Which Topic Do You Wish You Had Spent Less Time Reviewing?

I’d like to open discussion on a question proposed to me the other day: for those who have taken the DAT, which topic do you wish you had spent less time reviewing?

The DAT is known to throw just about any topic at you, so I still believe it’s important to know as much as possible. However, I spent way too much time trying to memorize all the numbers in cell respiration, such as 2 CO2 released in the Krebs cycle. Or, how many ATP would be generated if this and that were changed, and so on.

It’s easy to recognize now, but by spending so much time memorizing the gritty details of those topics, I was actually harming my potential score. The time I spent on memorizing numbers in cell respiration could have been spent on topics that were much more likely to appear on the DAT.

The golden rule of DAT Biology is breadth over depth.

For example, rather than knowing oxidative phosphorylation produces 36 ATP (or 32-38 depending on which textbook you use), I would know where ATP is produced in the cell, and which steps of cell respiration produce or require ATP. It is much more important to understand the concepts behind respiration rather than the gritty details of the math.

What topic you wish you had spent less time reviewing?