Insight on effective studying

To start off with, we are going to feature stories of successful DAT exams on our threads as a guidance for students planning on taking the DAT in November. Recently, a student from Western university has reached out to share her experience with the DAT. She is a full-time student at western university, she took the February DAT, and she has many insightful ideas and strategies that she used to Ace her DAT. Her score is very impressive, and if you can take away any strategy that you might need to study more effectively you should thoroughly read her interview, and if you have any questions or concerns email us. She managed to get an overall 23 on her academic average, PAT 25 and RC 25.

She reached out to us, and her initiative to help her fellow Canadians will not stop here, she has offered to help with any questions or concerns that you might have along side us. So, in order to make this to the point and clear for all the students out there, we synthesized some general questions that have been constantly on our minds, or have been asked numerous time on our blog from her.

The most challenging part of preparing for Canadian DAT examination, is the time. The exams are either in November or February which if you are in university, with a full course load, you will find yourself drowning with work, and midterms. Since, DAT needs a fully scheduled timeline, with dedication, many of students ask when should we start preparing ourselves for the DAT, how many hours a week should we dedicate to studying for it, and how many weeks is necessary to Ace the DAT?

The recommended timeline is between 6-8 weeks of hard core studying. This means you should dedicate at least 3-4 hours 5 times/week for your DAT practices. Personally, I would practice with the sections that I was not very comfortable with, a.k.a PAT, and then move on to the other topics that I was in the mood for. We asked our fellow student about her experience with the timing, and scheduling and this is what she had to say:

how would explain your experience with the amount of studying that you needed to get done, and having a full course load?

“I primarily studied for the cDAT during the winter break. Therefore, there wasn't a competing schedule from my school work. During this time, I did a lot of PAT practice and learned the bio/chem curriculum while taking notes. Coming off of the break, I studied for the exam as if it were a 6th course. I focused on my weaknesses (Biology and PAT) and shifted to doing practice questions. But, when school started to pick up (i.e. when midterm season hit), it got more difficult to keep up with my cDAT schedule. Therefore, instead of rereading my notes, I forced myself to do a practice exam every weekend. I also focused on my school work during the week.”.

As you know studying becomes quite draining and exhausting, at times. I did the dat exam twice in one year so studying for it was quite hard, and most often I lacked motivation. However, since I did not want to put off the exam for an extra year to do the DAT in November 2020, I pushed my self a lot. I would say I am content with my score, and I did my best, so if it is not good enough for other people, it certainly is for me. The only thing that I would do differently is that I wish I would have focused more on biology, with DAT destroyer, since many of the questions were similar to DAT destroyer. However, when I was preparing for my exam I was so caught up with time management that I didn’t dedicate time to study hard biology question, and having done the November DAT I was sure that Biology would be more content based, rather than memorization of random bio facts, however I was surprised to find that it was not the case. The biology for February DAT was very different than the bio for November. However, all other sections were quite similar to November, except the PAT section which they added 2 Rock key hole question, and 4-fold hole punching, yikesss!! I also asked this question from my fellow peer, this is what she had to say:

what would you have done differently if you were to do the exam again?

Honestly, I am happy with my score but I think the stress I put myself through while preparing was unnecessary. I found the preparation process to be more daunting than I had anticipated. I was quite unfamiliar with many of the biology sections. Coming from a physiology background, I was comfortable with the human physiology, general cell biology, and genetics sections but the taxonomy, evolution, and plants portion threw me for a loop! Therefore, I spent a lot of energy trying to memorize all the phyla, terms, etc. But, on the actual exam, very few details actually popped up! If I were to go back, I would focus less on details and more on general concepts.

Next we will be discussing, with my other fellow students, what resources they used to study more effectively.