DAT Practice Test
This is a free 15-question sampler for the Dental Admission Test, written by the StudyPDF team. It follows the shape of the real exam: biology, general chemistry and organic chemistry from the Survey of the Natural Sciences, two questions on the reasoning behind the Perceptual Ability tasks, three short reading passages, and four quantitative items. Answer all 15, then check your score and read the explanation for every question.
During which phase of mitosis do the sister chromatids separate and begin moving toward opposite poles?
All Medicine & Pharmacy quizzes
- Practice test · 15 questions
MCAT Practice Test
- Practice test · 15 questions
NAPLEX Practice Questions
- Practice test · 15 questions
MCAT Practice Questions
Now make your own
Upload your prep book, slides or notes, or just tell Bo what you want to learn. You do not need a document to start.
All 15 questions at a glance
Prefer to read before you play? Every question in the sampler is listed below. Answers and explanations stay collapsed until you open them.
1. During which phase of mitosis do the sister chromatids separate and begin moving toward opposite poles?
- A. Prophase
- B. Metaphase
- C. Anaphase
- D. Telophase
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Anaphase
Metaphase is the lineup, with the chromosomes held at the middle of the cell by spindle fibers from both poles. Anaphase begins when the protein holding the sister chromatids together is cut, so each chromatid is pulled away and now counts as its own chromosome. Telophase is the cleanup, when nuclear envelopes reform around the two new sets.
2. Which of the following are true of prokaryotic cells?
Select all that apply.
- A. They have no membrane bound nucleus
- B. Their genome is usually a single circular chromosome sitting in the nucleoid region
- C. They build proteins on ribosomes
- D. They divide by mitosis
- E. They carry out aerobic respiration inside mitochondria
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. They have no membrane bound nucleus, B. Their genome is usually a single circular chromosome sitting in the nucleoid region, C. They build proteins on ribosomes
Prokaryotes have no nucleus and no membrane bound organelles, so their DNA sits loose in a region called the nucleoid, usually as one circular chromosome plus optional plasmids. They do have ribosomes, because every cell needs them to make protein, though prokaryotic ribosomes are smaller than eukaryotic ones and that difference is what several antibiotics exploit. They divide by binary fission rather than mitosis, and the enzymes of aerobic respiration sit in the plasma membrane because there are no mitochondria.
3. Moving from left to right across a period of the periodic table, atomic radius generally:
- A. increases, because each atom holds more electrons
- B. decreases, because the growing nuclear charge pulls the same shell in tighter
- C. stays about the same, because the principal energy level does not change
- D. increases, because inner electrons shield the outer ones more effectively
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. decreases, because the growing nuclear charge pulls the same shell in tighter
Across a period, protons are added to the nucleus while the new electrons go into the same principal energy level, so shielding barely changes and the effective nuclear charge felt by the outer electrons climbs. That stronger pull draws the whole electron cloud in, so the radius shrinks. Down a group the opposite happens, because each step adds a whole new shell and that outweighs the extra protons.
4. Complete the sentence.
At 0 degrees Celsius and 1 atmosphere of pressure, one mole of an ideal gas occupies about _____ liters.
Options for blank 1: 11.2, 22.4, 44.8, 62.4
Show answer and explanation
Answer: 22.4
Rearranging PV equals nRT gives V equal to nRT over P, and with n as 1 mole, R as 0.0821 liter atmospheres per mole kelvin and T as 273 kelvin, the volume comes out near 22.4 liters. The useful part is that the ideal gas law never mentions the identity of the gas, so a mole of helium and a mole of carbon dioxide occupy the same volume under the same conditions. Change the temperature or the pressure and that 22.4 changes with it, which is why the conditions have to be stated.
5. An SN2 reaction proceeds fastest with which substrate?
- A. A primary alkyl halide
- B. A secondary alkyl halide with two bulky neighboring groups
- C. A tertiary alkyl halide
- D. A carbon bonded to four other carbon atoms
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. A primary alkyl halide
SN2 happens in one step, with the nucleophile attacking the back side of the carbon at the same moment the leaving group departs. Anything crowding that back side slows it down, so the least substituted carbon reacts fastest and the rate order runs primary, then secondary, then tertiary. Tertiary halides go the other route, SN1, because they form a relatively stable carbocation, and a carbon already bonded to four carbons has no leaving group to lose in the first place.
6. Complete the sentence.
A molecule with 3 stereocenters and no internal plane of symmetry has at most _____ stereoisomers, and each one of those has exactly _____ enantiomer.
Options for blank 1: 3, 6, 8, 9
Options for blank 2: 0, 1, 2, 3
Show answer and explanation
Answer: 8, 1
Each stereocenter can be set two ways, so n stereocenters give a maximum of 2 to the power of n stereoisomers, and 2 cubed is 8. An enantiomer is the complete mirror image, meaning every stereocenter is inverted, so any structure has one and only one. Every other member of the set is a diastereomer. The word maximum matters, because internal symmetry can make one structure identical to its own mirror image, a meso compound, which cuts the real count below 2 to the n.
7. A solid block is built from 8 identical cubes stacked 2 by 2 by 2. The entire outside of the block, including the bottom, is painted. How many of the 8 cubes have exactly 3 painted faces?
- A. 0
- B. 4
- C. 6
- D. 8
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. 8
In a 2 by 2 by 2 block every small cube sits at a corner of the big cube, and a corner exposes exactly three faces, so all 8 qualify. The general logic is worth holding onto: in a 3 by 3 by 3 painted on every side, the 8 corners show 3 faces, the 12 edge cubes show 2, the 6 face centers show 1 and the single buried cube shows none. Note that the real cube counting subtest shows you a picture and normally leaves the bottom unpainted, so read the on-screen instructions before you start counting.
8. A square sheet of paper is folded in half, then folded in half again along the other direction. A single hole is punched through all the layers, away from any crease. Which statements are true once the sheet is unfolded?
Select all that apply.
- A. The unfolded sheet has four holes
- B. Each fold doubles the number of holes a single punch produces
- C. The holes sit symmetrically about the creases
- D. The unfolded sheet has one hole
- E. The number of holes does not depend on how many times the paper was folded
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. The unfolded sheet has four holes, B. Each fold doubles the number of holes a single punch produces, C. The holes sit symmetrically about the creases
Two folds stack four layers of paper, and one punch goes through all four, so unfolding reveals four holes. Each crease behaves like a mirror, which is why the punched hole reappears reflected across every fold line and the final pattern is symmetric about both creases. Reasoning it out this way is the fast route on the real hole punching subtest, which is visual: it shows you a folding sequence and asks you to pick the resulting pattern on a grid, so practice it with actual diagrams.
9. Read the passage, then answer the question. Tooth enamel is the hardest tissue in the human body, and it is built almost entirely from a mineral called hydroxyapatite. Unlike bone, mature enamel contains no living cells, so once it is formed it cannot grow new tissue the way a fracture in bone knits itself back together. What enamel can do is trade minerals with the fluid sitting on it. When the mouth turns acidic, calcium and phosphate leave the surface. When that acid is buffered away, the same ions can move back in and rebuild the damaged crystal, a process called remineralization. According to the passage, why can enamel not repair itself the way bone does?
- A. Enamel is softer than bone
- B. Mature enamel contains no living cells
- C. Enamel is not made of mineral
- D. Enamel never loses calcium or phosphate
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Mature enamel contains no living cells
The passage draws the contrast in one sentence: bone heals because it is living tissue, and mature enamel has no cells to do that work. Remineralization is a chemical exchange of ions, not cellular repair, which is exactly why the passage describes it as rebuilding a crystal rather than growing tissue. DAT reading rewards answers you can put a finger on in the text, and the other three options either contradict the passage or are never mentioned.
10. Read the passage, then answer the question. A biofilm is a community of microorganisms stuck to a surface inside a layer of material the cells secrete themselves. Dental plaque is the example most people meet daily. Within hours of a cleaning, proteins from saliva coat the tooth and form a thin film, and the first bacteria to arrive attach to that film rather than to the enamel itself. Later species then attach to the earlier ones. Because the secreted layer slows the movement of antimicrobial agents, and because cells inside a biofilm behave differently from free floating ones, a mature biofilm is much harder to kill than the same species grown loose in liquid. Which statements are supported by the passage?
Select all that apply.
- A. The first bacteria attach to a film of salivary protein rather than directly to enamel
- B. A mature biofilm resists antimicrobial agents better than the same bacteria growing loose in liquid
- C. The bacteria in a biofilm produce the material that surrounds them
- D. Plaque takes several weeks to start forming after a cleaning
- E. Every species in plaque attaches to the tooth at the same moment
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. The first bacteria attach to a film of salivary protein rather than directly to enamel, B. A mature biofilm resists antimicrobial agents better than the same bacteria growing loose in liquid, C. The bacteria in a biofilm produce the material that surrounds them
The first three restate the passage: the salivary film comes first, the surrounding layer is secreted by the cells themselves, and the passage gives two reasons a mature biofilm resists antimicrobials. The other two are contradicted. The passage says the film appears within hours, not weeks, and it describes attachment as a sequence in which later species attach to earlier ones. On a select all that apply item, check each option against the text separately rather than picking the ones that feel right together.
11. Read the passage, then answer the question. Saliva does more than moisten food. It carries bicarbonate and phosphate, which neutralize acid, and it washes fermentable sugar away from the tooth surface. After a sugary drink, plaque bacteria produce acid within minutes and the pH near the enamel drops. Saliva then pulls that pH back up over the following twenty to sixty minutes. That recovery window is why dentists pay more attention to how often a person sips a sweet drink than to how large the drink is. Ten sips spread across an afternoon hold the surface at a low pH far longer than the same volume swallowed at once. The passage suggests that the greatest risk to enamel comes from:
- A. the total volume of sugary drink consumed
- B. the concentration of bicarbonate in saliva
- C. how frequently a sugary drink is sipped
- D. swallowing a sugary drink quickly in one sitting
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. how frequently a sugary drink is sipped
The passage ties damage to how long the surface stays at a low pH, and it says saliva needs twenty to sixty minutes to recover. Frequent sipping restarts the acid drop before that recovery finishes, so the surface spends more total time acidic even though the volume is unchanged. The last option is the one the passage explicitly compares against and rejects. Inference questions still have to rest on the text, so trace the chain of sentences that gets you there.
12. A dental material is mixed from powder and water in a 2 to 5 ratio by weight. How many grams of powder are needed to make 350 grams of mixture?
- A. 100 grams
- B. 140 grams
- C. 175 grams
- D. 250 grams
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. 100 grams
A 2 to 5 ratio means the mixture splits into 7 equal parts, 2 of them powder and 5 of them water, so the powder is 2 sevenths of the total. Two sevenths of 350 is 100 grams, leaving 250 grams of water. The common trap is treating 2 to 5 as 2 out of 5 and answering 140. Ratios compare the parts to each other, and you have to add them before you compare either one to the whole.
13. A bag holds 4 red, 3 blue and 5 green marbles. Two marbles are drawn without replacement. What is the probability that both are green?
- A. 25/144
- B. 5/36
- C. 1/6
- D. 5/33
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. 5/33
There are 12 marbles, so the first draw is green with probability 5 over 12. Because the marble is not replaced, the second draw is green with probability 4 over 11, since only 4 green marbles remain out of 11. Multiplying gives 20 over 132, which reduces to 5 over 33. The 25 over 144 answer is what you get if you replace the first marble, so read for the words with or without replacement before you set up the fractions.
14. Complete the sentence.
A solution is 15 percent salt by weight, so a 40 gram sample of that solution contains _____ grams of salt.
Options for blank 1: 6, 15, 24, 40
Show answer and explanation
Answer: 6
Percent means parts per hundred, so 15 percent is the decimal 0.15, and 0.15 times 40 gives 6 grams. The other 34 grams are water. The step people skip is checking what the percentage is a percentage of, because by weight means the 40 grams is the total mass of the solution, not the mass of the water it was dissolved into.
15. If 3x minus 7 equals 2x plus 5, what is the value of x squared?
- A. 25
- B. 121
- C. 144
- D. 169
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. 144
Subtract 2x from both sides to get x minus 7 equals 5, then add 7 to both sides to get x equal to 12, so x squared is 144. Two step questions like this one punish anyone who solves for x and stops, because 12 will not be an option and the wrong habit is to grab whatever looks close. Read the last clause of the question again before you pick.
What the DAT actually asks you
The Dental Admission Test is a computer based exam owned by the American Dental Association and taken at a test center. It has four parts. The Survey of the Natural Sciences gives you 100 questions in 90 minutes, split into 40 biology, 30 general chemistry and 30 organic chemistry. The Perceptual Ability Test gives you 90 questions in 60 minutes. Reading Comprehension gives you 50 questions in 60 minutes. Quantitative Reasoning gives you 40 questions in 45 minutes. With the optional break and the optional post test survey, the appointment runs a little over five hours.
Scores are reported as scale scores from 1 to 30, and the ADA describes a 19 as roughly average performance nationally. You get a separate score for biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, reading comprehension, quantitative reasoning and the Perceptual Ability Test. The Academic Average is the rounded average of the five academic scores, and the perceptual score is deliberately left out of it, so the PAT is read on its own. That is why dental schools tend to look hardest at those two numbers. Your score depends on how many questions you get right, so there is no reason to leave one blank.
Everything else about the day moves. Fees, how often you may retest, the wait between attempts, what you may bring into the room and what on-screen tools you are given during the quantitative section are all set by the ADA and get revised. Read the current DAT candidate guide at ada.org rather than trusting an old prep book, or this page.
How to use this sampler
The real DAT runs 280 questions across four sections. Fifteen cannot stand in for that, and this sampler is not trying to. What it can do is show you which of the four areas is shakiest before you build a study plan around the wrong one. The mix here is six natural sciences questions, two on perceptual reasoning, three reading passages and four quantitative items.
The perceptual questions need a word of warning. The real Perceptual Ability Test is entirely visual: keyholes and apertures, top front end view recognition, angle ranking, hole punching, cube counting and pattern folding. A text page cannot draw those, and faking a picture in words would teach you the wrong habits. So the two perceptual items here test the rules and the reasoning behind two of those tasks instead. Practice the section itself with real diagrams, because speed on the PAT comes from pattern recognition you can only build by looking.
Take it in one sitting without notes, then read every explanation, including the ones you got right. Treat a wrong answer as a topic rather than a fact. Everything here was written by the StudyPDF team from the publicly published DAT content outline. These are not ADA questions, StudyPDF is not affiliated with the American Dental Association, and nothing on this page is dental or medical advice. It is exam practice.
How StudyPDF builds full practice tests from your own material
Fifteen questions can point you at a weak area. They cannot get you ready for a 280 question exam, and a generic bank rarely matches the organic chemistry your professor actually emphasized or the biology your DAT book spends forty pages on.
StudyPDF works from your material instead. Upload your DAT prep book, your general chemistry notes, your organic reaction sheets or the lecture slides from your biology sequence, and Bo, the study agent, builds full-length practice tests out of those exact pages. Every question is grounded in what you uploaded, and every explanation points back to where the answer came from, so you can go straight to the source when something looks wrong. Generate a fresh test whenever you want, narrow it to one area such as stereochemistry or acid base equilibria, and track which concepts you keep missing.
You do not need a file to start. If you have nothing to upload, name a topic instead, for example carbohydrate metabolism or reaction mechanisms, and Bo writes a practice test from that. Starting is free.
Written by the StudyPDF team. Last updated 2026-08-19.