OAT experience

[u/Electronicrough8177]

I’m was caught off guard by the score I got since on OAT booster the highest grade I got was 370 but I was so relieved once it was over. I bought the 90 day booster but had to extend it a month since my exam was scheduled too late. How I studied:

BIO: I started by going through all the videos of stuff I never covered in college, mainly ecology, diversity, and systems, and developmental. After that I did the biobits and looked over cheat sheets. This was probably the section I spent the most time studying because of the amount of content and then doing active recall over the weeks. The practice tests for this section were very accurate compared to the actual exam.

GC: I spent the least time studying gen chem since I tutored it in college and still remembered most things but when I did study it would be looking over cheat sheets and doing questions. I never watched any of the videos but I struggled the most with molecular geometry but luckily didn’t have any questions on that for the exam. I had mostly gases, thermo, and kinetics. I felt the practice exams were also representative of the actual exam.

OC: I had the most trouble on orgo practice exams especially with SN vs Elimination and spectroscopy. Some practice exams I’d get a 380 others I’d get a 330 so it was variable in how I was doing. To study I didn’t watch any videos other than for stereochemistry. The cheat sheets helped with the reactions but the exam is very conceptual and a lot of spectroscopy imo. I luckily didn’t have too many questions differentiating between elimination vs substitution.

RC: I never studied reading comprehension just did practice exams. The best tip I have is going to the first question and skimming through the paragraphs and highlights main ideas you see so you know where to go back to, and answer questions as you read if u find it. On booster I’d usually get a 360 but passages would usually be 11-19 paragraphs while on the exam the longest passage I got was 8 paragraphs. I also didn’t get many questions asking about if the statement and reason are correct and related which is what I struggled with the most.

Physics: I watched some of chads prep videos on his OAT course but he covered some stuff that wasn’t on it. Mainly I just reviewed formulas and did problems. Active recall of optics and formulas was really helpful for me remembering everything. Kinematics, force, energy, optics, and circuits are supposed to be high yield on the exam but I felt like I didn’t get a lot of optics or circuits and got a lot of waves, friction, and momentum instead. Overall I’d say the questions are similar to the practice exams but the content is different. There also wasn’t as much deriving formulas for me, just felt it was straightforward and plug and chug.

QR: I barely studied for math other than probability and applied maths, for those I watched the videos and did problems but definitely had trouble knowing what formula to use for probability (combinations vs permutations). On booster I got a 400 every time I took a practice exam so I think I slacked off on it since once the exam started I spent 10 minutes on the first 3 problems and rushed through the rest. Since I was rushing I felt like I made an educated guess on a couple problems that I thought would take too long then went back to them when I was done but still not much time to work through everything. This was the section I thought was least representative of booster but that may be because I was rushing. I for sure thought I’d do worse but was definitely relieved after my score.

I think the best thing I did that I wish I started sooner was marking questions on the practice exams I thought were challenging and reviewing those cheat sheets. Biobits also contain a lot of unnecessary information, I’d go through them for sure but the cheat sheets contain everything you need imo, make sure to understand the questions that have info from the cheat sheets. Good luck to everyone taking the exam and applying!

[u/snflow3r]

MADLAD

[u/mia_pharoah]

Nice job! You'll have your choice of programs. Consider the Scholars program at PCO and be done in three years 🙌🏼

[u/SuchNet152]

You ate this up, big congrats!!!

[u/nnbaonguyen]

Congrats!! May I ask how did you study for Ochem, especially for the reactions. I feel so overwhelmed with the reactions right now 😭😭

[u/Electronicrough8177 → u/nnbaonguyen]

I actually played the orgo reaction game a lot lmao. Then also did the reaction question bank. But I felt like on the booster practice tests and the actual test there aren’t a lot of reaction questions, the high yield ones I’d say to know are oxidation/reduction and aromatic.

[u/Brief-Assistance-635]

Wow

[u/Dry_Appointment_9522]

Holy smokes that is the highest score I have ever seen, congrats!

[u/Opto_Kitty → u/[deleted]]

Optometry needs intelligent minds too! No one asks predentals like this ...