Toa Taro
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(EXTREMELY LONG POST INCOMING)
So I took the OAT last week and I was very happy with my score so I just wanted to write a breakdown to help any future OAT writers! I studied over a span of 3 and 1/2 months while I was working at an optometry clinic for 4 days a week. Because of this, I barely studied on the days that I worked (1-2 hours) and even when I did study on my days off, I felt like I wasn't studying efficiently. However, I was still able to succeed! One disclaimer though is that I wrote the MCAT in the past and that likely attributed to me doing well on the OAT since I was able to remember some science concepts a bit more easily (honestly though, I feel like I didn't remember much from the the mcat and it only helped with improving my reading speed lol).
Study materials
Kaplan Book/Practice Bank: 6.5/10
So I originally bought the Kaplan book with the practice bank because it was one of the cheapest options for OAT prep and I had also used Kaplan for MCAT prep. For the first month and a half, I just read through the book and made notes as I was going along. I did feel like that was helpful but looking back, it was likely a waste of time. Going through the book definitely helped me to "internalize" some concepts but converting the info from the book into notes was just too time consuming. Additionally, the practice bank was lowkey doo-doo. The questions were a lot harder than the actual exam and trying to go through the practice bank was very discouraging. After trying to use Kaplan for the first 2 months of my studying I finally decided to switch over after I got a 310 on Kaplan test 1 lol.
OAT Booster: 9.5/10
I really gotta give a shout out to the pre-optometry subreddit for recommending me OAT booster after I posted a few questions about Kaplan prep. Once I saw all the recommendations for Booster, I decided to give it a shot for the last month of my studying. That was definitely the best decision I made for my OAT prep! Not much to say about booster other than that it was an amazing resource for the OAT. A lot of helpful videos, "cheat sheets" and practice that was fairly representative of the OAT. If I ever met an alternate universe me that hadn't written the OAT yet, I would instantly recommend that they use OAT Booster for the majority of their prep. However, I do believe that using Kaplan along side booster helped to solidify many of the concepts within my memory so ultimately, I would recommend using Booster as the primary resource, as well as other resources to support/compliment the booster info.
Preparation "Schedule"
Basically, for the first month and a half, I tried to go through all the chapters of the Kaplan book to write down notes. I tried to keep a routine of doing 1 chapter on a work day and 4 chapters on days off but working at the same time made me quite tired/lazy on some days which caused me to fall behind on my note taking schedule. Again, l did feel like that was mostly a waste of time but I also felt like it helped to solidify a few topics within my memory. The last half of my preparation was pretty much just reviewing the notes and doing practice at the same time. I did around a test per week for the last 2 months of my studying as well. Other than that, I didn't really follow a "study schedule". I just reviewed what I felt needed reviewing! (it's always best to "try" to stick to a schedule though 👀)
Practice Tests
I did a total of 7 tests (Kaplan diagnostic, Kaplan test 1, 5 Oat Booster tests).
Diagnostic AA: 340, Kaplan test 1 AA: 310, Booster test 2 AA: 360, Booster test 3 AA: 350, Booster test 7 AA: 350, Booster test 8 AA: 360, Booster test 9 AA: 360
(Disclaimer: I did the diagnostic 1 month after going through the Kaplan book)
Booster was definitely more representative than Kaplan. Although some people may say the booster tests are harder, I felt that my exam was a pretty similar difficult to the booster tests. I think it's just that the scoring on the actual OAT is just more forgiving than the booster practice which is why I ended up scoring 20 points higher on my actual than my practice.
Biology (400)
I felt like the biology here was fairly similar to booster's exams but the exam I got was a bit easier since I only got a handful of taxonomy/diversity of life questions. I definitely recommend doing all of the booster biology practice tests before the exam since a few practice questions were quite similar to some actual questions ( I averaged around 350-370 on practice). I actually did 4 biology practice tests the day before my exam and I’m glad I did since it helped to solidify quite a few concepts within my mind. If you can, just try to memorize all the explanations behind answers you get wrong. For bio prep, I mainly studied biology from the Kaplan book and wrote down notes on certain sections from the Feralis notes. I'm the type of person who reads through notes multiple times to memorize but if that's not your style, hopefully the Booster flashcards can be more of use! A small disclaimer though, my undergraduate degree was in medical sciences so all that background info definitely helped with my success here.
General Chemistry (400)
I honestly don't have much to say about this section. I was sort of surprised by my actual score since I was mainly getting around 360-370 on this section. I had a good mix of conceptual and simple calculation questions on my actual exam and overall, it felt fairly similar to booster. One thing I would recommend doing is getting familiar with compound names and their formulas. This is going to sound sort of stupid but one question I had mentioned aluminum hydroxide and I completely forgot how many hydroxides the compound contained which led to me losing some time lol.
Organic Chemistry (370)
I knew this would be one of my weaker sections even during my practice (average of 340-360) so this wasn't too surprising. The questions were overall pretty similar to practice but I felt that I only got a lower score because I ran out of time from bio and gen chem. I will say that memorizing the booster reaction sheet is VERY helpful for this section so try your best to memorize all that. The booster videos were also EXTREMELY HELPFUL for memorizing all those reactions so I would definitely recommend going through those as well. Of course, be familiar with acidity/nucleophilicity trends, SN1/SN2 conditions, spectroscopy, etc.
Reading Comprehension (370)
This section I was sort of surprised by. I was averaging around 380 or so on practice and even got a 400 on a practice test. I definitely spent the least amount of time preparing for this section though because I felt confident in my practice scores. The questions were overall pretty similar to booster but I feel like I only got a lower score because of how different layout of the test was to booster and how laggy/weird the page was when I was trying to scroll. I actually had to rush through and guess the last 4 or so questions as well so yeah. Sort of a weird experience for me personally.
Physics (390)
Now this was a section I was very surprised by. It's very very true that booster physics is much harder than the actual OAT physics. My average for booster physics was 310 and I couldn't even break a 320 on a single timed practice test. The booster practice has quite a few questions that use "one off" formulas which makes the practice tests quite weird. You only really need the formulas from the booster physics formula sheet. Maybe I got lucky but on the actual test I got 2-3 simple momentum questions where I just needed to do a single mv = mv. A lot of the questions really were that simple. Of course there were a few harder questions included but not as many as the practice tests. Memorize all your formulas and be very familiar with newtonian forces (including translational equilibrium, what constant velocity means for forces, etc.) If you get a low score during practice, don't be discouraged! Just keep on memorizing those formulas!
Quantitative Reasoning (370)
This was another section I was surprised by. My average was around 370-380 on my practice and I even got a 400 on a practice test the day before the OAT. Perhaps I just got a harder QR section than normal, idk, but I was definitely thrown off by it once I finished the section. I actually felt like I bombed the section lol. I had to do A LOT of average and mean calculations so that was probably why I ran out of time a bit at the end. It was actually sort of crazy how many of those calculations I had to do. Overall, I would just recommend doing lots of practice and getting familiarized with that pop-up calculator (exact same as booster's). Do your best to be efficient when trying to do calculations as it will save you a lot of time if you get a calculation heavy test like I did. The QR booster videos, the algebra sheet, and the geometry sheet were all helpful so utilize those resources if you can!
Final thoughts
In the end, I would definitely recommend booster for your prep (however, don't be scared to use other resources to supplement booster). Again, the actual test and booster practice have fairly similar difficulty but the actual test will be a bit more forgiving in terms of their scoring. Additionally, the difficulty of each section on the actual test will slightly vary depending on the version you get on test day.
I apologize if this post is a bit "messy" but I hope it helps out anyone going through the OAT journey! I thank you for reading through this novel of a post and I wish you luck in your studying! 👍
So I took the OAT last week and I was very happy with my score so I just wanted to write a breakdown to help any future OAT writers! I studied over a span of 3 and 1/2 months while I was working at an optometry clinic for 4 days a week. Because of this, I barely studied on the days that I worked (1-2 hours) and even when I did study on my days off, I felt like I wasn't studying efficiently. However, I was still able to succeed! One disclaimer though is that I wrote the MCAT in the past and that likely attributed to me doing well on the OAT since I was able to remember some science concepts a bit more easily (honestly though, I feel like I didn't remember much from the the mcat and it only helped with improving my reading speed lol).
Study materials
Kaplan Book/Practice Bank: 6.5/10
So I originally bought the Kaplan book with the practice bank because it was one of the cheapest options for OAT prep and I had also used Kaplan for MCAT prep. For the first month and a half, I just read through the book and made notes as I was going along. I did feel like that was helpful but looking back, it was likely a waste of time. Going through the book definitely helped me to "internalize" some concepts but converting the info from the book into notes was just too time consuming. Additionally, the practice bank was lowkey doo-doo. The questions were a lot harder than the actual exam and trying to go through the practice bank was very discouraging. After trying to use Kaplan for the first 2 months of my studying I finally decided to switch over after I got a 310 on Kaplan test 1 lol.
OAT Booster: 9.5/10
I really gotta give a shout out to the pre-optometry subreddit for recommending me OAT booster after I posted a few questions about Kaplan prep. Once I saw all the recommendations for Booster, I decided to give it a shot for the last month of my studying. That was definitely the best decision I made for my OAT prep! Not much to say about booster other than that it was an amazing resource for the OAT. A lot of helpful videos, "cheat sheets" and practice that was fairly representative of the OAT. If I ever met an alternate universe me that hadn't written the OAT yet, I would instantly recommend that they use OAT Booster for the majority of their prep. However, I do believe that using Kaplan along side booster helped to solidify many of the concepts within my memory so ultimately, I would recommend using Booster as the primary resource, as well as other resources to support/compliment the booster info.
Preparation "Schedule"
Basically, for the first month and a half, I tried to go through all the chapters of the Kaplan book to write down notes. I tried to keep a routine of doing 1 chapter on a work day and 4 chapters on days off but working at the same time made me quite tired/lazy on some days which caused me to fall behind on my note taking schedule. Again, l did feel like that was mostly a waste of time but I also felt like it helped to solidify a few topics within my memory. The last half of my preparation was pretty much just reviewing the notes and doing practice at the same time. I did around a test per week for the last 2 months of my studying as well. Other than that, I didn't really follow a "study schedule". I just reviewed what I felt needed reviewing! (it's always best to "try" to stick to a schedule though 👀)
Practice Tests
I did a total of 7 tests (Kaplan diagnostic, Kaplan test 1, 5 Oat Booster tests).
Diagnostic AA: 340, Kaplan test 1 AA: 310, Booster test 2 AA: 360, Booster test 3 AA: 350, Booster test 7 AA: 350, Booster test 8 AA: 360, Booster test 9 AA: 360
(Disclaimer: I did the diagnostic 1 month after going through the Kaplan book)
Booster was definitely more representative than Kaplan. Although some people may say the booster tests are harder, I felt that my exam was a pretty similar difficult to the booster tests. I think it's just that the scoring on the actual OAT is just more forgiving than the booster practice which is why I ended up scoring 20 points higher on my actual than my practice.
Biology (400)
I felt like the biology here was fairly similar to booster's exams but the exam I got was a bit easier since I only got a handful of taxonomy/diversity of life questions. I definitely recommend doing all of the booster biology practice tests before the exam since a few practice questions were quite similar to some actual questions ( I averaged around 350-370 on practice). I actually did 4 biology practice tests the day before my exam and I’m glad I did since it helped to solidify quite a few concepts within my mind. If you can, just try to memorize all the explanations behind answers you get wrong. For bio prep, I mainly studied biology from the Kaplan book and wrote down notes on certain sections from the Feralis notes. I'm the type of person who reads through notes multiple times to memorize but if that's not your style, hopefully the Booster flashcards can be more of use! A small disclaimer though, my undergraduate degree was in medical sciences so all that background info definitely helped with my success here.
General Chemistry (400)
I honestly don't have much to say about this section. I was sort of surprised by my actual score since I was mainly getting around 360-370 on this section. I had a good mix of conceptual and simple calculation questions on my actual exam and overall, it felt fairly similar to booster. One thing I would recommend doing is getting familiar with compound names and their formulas. This is going to sound sort of stupid but one question I had mentioned aluminum hydroxide and I completely forgot how many hydroxides the compound contained which led to me losing some time lol.
Organic Chemistry (370)
I knew this would be one of my weaker sections even during my practice (average of 340-360) so this wasn't too surprising. The questions were overall pretty similar to practice but I felt that I only got a lower score because I ran out of time from bio and gen chem. I will say that memorizing the booster reaction sheet is VERY helpful for this section so try your best to memorize all that. The booster videos were also EXTREMELY HELPFUL for memorizing all those reactions so I would definitely recommend going through those as well. Of course, be familiar with acidity/nucleophilicity trends, SN1/SN2 conditions, spectroscopy, etc.
Reading Comprehension (370)
This section I was sort of surprised by. I was averaging around 380 or so on practice and even got a 400 on a practice test. I definitely spent the least amount of time preparing for this section though because I felt confident in my practice scores. The questions were overall pretty similar to booster but I feel like I only got a lower score because of how different layout of the test was to booster and how laggy/weird the page was when I was trying to scroll. I actually had to rush through and guess the last 4 or so questions as well so yeah. Sort of a weird experience for me personally.
Physics (390)
Now this was a section I was very surprised by. It's very very true that booster physics is much harder than the actual OAT physics. My average for booster physics was 310 and I couldn't even break a 320 on a single timed practice test. The booster practice has quite a few questions that use "one off" formulas which makes the practice tests quite weird. You only really need the formulas from the booster physics formula sheet. Maybe I got lucky but on the actual test I got 2-3 simple momentum questions where I just needed to do a single mv = mv. A lot of the questions really were that simple. Of course there were a few harder questions included but not as many as the practice tests. Memorize all your formulas and be very familiar with newtonian forces (including translational equilibrium, what constant velocity means for forces, etc.) If you get a low score during practice, don't be discouraged! Just keep on memorizing those formulas!
Quantitative Reasoning (370)
This was another section I was surprised by. My average was around 370-380 on my practice and I even got a 400 on a practice test the day before the OAT. Perhaps I just got a harder QR section than normal, idk, but I was definitely thrown off by it once I finished the section. I actually felt like I bombed the section lol. I had to do A LOT of average and mean calculations so that was probably why I ran out of time a bit at the end. It was actually sort of crazy how many of those calculations I had to do. Overall, I would just recommend doing lots of practice and getting familiarized with that pop-up calculator (exact same as booster's). Do your best to be efficient when trying to do calculations as it will save you a lot of time if you get a calculation heavy test like I did. The QR booster videos, the algebra sheet, and the geometry sheet were all helpful so utilize those resources if you can!
Final thoughts
In the end, I would definitely recommend booster for your prep (however, don't be scared to use other resources to supplement booster). Again, the actual test and booster practice have fairly similar difficulty but the actual test will be a bit more forgiving in terms of their scoring. Additionally, the difficulty of each section on the actual test will slightly vary depending on the version you get on test day.
I apologize if this post is a bit "messy" but I hope it helps out anyone going through the OAT journey! I thank you for reading through this novel of a post and I wish you luck in your studying! 👍
