DAT Bootcamp High-Yield Biology Notes Review

Bootcamp gives its DAT biology notes away as a 136-page PDF that opens with no account, no email and no payment, and it is worth having even if you never buy anything from Bootcamp. It is a content checklist for the 40 biology items on the DAT, and it contains no practice questions at all, which settles who it is for: read it to find the topics you do not know, then test them somewhere else.

We opened the file on 22 September 2026, counted every chapter divider, and mapped the pages against the biology outline the ADA publishes in its own candidate guide. This review is what that count turned up.

Summary Table

The Bootcamp's Biology Notes page on bootcamp.com, captured September 2026. The button under the summary opens the file directly.

Bootcamp biology notes overview

These are not community scans or a leaked course handout. Bootcamp publishes them itself on its own page, credited to Dr. Ari Rezaei, the founder of Bootcamp.com, and reviewed by Dr. Joel Meyerson. The page carries an updated date of January 27, 2026, and every content page of the file carries a Bootcamp.com copyright line.

The provider's pitch is one sentence: "High-yield, quick DAT focused biology review. Everything you need to get a great bio score, nothing you don't." The file backs that up in structure. Page 1 is a cover, page 2 is a short note on how to use the notes, page 3 is the table of contents, and pages 4 to 136 are biology.

The 15 chapters run:

• Chapter 1: Molecules and fundamentals of biology
• Chapter 2: Cells and organelles
• Chapter 3: Cellular energy
• Chapter 4: Photosynthesis
• Chapter 5: Cell division
• Chapter 6: Molecular genetics
• Chapter 7: Heredity
• Chapter 8: Microscopy and lab techniques
• Chapter 9: Plants
• Chapter 10: The 10 human body systems, circulatory through integumentary
• Chapter 11: Reproduction and developmental biology
• Chapter 12: Diversity of life
• Chapter 13: Evolution
• Chapter 14: Ecology
• Chapter 15: Animal behavior

Bootcamp also gives away a taxonomy cheat sheet from the same page. It is 3 pages, it is free on the same terms, and it is the one page of the DAT most students reread on the morning of the test.

Bootcamp biology notes review for 2026

Where the 136 pages actually go

The ADA's 2026 DAT candidate guide sets the Survey of the Natural Sciences at 100 items, 40 of them biology, and lists five biology areas: cell and molecular biology, diversity of life, structure and function of systems, genetics, and evolution and ecology. Sorting the notes' chapters into those five areas shows what the file is really weighted toward.

Pages counted from the chapter dividers in the file, sorted into the five biology areas the ADA lists. Reproduction and development is counted under systems, where the ADA puts the reproductive system.

Human body systems take 53 pages, 40 percent of the content. The nervous system alone gets 7 pages, the circulatory, immune and endocrine systems 6 each, and the integumentary system 1. That weighting matches how the DAT behaves: body systems generate more discrete, factual items than any other part of biology, and they are where most students lose points they could have kept.

The other end of the chart is the part to plan around. Evolution, ecology and animal behavior share 13 pages, and diversity of life gets 14 including plants. The ADA does not publish an item count per area, so this is not proof of a mismatch. It does mean that if ecology or taxonomy is your weak spot, the notes give you less to work with there than anywhere else, and the DAT biology section guide is a better place to start on what those areas ask.

The density is real, and it is the point

Two things separate these notes from a condensed textbook. The first is that they answer in tables where a table is the honest format. The endocrine chapter ends with a table headed "Endocrine System for the DAT" that lists source, hormone, target and action in four columns, which is exactly the shape of the question the DAT asks about hormones. The ecology chapter does the same for terrestrial biomes, with a features column and a real example beside each one.

The second is that the notes teach the memory aids rather than assuming you have them. Taxonomy arrives with the mnemonic "Dear King Phillip Came Over For Great Soup" on the page where the ranks are defined. Cell division comes with a summary of chromosome and chromatid numbers at each stage of mitosis and meiosis, the count students most often get wrong under time pressure.

What is missing: any way to know if it worked

There is not one practice question in the 136 pages. That is not an oversight; page 2 tells you to practice with Bootcamp's question bank and practice tests instead. It does mean the notes cannot do the one thing that moves a biology score, which is retrieval. Reading a hormone table four times feels like progress and is not.

Pair the notes with something that asks you questions on the same day you read a chapter. Our free DAT biology practice questions cost nothing and run in the browser, and the free Bootcamp DAT YouTube channel covers the same material in video if a chapter does not land in text.

One practical note. Several chapter headings and most diagrams in the file are images rather than text, so searching the PDF for a term will miss them. Use the table of contents on page 3 to navigate rather than the search box.

Pricing

The notes are free, and free here means what it should: the file opens in a browser from a public link, with no account, no email capture and no trial clock. Nothing expires, and you can download the PDF and keep it. The taxonomy cheat sheet on the same page is free on the same terms.

What Bootcamp is doing with them is obvious enough. The notes are the content half of a course whose other half, the question banks and practice tests, is paid. That is a fair trade and the notes are not crippled to make the point, but it is worth knowing before you treat the file as a complete prep plan. If you decide you want the practice side, our DAT Bootcamp review covers what the paid plans include, and current offers sit on our DAT discounts page.

Who Bootcamp's biology notes are best for

They are best for the student who has already started biology content review and needs to know what is left. The chapter list doubles as a syllabus: work down it, mark the chapters you could not summarise from memory, and you have your study plan for the next two weeks.

They also suit anyone studying on a budget. Together with the free tools on our DAT hub, a student who cannot spend anything can still cover biology content properly, which is not true of every DAT section.

They are a poor fit if you have never studied the material. Notes this condensed assume you have met the concept before and need it compressed, not explained. If cellular respiration is new to you, a course or a textbook chapter comes first, and the notes come after.

When you might look elsewhere

• You want the community's other free notes. The Feralis biology notes are the other free biology PDF pre-dental students pass around, and plenty of high scorers read both. Bootcamp's are the more current of the two.
• You need math, not biology. The Bootcamp DAT math formula sheet is a separate free file for quantitative reasoning, and the rest of what we have checked sits on the DAT cheat sheets page.
• You want everything free in one place. Our free DAT resources guide lists what is worth your time across all four sections, with the same test applied to each: does it hold up when you open it. How we run that test is on our review methodology page.

Final verdict

Bootcamp DAT biology notes FAQs

Are the Bootcamp DAT biology notes really free?

Yes. The file sits behind a public link on Bootcamp's own page and opens without an account, an email address or a payment. Bootcamp also gives away a 3-page taxonomy cheat sheet from the same place.

Do the notes cover the whole DAT?

No. They are biology only, which is 40 of the 100 items on the Survey of the Natural Sciences. General chemistry, organic chemistry, perceptual ability, reading comprehension and quantitative reasoning are not in the file at all.

Do the notes include practice questions?

None. The file is content review from cover to cover, and page 2 directs you to Bootcamp's question banks and practice tests for the practice side. Plan on a separate question source before you start. The cheapest broad one we have reviewed is the Gold Standard DAT question bank, which covers all four sections.

How long do the notes take to get through?

The 133 content pages are dense but short-form, so a first read is about a week of evening sessions for most students, and a later review pass is closer to two hours. Chapter 10, the body systems, is 53 pages and is worth budgeting a third of your time for.

Are they better than Feralis notes?

They are more current and better structured, with 15 chapters and the body systems broken out separately. Most students who use one end up skimming the other, since both are free and neither takes long to check.

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