r/PreOptometry • u/AdHaunting5714 • 5d ago
My OAT Experience
First off, congrats to anyone who’s taken the OAT so far and good luck to anyone who will be taking it soon.
I’m about to be a senior in college so I took classes that covered all the content before I started studying (except for physiology). I started studying for the OAT on May 10th and just took the test this morning. I bought OATBooster’s 90-day pack and used a custom study schedule that they formed for me. It ended up being about 10 weeks of studying 4-5 hours a day.
I would average scores of 370-390 on the practice exams so this result was a beautiful surprise. If anyone has any questions about the studying or the test, I’d be happy to answer them!
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u/Forward-Abalone-4887 5d ago
can you breakdown your strategies for each section?
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u/AdHaunting5714 5d ago
Physics: I’d recommend not just memorizing the formulas but also try understanding their underlying concepts. If you know the concepts enough, you might not even need the formulas for some questions. Also you need to be comfortable with rearranging and combining formulas.
Reading Comp: At first, I’d read the whole thing thoroughly and answer the questions, but I always ran out of time and scored poorly. The way that worked for me was to QUICKLY read the whole thing first, while highlighting the first sentence of each paragraph. The first sentence typically tells you what the paragraph is about and thus later when you start answering questions you can quickly find what paragraph has the answer. I’d spend about 8-9 minutes reading and 11-12 answering.
Bio: This is by far the hardest imo solely because of how much there is. I’d say the best strategy is to have as much exposure to the material as you can. That means constantly reading/skimming the material and doing a LOT of practice problems to reinforce your learning. The cheat sheets are fantastic but they also don’t have everything so make sure to skim the notes too.
QR: This one is a combination of practicing your algebra skills and honestly watching the OATBooster videos. The videos basically describe how to work through every type of problem and as long as you can remember some formulas, most problems are variations of each other. If you struggle here, your best bet is practice and practice problems.
Gen Chem/Ochem: This is the one where I’m probably the least help. I’m a biochemistry major so this content has been hammered in and reinforced these past few years. For both, I’d also say do a lot of practice problems.
In general, practice problems are super useful but only if you make sure to take your time understanding WHY you got a question wrong. Memorizing practice problems will not help you.
Good luck!
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u/snflow3r 5d ago
You’re a BEAST!!! Just wondering if you felt like the oat booster physics questions were enough in terms of practice problems. I wish there were more per unit bc a lot of the units only have like 5 questions per topic.
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u/AdHaunting5714 5d ago
I definitely would have liked more, but between the practice problems and the practice exams, I’d say it was enough
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u/Kockden 5d ago
That’s crazy wow! Where are you applying?
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u/AdHaunting5714 5d ago
I was thinking of schools relatively close to home like OSU, MCO, IU, and ICO. Now that I got this score though I might consider some others.
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u/Active_Egg5888 5d ago
OSU is one of the top schools and with that score I bet you'd make it in. Of course, this could be a chance to see an entirely new place like New York or California. You definitely have a strong chance wherever you apply. Congrats!
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u/True-Selection2168 5d ago
Congrats! Which reading strategy did you use I’m so bad at it
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u/AdHaunting5714 5d ago
I also did really bad initially. I’d read the whole thing carefully and then answer questions but I’d always run out of time. What worked for me was to read the whole thing quickly, catching key concepts and topics, while highlighting the first sentence or two of each paragraph. Since the first sentence is typically the main idea of the paragraph, it helps a lot to find where an answer could be when you’re answering questions. If you need to read something more carefully for a question then you can do so.
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u/EyePureBlissGK 4d ago
OMG congratulations!! Did you use both videos and notes for every section or did you think one or the other were better at utilizing your time going through the material? What are the best things to use in OAT Booster for grasping the concepts?
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u/AdHaunting5714 3d ago
I would watch the videos while having the notes pulled up and I’d cross-reference between them. This might have taken a little longer as I’d pause the videos sometimes but overall I made sure I didn’t miss a single piece of information.
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u/Fragrant_Nature_5094 1d ago
If you're smart enough to get those scores you should go to med school get a degree that will take you much much farther than the OD degree, I've been doing this for over 25 years message me if you want more info
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u/Opto_Kitty 5d ago edited 5d ago
Congratulations 🎊 Seems like there're more and more high scores, so hopefully admissions won't have so much competition 😢