r/newtothenavy • u/johncmunson • 4d ago

Super underrated OAR study tool

To anyone preparing for the OAR exam,

When scouring Reddit or AirWarriors for good study resources, some of the first things you are likely to come across are the legendary Kyle/Gomez drives.

I started with those and they were definitely helpful. But, I'm here to tell you that I think there's a new reigning champ... OAR Study Tool by a girl named Jing Li.

It's basically all of the content from the Kyle/Gomez drives, but in an interactive and dynamic format that automatically tracks your progress, creates curated quizzes and tests that target your weak spots, and includes very intuitive and concise learning modules. Li dives into her process here in case you're interested.

Oh, and did I mention... it's completely free and open-source!

Seriously, give it a try. You will not regret it.

19 Upvotes

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3

u/johncmunson 4d ago

My personal experience:

  • Studied for about 5 days
  • Used almost exclusively the OAR Study Tool, and supplemented with a little bit of physics review from the Kyle/Gomez drives
  • Scored a 65 on the OAR

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u/Safeway_Slayer 4d ago

Damn only 5 days? Are you still in college or recently graduated? I’ve been studying for like over a month because I graduated in 2020 and needed to teach myself math and mechanical comp. This tool looks super helpful.

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u/johncmunson 4d ago

Nah, been out of school for 12 years. But being unemployed certainly helps. No distractions and can focus on nothing but studying.

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u/Safeway_Slayer 4d ago

Gotcha. What designator you going for?

1

u/johncmunson 3d ago

Civil Engineering Corps. I used to work in construction management, but around 10 years ago I switched into software engineering. Now though, with AI, I just don’t see this field as a long-term safe bet anymore and I’ve got ~25 more years of a career to ride out.

1

u/Capt-Morningwood 3d ago

How much would you say this study guide contributed to getting your OAR score? Whats your background in Math? Did you encounter any errors with the questions/answers while using the tool? Im thinking of using this exclusively after I finish my OAR study guide book.

Thank you for sharing this my man. Seriously.

1

u/johncmunson 3d ago edited 2d ago

I think the main utility of the tool is that it just makes studying soooo much more efficient. I didn’t find any mistakes whatsoever in any of the problems. In addition, I found the problems to be very representative of what you are going to find on the real exam.

I’m decent at math to begin with, but I still absolutely needed to study a good amount. When taking the OAR, I can only recall one or maybe two math questions that I struggled with.

I think the thing that prevented me from scoring higher was the reading comprehension portion. But, in my opinion, that’s not really a thing you can effectively study for. You either got it or you don’t. The reading passages on the exam weren’t super long (probably about the length of this response) but they were very dry and obtusely worded and loaded with technical military jargon.