying for the polyatomic ions.
OC: 21 (16-23) I was really nervous about this section because even though I just got done taking organic chemistry at my school, I despised the class. I watched Dr. Mike’s videos for this section and went through the Qbanks. I also did the Bootcamp OC Reactions Anki deck and the Organic Chemistry Functional Groups Anki deck (I think I got it free from Booster). After taking my first practice exam and getting a 16, I was even more nervous for this section. At this point, I went over the Bootcamp Summary Sheet once a day for a few days and then started doing the OC reaction bites and watching all the videos to learn the mechanisms. My biggest piece of advice for this section is to understand the mechanisms and how reactions relate to each other because it may seem like there are tons of different reactions, but most of them fit under the same umbrella mechanism so you are only learning a single mechanism for a bunch of reagents (the summary sheet and reaction bites do a good job of grouping together similar mechanisms). I found BC practice exams to be similar to the difficulty of the actual DAT for both GC and OC.
PAT: 21 (17-20) I was extremely nervous for this section and thought it was really hard to understand when I first started studying. I watched all the videos in the PAT Academy and did both generators and practice questions. I honestly struggled with every section at some point during my studying, but found constant practice to really help me with this section. For example, at one point, I could not understand Pattern Folding, but then focused on this section by doing the generators and Qbanks and watching the videos no matter if I got the question right or wrong–I realized there is always something to be learned in the answer key! When I took my first practice tests, I started with Keyholes but ran out of time and didn’t finish 30 of the questions so from my second practice test forward, I started with Angle Ranking and then went back to Keyholes and TFE at the end and always finished on time. I found that taking the practice tests were really helpful for getting the timing down and really helped me become better at this section. PAT on the actual DAT, in my opinion, was way easier, especially hole punching, than Bootcamp.
RC: 24 (22-28) I have always been a pretty fast reader so for this section, I watched the RC Academy videos and then jumped into Qbanks. My strategy for this section was the Vanilla method, where I would spend about 8 minutes reading and highlighting important information and then about 12 minutes or less answering the questions. The Qbanks kinda surprised me because I had trouble finishing the passages under 20 minutes and would get a lot of the questions wrong. I then took my first practice exam and realized that the practice exams are WAY EASIER than the Qbanks. The RC on the actual exam was a little easier than the practice exams.
QR: 22 (19-30) I generally enjoy math so I was not too worried about this section. For this section, I watched the QR Academy Videos and did the Qbanks. I also used the QR Formulas Anki deck (I think I got it free from Booster). I redid every question in the Qbanks unless I had marked it green the first time I went through. Every QR question was marked green before I started doing practice tests. The QR on the actual exam was overall the same difficulty or a little harder than the practice exams. There were some questions that were worded really weirdly and some that I had no idea how to answer but others that were extremely easy so it kind of balanced itself out.
General Tips: Eat the same snack when you have breaks during practice exams that you will eat during the actual DAT break and take the practice exam at the same time you will be taking the actual DAT–both helped the actual DAT experience feel familiar for me. Funny story: I ate mixed nuts and an apple during the breaks and on my test day, I was 2 minutes away from the testing center and realized I forgot my apple. I luckily left myself plenty of time so I first went to a gas station and they did not have apples. I ended up going to Walmart to buy one apple and was still thirty minutes early to my testing center! Also, find a study plan/schedule that works for you. Everyone is different and learns in different ways so a big part of studying for this exam is figuring out what works best for you because I can assure you that no two people study for the DAT the same way. I personally found Anki to be extremely helpful because I was constantly reviewing information, but could see how it could get overwhelming for people. Most days I was doing Anki for 3-4 hours and reviewing over 1,000 cards, but towards the end of my studying, I had mastered enough of the cards that it would only take me about 40 minutes to review the cards. My biggest advice is that if you are low on time to complete and review all the practice tests, I can not emphasize how helpful these were to learning and understanding the content and the way the questions are asked. I found the Qbanks to be much much harder than the practice tests and actual DAT content so if you are in a time crunch, do not waste too much time using the Qbanks! Also, be sure to review and watch all the videos (I watched most of them in 2x speed) for every single practice exam question even if you got the question right (it took me about 8 hours to review a single practice exam).
Overall: My mentality and motivation during studying was if I sacrifice time now, I will hopefully never have to take the exam again! I never had extra time while taking practice tests, but I had extra time in every single section on the actual DAT. I finished the science section 20-30 minutes early, PAT 15 minutes early, RC 10-15 minutes early, and QR 5 minutes early. I used this extra time to check the answers I marked and then gave myself a little break between sections (giving my eyes a break before PAT was really helpful). Finally, do not count on the actual DAT being easier than Bootcamp practice tests, I personally found my DAT to be a little harder than I was expecting. The test is completely randomized so one person’s exam can be on concepts that they find more challenging than another person. If you happen to get to a question you have never seen before, the best thing you can do is remain calm, answer the question to the best of your ability, tag it, and move on. Good luck studying! You got this!
Some background information: I am a Biology (Foundations for Medical Science) major with a Business Administration minor and will be a junior this fall. I only used Bootcamp to study following Ari’s schedule and could not recommend it more!
I took a lighter class load during my sophomore spring semester, which allowed me to start doing a bit of studying. During this time, I only focused on watching the videos for PAT and QR Academy and doing PAT generators/practice problems. I was super stressed about PAT when I first started so the sooner you start practicing the better! As soon as school ended, I took a few days off and then studied every single day for about 10 weeks (some days I was studying for 10-12 hours). My initial plan was to work weekdays at a dentist from 8-12, study from 1-5, and then work my other job from 5-8:30, but it became too much and I needed more time to study so I only worked three days a week at the dentist. I also took the last week and a half off before my exam at the dentist. Working during this time gave me a nice mental break, and I felt that I would have gotten burnt out if I was not also working. I wish I had time for rest days, but at the beginning of my studying, I mapped out Ari’s 2.5 month plan and realized I did not have enough time (and had one week free before I took the exam). I followed Ari’s 2.5 month plan day-by-day for the first couple of days and then shadowed dentists for a week in June and went from being about 7 days ahead to being a few days behind. From this point on, I still completed everything from Ari’s plan but not necessarily on the correct day. I did eventually get caught up when I started taking full length practice tests!
Bio: 25 (20-30) I have a pretty strong background in biology since I took AP Biology in high school, am a bio major, and have taken basically all the classes that relate to content on the DAT (minus anatomy). For this section, I used Anki mainly. I spent about 2-3 days per chapter. My first day consisted of reading the high yield notes and doing 50 new anki cards for that chapter, my second day consisted of re-reading the high yield notes and doing 50 more anki cards for the chapter. If I had no more new Anki cards for the deck, then I would complete the Bio Bites and Qbanks. If I had more Anki cards, then I would basically repeat day 2 until I had no more new cards. On the actual exam, the bio questions were a lot less specific than BC practice exams and bio bites.
GC: 21 (19-30) For this section, I watched all of Dr. Mike’s videos and went through the Qbanks one time. I did not focus too much on the questions I missed on the Qbanks because I decided that I could better spend my time practicing something else. I’m very glad I decided to do this because I found the practice exam questions to be much more representative of the actual DAT. After getting through all the material, I started Booster’s GC Anki deck, which I found helpful for keeping the material fresh. I also made an Anki deck during my studying for the polyatomic ions.
OC: 21 (16-23) I was really nervous about this section because even though I just got done taking organic chemistry at my school, I despised the class. I watched Dr. Mike’s videos for this section and went through the Qbanks. I also did the Bootcamp OC Reactions Anki deck and the Organic Chemistry Functional Groups Anki deck (I think I got it free from Booster). After taking my first practice exam and getting a 16, I was even more nervous for this section. At this point, I went over the Bootcamp Summary Sheet once a day for a few days and then started doing the OC reaction bites and watching all the videos to learn the mechanisms. My biggest piece of advice for this section is to understand the mechanisms and how reactions relate to each other because it may seem like there are tons of different reactions, but most of them fit under the same umbrella mechanism so you are only learning a single mechanism for a bunch of reagents (the summary sheet and reaction bites do a good job of grouping together similar mechanisms). I found BC practice exams to be similar to the difficulty of the actual DAT for both GC and OC.
PAT: 21 (17-20) I was extremely nervous for this section and thought it was really hard to understand when I first started studying. I watched all the videos in the PAT Academy and did both generators and practice questions. I honestly struggled with every section at some point during my studying, but found constant practice to really help me with this section. For example, at one point, I could not understand Pattern Folding, but then focused on this section by doing the generators and Qbanks and watching the videos no matter if I got the question right or wrong–I realized there is always something to be learned in the answer key! When I took my first practice tests, I started with Keyholes but ran out of time and didn’t finish 30 of the questions so from my second practice test forward, I started with Angle Ranking and then went back to Keyholes and TFE at the end and always finished on time. I found that taking the practice tests were really helpful for getting the timing down and really helped me become better at this section. PAT on the actual DAT, in my opinion, was way easier, especially hole punching, than Bootcamp.
RC: 24 (22-28) I have always been a pretty fast reader so for this section, I watched the RC Academy videos and then jumped into Qbanks. My strategy for this section was the Vanilla method, where I would spend about 8 minutes reading and highlighting important information and then about 12 minutes or less answering the questions. The Qbanks kinda surprised me because I had trouble finishing the passages under 20 minutes and would get a lot of the questions wrong. I then took my first practice exam and realized that the practice exams are WAY EASIER than the Qbanks. The RC on the actual exam was a little easier than the practice exams.
QR: 22 (19-30) I generally enjoy math so I was not too worried about this section. For this section, I watched the QR Academy Videos and did the Qbanks. I also used the QR Formulas Anki deck (I think I got it free from Booster). I redid every question in the Qbanks unless I had marked it green the first time I went through. Every QR question was marked green before I started doing practice tests. The QR on the actual exam was overall the same difficulty or a little harder than the practice exams. There were some questions that were worded really weirdly and some that I had no idea how to answer but others that were extremely easy so it kind of balanced itself out.
General Tips: Eat the same snack when you have breaks during practice exams that you will eat during the actual DAT break and take the practice exam at the same time you will be taking the actual DAT–both helped the actual DAT experience feel familiar for me. Funny story: I ate mixed nuts and an apple during the breaks and on my test day, I was 2 minutes away from the testing center and realized I forgot my apple. I luckily left myself plenty of time so I first went to a gas station and they did not have apples. I ended up going to Walmart to buy one apple and was still thirty minutes early to my testing center! Also, find a study plan/schedule that works for you. Everyone is different and learns in different ways so a big part of studying for this exam is figuring out what works best for you because I can assure you that no two people study for the DAT the same way. I personally found Anki to be extremely helpful because I was constantly reviewing information, but could see how it could get overwhelming for people. Most days I was doing Anki for 3-4 hours and reviewing over 1,000 cards, but towards the end of my studying, I had mastered enough of the cards that it would only take me about 40 minutes to review the cards. My biggest advice is that if you are low on time to complete and review all the practice tests, I can not emphasize how helpful these were to learning and understanding the content and the way the questions are asked. I found the Qbanks to be much much harder than the practice tests and actual DAT content so if you are in a time crunch, do not waste too much time using the Qbanks! Also, be sure to review and watch all the videos (I watched most of them in 2x speed) for every single practice exam question even if you got the question right (it took me about 8 hours to review a single practice exam).
Overall: My mentality and motivation during studying was if I sacrifice time now, I will hopefully never have to take the exam again! I never had extra time while taking practice tests, but I had extra time in every single section on the actual DAT. I finished the science section 20-30 minutes early, PAT 15 minutes early, RC 10-15 minutes early, and QR 5 minutes early. I used this extra time to check the answers I marked and then gave myself a little break between sections (giving my eyes a break before PAT was really helpful). Finally, do not count on the actual DAT being easier than Bootcamp practice tests, I personally found my DAT to be a little harder than I was expecting. The test is completely randomized so one person’s exam can be on concepts that they find more challenging than another person. If you happen to get to a question you have never seen before, the best thing you can do is remain calm, answer the question to the best of your ability, tag it, and move on. Good luck studying! You got this!
