2.5 weeks left til my OAT...I feel pretty screwed

[chb64]

I made such a stupid decision to take this Microbiology course along with studying for my OAT. It has labs every week and lab reports due every week that take hours to write. IMO its completely unreasonable, but I didn't think it would be this much work (I wrote MCAT before and was going to rewrite it this year so this isn't my first time going through the material). I thought I could manage the course + OAT studying but boy was I wrong.

I still have one more assignment + lab exam this upcoming week, next week I have another lab report + critical essay due (both for this microbiology course). The week after is my OAT (writing July 31).

July 31 is the last date to write it for Waterloo's Sept 2014 admission. I can't really push it to a later date because then I can't apply this year I'm already pretty old and don't want to waste another year (just finished my 5th year of undergrad!). Guess I should've thought of that before taking this microbiology course (I only took it this summer b/c my school doesn't allow non biology majors to enroll in it during the school year...)

So I'm wondering what I should do now. Skimp on my assignments and probably get a B+ in the course, so I can focus at least SOME time to my OAT, or what. I am pretty heavily screwed. I am not even done content review (most of orgo is done, but have lots of gen chem/physics/bio to do. I can cram bio but I can't really cram the others).

any suggestions on what I should do...? I know what a stupid decision this was, so please don't make me feel worse than I already do Just need some advice. Please and thanks.

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[Cafeda]

Hey there! At this point, I don't think cramming would do you any good. How well did you do in your chem/phys/bio classes? You either know the material or you don't, so if you did well in your classes I actually think you should be fine on the OAT. I crammed heavily for three days before my test (not a good idea), but I actually feel like I would have scored about the same even had I not done that.

If I were in your position, I wouldn't sacrifice doing really well in micro for more time to study for the OAT. Try to finish your micro assignments as efficiently and as early as possible. Use your extra time (maybe before going to bed) to review over concepts that are really fuzzy to you rather than doing a full content review of everything.

 

[chb64]

hey thanks so much for your reply!!

Can I ask - how do I know which topics are high yield for OAT? looking through the Kaplan book, it doesn't tell you this information. Can you (or anyone else) please let me know which topics (besides the ones you listed) are high yield for OAT? I will make sure I know those.

I did well in physics/bio classes, but chem/organic chem I have always struggled with (and did VERY poorly in organic!). I am particular worried about organic as i never took Part II of orgo in university so I have to teach it to myself (ketol/enol reactions, and stuff like that). Apparently elimination reactions are high yield on OAT???

Also - which equations do I have to memorize? Everything the kaplan book mentions? That seems like an awful lot

Thanks for your replies. Much appreciated.

 

[Cafeda]

I'm not sure if there are any lists of topics that are high yield. The ones that I mentioned were just topics that I expected to show up and did.

The organic section had a lot of reactions, but I can't pinpoint any particular type (it has been a few weeks since I took it). Since you don't have much time, I wouldn't recommend memorizing a ton of reactions. My ochem 2 professor drilled mechanisms in my head, so on the OAT I looked at the reagents given and drew arrows until I figured out the product. This helped a lot when I didn't know instantly what the product would be.

Kaplan made physics way more difficult in my opinion. It's more similar to the ADA practice test. The equations were pretty basic. Most of the questions were just concept based.

 

[Cafeda]

double post

 

[chb64]

OK, thanks a lot

So what about the Quantitative Reasoning section - do I need to memorize any formulas? (Kaplan's book goes through lots of geometrical equations).

 

[Cafeda]

Be very, very good at triangles! Also be very quick. The on screen calculator was more of a hindrance to me, so try not to rely on it. I don't remember any particular formulas.

 

[chb64]

yeahh so I've heard! Is the on-screen calculator function the same as the one on your computer? Do I need to memorize trig functions?

 

[Cafeda]

Yes, know your trig functions. The calculator can be seen in the official guide (page 23).

 

[chb64]

thank you Cafeda for all your help,much appreciated!

 

[dylennon]

What kind of triangle problems are we talking about? I feel like I know my triangles, but any time I feel confident in something that means I'm going to get destroyed. Put that with Kaplan's (apparent) missing the mark on the QR section I feel like I don't know what I'm getting in to with that. Anywhere you can get good examples of the triangle problems?

 

[Cafeda]

deleted

 

[dylennon]

Interesting. So are they mostly right triangle/SOHCAHTOA problems or do they have some Isosceles/Equilateral mixed in? Does it get trickier with finding the area of a rhombus by breaking it up in to triangles or those really involved problems? Sorry for all the questions! You've been very helpful.

 

[Cafeda]

deleted

 

[steviey2493]

For triangle questions with only that simple calculator, how do you do a function of say sin^-1 when you have your value when you need to find an angle?

 

[Cafeda]

You don't. The choices have the function in the answer.

 

[steviey2493]

You don't. The choices have the function in the answer.

Awesome, thank you!

 

[chb64]

Hey Cafeda, can I ask - is the QR 100% triangles? (at least for the geometric shapes). There's so many formulas in Kaplan's book (volume/perimeter/area) for a whole bunch of shapes. And there's a lot on calculating the areas of geometric shapes (which you have to break them down into triangles, then figure out the area of those, subtract from total area, etc). I really don't think I'd even have time to be doing all of that on the test!

Kaplan also seems to stress about knowing each type of special triangles and the side lengths of each (like the 45-45-90 triangle have side lengths of 1,1, sq rt(2)). Should I know these too ?

thanks again for your help.

 

[Cafeda]

deleted

 

[Loptometriste]

You guys are aware that you agreed not to share information regarding questions on your exam when you signed up for the OAT, right?

 

[Cafeda]

deleted

 

[Moose A Moose]

You guys are aware that you agreed not to share information regarding questions on your exam when you signed up for the OAT, right?

Spare me..

 

[tbair200]

Spare me..

 

[chb64]

UPDATE: Wrote my OAT today. Did better than I thought I would given my lack of preparation:

Biology: 360
Gen Chem: 390
Organic chem: 310
Reading Comprehension: 330
Physics: 340
QR: 310
TT: 350, AA = 340

Bio: now I understand what people meant by "random" questions. Scope of this section is very general (plants, ecology, human physio, etc). I only spent a few hours studying for this section, since I am a former bio major and had my MCAT summary bio notes from last year that helped a lot in my predicament this year haha. My score could've definitely been better had I studied more!

Gen Chem: This was nice, much easier than what I anticipated. Lots of concept-based questions, not too many calculations. This too, I only spent a few hours studying (read over my MCAT Gen Chem notes) but did spend some time earlier in the summer going over the concepts I struggled with (so total more than just a couple hours I guess but lots of it was crammed in the night before/the day of - very bad idea and stressful, please don't do this to yourself).

Organic: I was coming along quite nicely until this hit. I knew this was going to be my weaker areas and I spent quite some time studying for this section (much more than the other sections). Did about 50 of the OAT destroyer questions and OPTED, but I just ran outta time at the end and had to guess randomly on the last few! I was so mad at myself because I wasted too much time on the reaction questions (which I was going to get wrong anyway) and lost some easy points on the last few (which were not reaction-based).

Reading Comprehension: This started off VERY BAD. I was still so angry at myself and frustrated that I missed the last few orgo questions that I dived into this blindly. I was simultaneously trying to read the passage and answer the questions at the same time, with no systematic approach, too freaked out to think properly. I slowed down on the the last two (which were much more pleasant to read than the first one), and made myself some summary notes. I liked that the paragraphs were numbered for you. Did NOT like how you could only see one question at a time.

Physics: This started off really nice. I had TONS of calculation based questions, but they were, for the most part, very simple. Unfortunately I began running out of time and had to guess on the last 2-3 questions which sucked as I knew I could've answered those. In comparison to the other sections, I studied much more for physics. Did about 60 of the physics Destroyer questions (which were wayyy harder than the real thing).

Quantitative Reasoning: HARD. I had no idea how to do several of them. Guess and move on, is all I can say here! Kaplan's coverage of this sucked. I only did about ~40 practice probs from my OAT destroyer book but this section was so time-constrained, I could barely think. I was panicking at the start since I had to rush on my physics just prior. I was VERY RELIEVED to see that my score was 300+...I was expecting ~250 since I guessed on so many!

I crammed in lots of material the few days before my exam and it was incredibly stressful. I'm a bit disappointed as I could've done better on my bio/organic/physics, but overall, I am happy with how it turned out given my lack of preparation!

Good luck to everyone else writing in the next couple weeks!