I took the oat recently and wanted to share my experience in case it could help anyone else.
Material:
- Kaplan Book + 2 Included practice tests
- KhanAcademy (General Chem, Organic, some physics)
- FeralisBiologyNotes.pdf
- TaxonomyCheatSheet.xlsx
- OAT sample test on ADA website
- DAT sample test on ADA website
- Kaplan free OAT test they administer periodically to get you to sign up for their course.
Biology
I have a Biology background from my previous degree so all the human related bio was easy for me. My weakest points were the taxonomy and plant info. I feel that the Kaplan book is a pretty decent source of info. The taxonomy spreadsheet was a pretty good summary of important info. Feralis bio notes were critical for a summary about plants but I feel I should have used some other book specifically to understand it better. I stressed out hard during my test on this section as so many questions confused me and forced me to come back later.
General Chemistry
During prepration for chem, I realized how weak this subject actually was. But the Kaplan book was quick to refresh me. For any concepts that you don't feel like you understand 100%, watch videos from KhanAcademy.
Organic Chemistry
My weakest subject overall. It took a lot of study to improve my starting score of 280. I even just googled for random university questions pages about organic reactions. I think the majority of this was just familiarizing myself with reactions. KhanAcademy was by far my most important source for understanding how and why things happened. I think I watched almost every video in organic chemistry on their site. The Kaplan book wasn't good for me and I had so much trouble completing the organic section in it.
Reading Comprehension
I started off around 290 but quickly improved my score once I figured out what method worked for me and how to manage time. The Kaplan method of creating an outline of the article didnt work for me as I usually ran out of time. I ended up just starting with reading a question and then going to look for the answer in the passage. The Kaplan tests are pretty good in giving you some practice and I don't really know if theres any other way to improve. On the real test, the most annoying thing is that the mouse scroll doesn't work in their software so you are forced to use the keyboard or click the arrow to scroll down.
Physics
The Kaplan book didn't have enough material or questions for this and I again had to hit up Google to find any questions for specfic topics. The Kaplan books didnt explain many concepts properly and so KhanAcademy was pretty good at filling in the gaps. Some tricky questions on the exam caused me to actually run out of time in this section.
Quantitative Reasoning
My strongest subject and probably the only topic I actually reviewed here was probability.
Practice Scores (sorry I don't have the breakdown for my practice tests since I reset them)
Kaplan 1: 320
Kaplan Free test: 340
Kaplan 2: 360
Actual exam:
QR: 400
RC: 400
BIO: 400
GC: 390
OC: 370
PHY: 400
TS: 400
AA: 390
Make sure you mark tough questions and don't waste time on them until the end of the section because you definitely don't want to lose easy points.
Material:
- Kaplan Book + 2 Included practice tests
- KhanAcademy (General Chem, Organic, some physics)
- FeralisBiologyNotes.pdf
- TaxonomyCheatSheet.xlsx
- OAT sample test on ADA website
- DAT sample test on ADA website
- Kaplan free OAT test they administer periodically to get you to sign up for their course.
Biology
I have a Biology background from my previous degree so all the human related bio was easy for me. My weakest points were the taxonomy and plant info. I feel that the Kaplan book is a pretty decent source of info. The taxonomy spreadsheet was a pretty good summary of important info. Feralis bio notes were critical for a summary about plants but I feel I should have used some other book specifically to understand it better. I stressed out hard during my test on this section as so many questions confused me and forced me to come back later.
General Chemistry
During prepration for chem, I realized how weak this subject actually was. But the Kaplan book was quick to refresh me. For any concepts that you don't feel like you understand 100%, watch videos from KhanAcademy.
Organic Chemistry
My weakest subject overall. It took a lot of study to improve my starting score of 280. I even just googled for random university questions pages about organic reactions. I think the majority of this was just familiarizing myself with reactions. KhanAcademy was by far my most important source for understanding how and why things happened. I think I watched almost every video in organic chemistry on their site. The Kaplan book wasn't good for me and I had so much trouble completing the organic section in it.
Reading Comprehension
I started off around 290 but quickly improved my score once I figured out what method worked for me and how to manage time. The Kaplan method of creating an outline of the article didnt work for me as I usually ran out of time. I ended up just starting with reading a question and then going to look for the answer in the passage. The Kaplan tests are pretty good in giving you some practice and I don't really know if theres any other way to improve. On the real test, the most annoying thing is that the mouse scroll doesn't work in their software so you are forced to use the keyboard or click the arrow to scroll down.
Physics
The Kaplan book didn't have enough material or questions for this and I again had to hit up Google to find any questions for specfic topics. The Kaplan books didnt explain many concepts properly and so KhanAcademy was pretty good at filling in the gaps. Some tricky questions on the exam caused me to actually run out of time in this section.
Quantitative Reasoning
My strongest subject and probably the only topic I actually reviewed here was probability.
Practice Scores (sorry I don't have the breakdown for my practice tests since I reset them)
Kaplan 1: 320
Kaplan Free test: 340
Kaplan 2: 360
Actual exam:
QR: 400
RC: 400
BIO: 400
GC: 390
OC: 370
PHY: 400
TS: 400
AA: 390
Make sure you mark tough questions and don't waste time on them until the end of the section because you definitely don't want to lose easy points.
