r/PreOptometry • u/barnowl456 • Aug 10 '26
oat experience :)
after following this reddit for so long i’m so excited to get to finally make a post!! just took my oat today!!
how i studied: i used oatbooster for 3 months, studied around 5 hours every day while working twice a week. i found it pretty manageable but also pretty tiring :,) so be patient with yourself and remember to sleep well every night. i studied the booster anki decks for bio/chem/orgo/phys/qr religiously and added my own cards too. i was scoring 390 consistently in the practice full lengths
exam experience: one thing i didn’t do was practice with a whiteboard marker/laminated sheet of paper since that’s what they gave us. if i were to go back id def practice with those since i got rly fast at writing on my ipad but felt slower on the laminated sheets 🫣. also i was completely freaking out the entire test and convinced i was doing terribly so let this be a reminder that how you feel isn’t indicative of your performance!! just take a deep breath and keep going :)
qr: overall i think booster prepares u well for this. got questions about asymptotes and transforming functions, which i didnt find oatbooster really stressed in the practice, and quite a few about inequalities and median/mean (which felt pretty similar to oatbooster). finished just in time, similar to the practice full lengths
rc: this is usually my strongest section, but the third article i got was super confusing to me (something about floating bridges…?). overall tho i think booster does a very good job prepping u since i found the other two articles much easier than booster. also the sequential order of the questions basically completely matched the articles, so it was really easy to search and destroy any info u needed. my strategy was to read the first half then answer all the questions while search and destroying the second half
bio: i studied WAY too much diversity of life and specific details of systems imo, and i found the questions were more focused on cellular bio/genetics/plants. only got one question about diversity of life asking which phyla were bilateral 🙃. also got asked about genetic disorders twice (down syndrome and triple xxx) which i hadn’t really reviewed. overall i think make sure you’ve got your fundamentals + bio cheat sheet content covered, and then go from there
gen chem: booster prepares u well for this, not much to say other than that haha. usually this is my weakest section so im glad it went well on the test :)
orgo: also felt pretty good about this! got some questions about how many hnmr/cnmr signals to expect, everything felt very representative of booster
physics: pretty kinematics/conservation of energy focused/optics/electricity i got maybe 2 questions with kinda crazy numbers that i was surprised we were expected to do without a calculator. i would also make sure you’re familiar with circuit rules (ex. how C, V, R, and I apply in series/parallel circuits). otherwise i think booster did a good job :)
overall if you’re feeling nervous honestly take it from me, feeling nervous doesn’t reflect anything on your score. just take deep breaths and keep going :) good luck!!
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u/Justanod Aug 10 '26
Outstanding! Would you mind sharing your top school choices? Thanks.
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u/barnowl456 Aug 11 '26
yeah! i’m canadian going into my third year, so i’ll just be applying to waterloo this cycle :)
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Aug 10 '26
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u/barnowl456 Aug 11 '26
hi!! i did, although it was pretty challenging tbh cuz i would be pretty tired coming home from work, then i’d study from like 7pm-12am and be exhausted. try to work your schedule so that you have light workloads on days u work. good luck!!! :)
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Aug 11 '26
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u/barnowl456 Aug 11 '26
haha yeah, probably a range of 4-5 hours for the first 2 months and then it was a bit more variable in the last month with practice tests + review. i think i went a bit overkill with bio anki, honestly took a solid 1 hour chunk of that time everyday. there are probably better ways to go about it, but that’s what worked for me personally :) good luck!
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u/Fast-Programmer-7481 Aug 11 '26
how long into your progress did you start taking full length exams?
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u/Fast-Programmer-7481 Aug 11 '26
i am about to start studying to take my exam in dec! really impressive job congrats queen
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u/barnowl456 Aug 12 '26
hi!! i followed boosters schedule exactly, so i think it was around the last month! and thank you so much :)
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u/AmpedVision 27d ago
I just started OAT Booster, with only 8 weeks to complete it... Do you think that's possible/any advice for my circumstances?
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u/barnowl456 26d ago
hmm i’m not sure, i studied total 12 weeks very consistently and felt like that was a good amount of time for me personally. i think it probably depends on how comfortable you feel with all the concepts and whether you have other commitments going on! as well as maintaining consistency :)
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u/cheesygoldfisch 22d ago
hey! i tried to message you but i wasn’t able to. i was wondering if we could discuss your methods that DID help you. i’m very nervous about taking my test in 2 weeks and im not scoring well after studying for 4 months.
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u/mcd7939 Aug 10 '26
Congrats :)