This upcoming week is finally the week that things kick into gear. I begin my study schedule for the Dental Admissions Test or the DAT. For those of you who don’t know what the DAT is, it’s basically the SAT or ACT, but for dental school and it’s tough.
There are four sections on the exam, the survey of natural sciences, reading comprehension, quantitative reasoning, and perceptual ability or the PAT. In total, I believe the exam is 4.5 hours and there’s an optional 30 minute break at some point through the exam (Thank goodness!). The highest you can get is a 30 and most dental schools admit students who average a 20 on the exam. From what I’ve heard, the PAT section is the toughest, and based on my study program, that seems to be the case, as there is a lot of focus on the strategy behind that section.
For the PAT, there are 90 questions and you have 60 minutes to answer them. The questions on that section are supposed to include keyhole, cube face, folding, and hole-punch problems that all come with their own twists and mind-breaking characteristics. From what I’ve heard, that section is meant to test how you do with visual things but it’s also meant to destroy you and tire you out mentally. Yippeeeee. I’m most nervous for the other sections.
The survey of natural sciences section is exactly what it sounds like, a survey of all things from basic biology to organic chemistry. The reading comprehension section involves scientific articles and those articles are followed by a variety of questions testing how well you understood the article. The quantitative reasoning section on the DAT is the math section of the exam. As far as I know, it’s supposed to cover algebra through pre-calculus, which is super manageable for me.
To prepare for the exam, I’m going through DAT Bootcamp. It’s a program created by a student who did extremely well on the DAT and has shared their study schedule as well as a BUNCH of incredible resources to crush this exam.
I’m nervous to begin this journey but I’m also really excited because I look forward to the progress I make and all that I get to review and learn this summer. You’re all on this ride with me so let’s crush this DAT! See you next Sunday. 🙂