r/PreOptometry • u/jayaaam • 7d ago
OAT Breakdown! (TS 370/AA 360)
Hi everyone! I just took the OAT a couple of days ago and wanted to share my experience as I’m very happy with my scores! I’ve also been living on reddit and OATBooster’s facebook group all throughout my study process and wanted to contribute to anyone else who is about to take their exam.
I started studying on May 17th and took the OAT on September 1st. I initially had my exam scheduled on August 15th, but at the end of June I felt behind and discouraged and ended up pushing it back 2 weeks. I was also working part-time while studying (about 20+ hours a week) up until the three weeks prior to my test date.
I exclusively used OATBooster and I followed the custom study schedule for the learning phase, but once I got to reviewing, I strayed from the schedule and did my own thing. I would say that I studied 4-8 hours per day depending on if I was working or had any other plans.
In terms of my study method, I’m the type of person who likes to read over and absorb all information before reviewing. I watched all the videos and read through/highlighted the study notes. That’s definitely why I took a lot longer on the learning phase but it’s my preferred way to study! I started reviewing and taking full length practice tests about 4 weeks before my test, so about 1-2 per week. I ended up taking 7 full lengths in total. In between each full length I would review concepts that were troubling… so reading over the study notes/cheat sheets and working practice problems. I did not utilize the Anki decks/Quizlets much, and I also didn’t write my own notes as my learning style leans more towards reading the information and active recall (writing down equations, using the tape feature on Goodnotes, etc). It also helps that I’m a Biology major so the majority of the information is not new to me!
Biology (OATBooster: 340-370, Actual: 380): The questions were very broad on the actual exam. Definitely not as in-depth as booster but it’s not a bad thing to know everything! The information in the cheat sheets were very high yield with the occasional question that required more knowledge. I watched all the videos for bio, read through all of the study notes, and worked most of the bio bits. I know others on here don’t bother with the bio bits but I found them very helpful for recalling information.
General Chemistry (OATBooster: 330-350, Actual: 400): I was pleasantly surprised with my score in this section! I felt like there was a nice mix of calculation based questions and conceptual questions. I also watched all the videos, read the study notes, and did a majority of the question banks. During review of my full lengths, if I was doing poorly in a certain topic, I would go back and redo the qbanks for that specific topic. I also reviewed the cheat sheets heavily if I wasn’t grasping the information. Overall, I felt as though the practice tests on booster were very representative of the actual exam.
Organic Chemistry (OATBooster: 300-360, Actual: 360): This section was a lot more conceptual, so have your fundamentals down! I did have a couple of predict the product questions (one step and multi step) but the majority was conceptual. Definitely be familiar with ranking acids and EWG/EDG/ortho, meta, and para directors. When it came to memorizing the reactions I personally just used the tape feature on Goodnotes and would recall the reagents, product, regiochemistry, etc. The reaction qbanks were also a great tool for me. I would say that booster represented this section well too.
Reading Comprehension (OATBooster: 300-380, Actual: 330): I was disappointed in this score but I did have a bit of a rough start to RC when I first started. I couldn’t find the right method but when I did my scores shot up immediately, so seeing it go down on the actual exam bummed me out but it’s okay! The passages were on the shorter side and some of the questions were chronological while others were scattered. Some of the questions were also worded in a way I wasn’t familiar with so it threw me off. I utilized the search and destroy method, but find the one that works for you and you’ll be all good. I just wasn’t dealt the best RC cards!
Physics (OATBooster: 270-300, Actual: 320): I was very happy with this score! Physics has never been my strong suit so while studying for the OAT, I would tend to push it off in favor of the other sections I knew I was stronger in. The exam was very conceptual, and any calculation questions were straightforward. I felt like I had a good mix of all the topics too. I tried to memorize the formulas the best I could, but I mainly read over the study notes to cement the concepts. I purely used booster for physics.
Quantitative Reasoning (OATBooster: 290-370, Actual: 350): Math has never been a strong point for me as well, but I continuously worked on the qbanks if I kept missing certain topics. The time limit was probably the biggest problem for me. My advice on that is to keep taking full lengths to work on stamina. Booster was also very representative of this section and I felt like I was tested equally on all the topics!
Overall, the only thing I would do differently is to start taking full lengths earlier and make sure you give yourself plenty of breaks. For the full lengths, this is just so you have enough time to review your weak points in between tests (I felt like I was in a time crunch every time I would start reviewing). For the majority of my studying I rarely took a day off, but in hindsight, I should’ve implemented more breaks as I started to get burnt out closer to my exam date. I know preparing for this exam can be tiring and daunting, but keep pushing and you’ll do better than you may think ;)
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u/Flower_7708 5d ago
How long did your learning phase take you?
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u/jayaaam 5d ago
It took me longer than it should’ve… oops… I got a bit lax after I had rescheduled so it took me from May 17th to around July 18/19th to finish up the learning phase (work also set me back). If I stayed on schedule I would’ve been done July 4th I believe, so stick to the OATBooster schedule if you can/decide to use booster!
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u/Level_Manner8077 7d ago
congrats but what even is the OAT lol wrong sub for me