Study Shack

Like all the other sections, the Organic Chemistry section of the DAT is straightforward. Using SRS cards will make the process mostly painless. What I did was go through DAT Destroyer and answer the questions. If I felt my answer was a ‘guess’, in that I felt pretty uneasy or just lacked the knowledge required to answer the question, I would skip it and put the relevant information in the answer section into SRS. If there was any information in the answer section for a question, even if I got it correct, that I felt was below mastery – into the SRS it went.

The first time I went through DAT Destroyer I got most questions wrong. On my sheet that I put answers I didn’t mark the answers as wrong, just put any information below mastery from the answer into SRS. I avoided having the fear of failure put into me and instead was excited about learning the information. About a week before my DAT exam I went back through DAT Destroyer and because of all the SRS cards I made and that I looked at them consistently, I got almost every question right. On the two official ADA practice exams I had one with only one question wrong, and the other with all correct. On the real DAT I scored a 21 in Ochem.

The helpful tools, card models, etc. for Organic Chemistry are found in the Table of Contents of this site.

Some of the people at Student Doctor Network forum had the great suggestion to make a sample DAT deck. I put together a sample deck of 50 cards. It is available here:

http://www.study-shack.com/DAT-anki-sample.zip

To open it:
1) Download the zip file
2) Extract it to some folder (like My Documents)
3) In Anki, go to File -> Open and navigate to the folder you extracted the .zip to. Double click the file DATsample.anki

Some of the cards contain LaTeX, and thus will give an error when viewed if LaTeX needs to be installed (will say something about a dvipeng error). To install LaTeX (some of this is Windows specific):

1) Go here (http://www.latex-project.org/ftp.html) and choose your operating system
2) Download and run the file
3) Extract the contents to some directory like C:/Latex
4) Navigate to the directory and run setup.exe
5) Scroll down and click "Click here to install MiKTEX" and "Click here to install TEXnicCenter"
6) Install both of the above components

This is a one time install and should be pretty painless. Again, only some of the cards contain LaTeX and will show an error. I highly recommend going through the steps to install it though.

The purpose of the deck is only to show various card models and some good ways to put information into Anki. All the information is found on Wikipedia or are examples I made.

The General Chemistry section can be handled with ease. Some people go back and forth about if it contains more equations or concepts. I recommend knowing all the concepts and doing lots of practice problems for each, until the question type becomes automatic. There are a finite number of question ‘types’ that will appear and will become apparent with practice. The tools and models are all the same as a regular general chemistry course, with the addition of one thing.

• DAT Destroyer has decent sample general chemistry questions. However, the questions in the Berkeley Review chemistry books (listed in the above link to the Gen Chem page) are more effective. The question types are practically the same and Berkeley Review has better explanations and questions in general. If the only reason to purchase DAT Destroyer is for Gen Chem, I recommend just sticking to practice tests for ideas of the ‘level’ of question on the DAT. Note that the Berkeley Review is harder on purpose, and is beneficial because of it.

As for an approach, I recommend going through The Berkeley Review book covering any topic that is held below mastery. Afterwards on practice tests review the problems and know why each one is correct and why the others are incorrect. The DAT will try and ‘trick’ people taking it, try to identify where the trick is in the question.

If there is ever a topic or concept that is lacking, the Berkeley Review will clear it right back up. It is okay to get questions wrong! It is necessary for success!

The PAT really comes down to practice problems and approach. I believe anyone can do well on it.

• This post at the Student Doctor Network is a top-quality primer for studying for the PAT. I consider it essential and found it useful as a launching pad into practicing and getting a ‘feel’ for the section.
• The AceDAT blog has a great cube-counting method and some other cool tips for the DAT.
• Crack DAT PAT is a solid source of PAT problems. When studying I utilized little and often and studied them in 10 minute sprints broken up into sections. Some days one section, some days two. Whatever I felt like.  I bought the five-test version and only used three of them and got a 22 on the PAT. Little and often.

Really that’s all. Try to imagine the objects in three dimensions and practice everyday in the 10 minute sprints. Eventually it will come together. It all ‘clicked’ for me after a few weeks and my score jumped significantly almost overnight.

It is normal, almost expected, that the time spent reviewing problems is more than the time spent taking them. After doing the problems in the 10 minute sprint I would take a few minute break, then go back and review and find exactly why I got an answer correct or incorrect, and why all the incorrect options were that way. Love the failures, they are necessary for success!