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Hi everyone! I noticed there were not very many threads of people posting their OAT experiences and how it was impacted by COVID-19 so I thought I would share my experience! I took my OAT on June 20. I know some people had their exams canceled or rescheduled when the testing centers closed for a couple of weeks in March and April. Luckily my exam was not impacted, but they did have new rules in place which you can read about on the Prometric website. (Corona Virus Update | Prometric)
I studied for my Oat for about 3 months, the first two and a half months I was working and doing school at the same time, but sometime into the first month we went into quarantine and I was doing classes online as well working from home. This kind of work in my favor because it gave me more flexibility in being able to study for my OAT. I took the first month and a half to two months to relearn and teach myself the concepts because it had been over 2 years since I had taken them. I used CHADS videos on chadsprep.com I believe it was $50 for a 6-month subscription and it came with worksheets as well as quizzes at the end of each chapter. I will say some of the questions especially for physics are a little more difficult than what you would see on the OAT because they are multistep calculations and require a calculator but nonetheless they were really helpful in reinforcing the material. For subjects that were not on Chad's videos (bio, QR and Reading), I used the Kaplan 2020 OAT Prep Plus book. I bought this book on ebay used for like $20, but I've heard its usually not any different from the previous year's version so it doesn't hurt to get the older versions plus you get two exams with it which are great exposure for what it will literally look like (kaplan content tends to be a lot harder)!
During the last month of my studying, I practiced applying concepts using the 2012 DAT destroyer (the problems are a killer but it was SO HELPFUL). I definitely felt like I didn't know anything at first, but trust me the more you practice the better you will be. I would recommend spending the bulk of your time practicing problems, it's ok to get things wrong because you will learn more as you apply concepts and when you get something wrong you are more likely to remember it! What I would do is a set number of problems a day, as well as reading two passages from the list of weekly readings on the free version of DAT Bootcamp (super helpful to get you familiar with the science lingo used in most papers). In the evenings I would spend an hour or so reviewing flashcards/ quizlets I had made to really nail the basic concepts down and remind myself of what I had learned. During the last week of my exam, I trained myself for test day by doing 5 exams and only taking breaks, and drinking water as you would during the exam. This helped me a lot because I'm a very routine person also because my exam was in the afternoon (12-5) and I'm a huge morning person so I had to get myself accustomed to working up till 5 pm. For practice exams, using the 2006 ADA OAT PDF, 2006 ADA DAT PDF, the free exam on DAT Bootcamp, free DAT/ OAT exams on chadsprep.com, the free Gold Standard OAT prep the Kaplan diagnostic and the two exams that came with my Kaplan book. I administered the digital exams as if I was taking the test at the center ( I treated the PDF's as extra practice problems). I even wore my mask turned my phone to airplane mode, had a scratch paper with me, and didn't drink any water or go to the restroom unless it was my 15-minute break.
On the day before my exam I took the gold standard free OAT exam (it took about an hour), corrected it, and relaxed for the rest of the day. I wouldn't suggest doing any heavy studying so you don't psyche yourself out or start to doubt yourself. What I did was a workout watch some movies, and relaxed in bed. In the evening I did some yoga, a face mask, hair mask, I lasered my legs, exfoliated my body, did my nails, etc and had a full self-care night with some aromatherapy. It really helped me destress and relax so I felt replenished for the next day, I would suggest treating yourself and practicing some self-care / doing whatever sparks joy the day before so you don't go into your exam to stressed.
Now on to test day. The morning of my exam I did some stress relief yoga from a video I found on youtube, had my coffee, some oatmeal to keep me full, and packed some protein bars, water, and hand sanitizer before heading out! This video gives a pretty great overview of what to expect on test day.
Keep in mind that we are in a current pandemic so we must wear a mask to enter the testing center and during the entire duration. I was told if I take it off they would remind me to put it on, but the website does say they can refuse to let you take your test if you don't follow protocol. I just wore a surgical mask nothing fancy. During check-in, I handed my two forms of identification to the person at the front desk and I had to stand a couple of feet away. I was assigned a locker and had to sign some papers to sign in using a borrowed pen that I would hold on to until the end of my exam. I was handed two sheets of paper ( 4 sides total) and told if I needed more during my exam to just raise my paper in the air and they would collect it and replace it. The use of scratch paper is a temporary thing because of COVID. Usually, they hand out whiteboards or laminated paper but as a safety measure, they want to refrain from having people reuse materials. I had to take my mask off for a quick second to have my picture taken then I put it back on and kept it on until my break.
Tutorial
There's an optional 15 minute tutorial at the beginning of the test to teach you how to use the system and mark questions/highlight. If you have done any Kaplan Exams or DAT Bootcamp exams the system looks exactly the same, form marking questions, to highlighting and reviewing. Because of this I was already familiar with the system, but since I was told that taking notes was allowed during the tutorial I did the tutorial anyways. It doesn't take the full 15 minutes, but I let the tutorial run on the computer and I wrote down some notes for gen chem formulas, (pH, Henderson hassle back, etc) as well as for physics. I would highly suggest doing this because if you are anything like me, no matter how well you know something sometimes the nerves just get to you and you might blank out on an equation or two.
Bio:
Biology was a mix of everything. It was very random and jumped around to the point where one question was on genetics and the next on ecosystems. I'm a bio major so I just needed to do some brushing up, the 2020 Kaplan book was pretty helpful for brushing up but I WOULD NOT recommend it as your only source of studying unless you have a broad range of knowledge on the subjects (i have have taken genetics, physio, microbio or other upper-division courses). However, this worked well for me, and I just made sure to make flashcards and come up with mnemonics as I was studying and practicing problems from the DAT destroyer.
Gen Chem
I expected it to be much worse! Not as calculation heavy as the DAT destroyer /Kaplan exams / Chad's OAT exams (they will over-prepare you). It was very conceptual and had a bit of everything, acid-base, pH/pOH / periodic table trends/bond strength/ enthalpy, etc. Nothing to crazy and i def think chads OAT exams were super helpful for this as his explanations are *chefs kiss*. I didn't use the Kaplan book AT ALL for GC, it had been 3 years since I had taken gen-chem so I used chads' videos to reteach myself and they were a SAVER!
O chem
It was very conceptual, only one or two multistep synthesis and simple ones at that, a few predict the products, aromaticity, comparison of electron-withdrawing and deactivating groups, stereochemistry, some IUPAC, and 1 question on NMR. The dreaded organic chemistry. I will admit I didn't do too hot in my first semester of o-chem so I was quite nervous about this one, but again CHAD's Videos were a saver!!! His videos helped me really nail down the concepts. Again the questions on the actual OAT were so much more straightforward than those offered again in KAPLAN / CHAD's OAT prep / DAT destroyer and I would say the ADA OAT / DAT, as well as DAT Bootcamp, were great representations.
Reading and Comprehension
During my practice exams (Kaplan/ DAT Bootcamp) I used the search and destroy method. If the question asked something about the left ventricle, I would "command F" and type in "left ventricle", that usually seemed to work just fine for me and I was getting away with not reading the passages. However, during my OAT the spotlight search did not work!! I panicked because I thought I was doomed, I ended up still doing search and destroy but it took a longer than expected to have to search for keywords in the passage manually. I should have figured the spotlight search was not going to be a thing during the exam.
Break
To my surprise, my break was 30 minutes! I left the testing room had a snack, drank some water, and went to the bathroom I didn't take the entire 30 minutes, I believe when I came back into the room the clock still had 11 minutes left. I would suggest taking this break even if you think you don't need it. Let your eyes rest, get some fresh air, stretch your legs out and take even a 5-minute break.
Physics
I was super scared of physics because it is my weakest subject and I had the least amount of practice with it. There was a little bit of everything, kinematics, lenses, mirrors, forces, coulombic attractions etc. A good mix of conceptual and calculation problems. The problems were so much more simple than they were on any Kaplan Exam I took. For every single physics exam on Kaplan, I ran out of time and never finished and I also believe I never scored higher than a 300. I would say the physics on DAT Bootcamp and the problems on the 2006 ADA exam are most representative of what you will see. Again chad's videos were a saver for this section, as I had to re-teach myself everything from scratch.
Quantitative Reasoning
A good mix of "math-based" problems and reasoning problems. There was some solving for a system of questions, observing graphs, and comparing statements. For this, I would say practice practice practice! The Kaplan book gave pretty good strategies for this however their practice exams were too difficult. Chad's videos were also a bit harder, but the DAT Bootcamp problems and destroyer ones seemed just about right. During my last week of studying, I came across this website meant for GRE prep that had a good number of QR problems and I found really helpful. GRE Math Quantitative Comparisons : Practice tests and explanations
I studied for my Oat for about 3 months, the first two and a half months I was working and doing school at the same time, but sometime into the first month we went into quarantine and I was doing classes online as well working from home. This kind of work in my favor because it gave me more flexibility in being able to study for my OAT. I took the first month and a half to two months to relearn and teach myself the concepts because it had been over 2 years since I had taken them. I used CHADS videos on chadsprep.com I believe it was $50 for a 6-month subscription and it came with worksheets as well as quizzes at the end of each chapter. I will say some of the questions especially for physics are a little more difficult than what you would see on the OAT because they are multistep calculations and require a calculator but nonetheless they were really helpful in reinforcing the material. For subjects that were not on Chad's videos (bio, QR and Reading), I used the Kaplan 2020 OAT Prep Plus book. I bought this book on ebay used for like $20, but I've heard its usually not any different from the previous year's version so it doesn't hurt to get the older versions plus you get two exams with it which are great exposure for what it will literally look like (kaplan content tends to be a lot harder)!
During the last month of my studying, I practiced applying concepts using the 2012 DAT destroyer (the problems are a killer but it was SO HELPFUL). I definitely felt like I didn't know anything at first, but trust me the more you practice the better you will be. I would recommend spending the bulk of your time practicing problems, it's ok to get things wrong because you will learn more as you apply concepts and when you get something wrong you are more likely to remember it! What I would do is a set number of problems a day, as well as reading two passages from the list of weekly readings on the free version of DAT Bootcamp (super helpful to get you familiar with the science lingo used in most papers). In the evenings I would spend an hour or so reviewing flashcards/ quizlets I had made to really nail the basic concepts down and remind myself of what I had learned. During the last week of my exam, I trained myself for test day by doing 5 exams and only taking breaks, and drinking water as you would during the exam. This helped me a lot because I'm a very routine person also because my exam was in the afternoon (12-5) and I'm a huge morning person so I had to get myself accustomed to working up till 5 pm. For practice exams, using the 2006 ADA OAT PDF, 2006 ADA DAT PDF, the free exam on DAT Bootcamp, free DAT/ OAT exams on chadsprep.com, the free Gold Standard OAT prep the Kaplan diagnostic and the two exams that came with my Kaplan book. I administered the digital exams as if I was taking the test at the center ( I treated the PDF's as extra practice problems). I even wore my mask turned my phone to airplane mode, had a scratch paper with me, and didn't drink any water or go to the restroom unless it was my 15-minute break.
On the day before my exam I took the gold standard free OAT exam (it took about an hour), corrected it, and relaxed for the rest of the day. I wouldn't suggest doing any heavy studying so you don't psyche yourself out or start to doubt yourself. What I did was a workout watch some movies, and relaxed in bed. In the evening I did some yoga, a face mask, hair mask, I lasered my legs, exfoliated my body, did my nails, etc and had a full self-care night with some aromatherapy. It really helped me destress and relax so I felt replenished for the next day, I would suggest treating yourself and practicing some self-care / doing whatever sparks joy the day before so you don't go into your exam to stressed.
Now on to test day. The morning of my exam I did some stress relief yoga from a video I found on youtube, had my coffee, some oatmeal to keep me full, and packed some protein bars, water, and hand sanitizer before heading out! This video gives a pretty great overview of what to expect on test day.
Keep in mind that we are in a current pandemic so we must wear a mask to enter the testing center and during the entire duration. I was told if I take it off they would remind me to put it on, but the website does say they can refuse to let you take your test if you don't follow protocol. I just wore a surgical mask nothing fancy. During check-in, I handed my two forms of identification to the person at the front desk and I had to stand a couple of feet away. I was assigned a locker and had to sign some papers to sign in using a borrowed pen that I would hold on to until the end of my exam. I was handed two sheets of paper ( 4 sides total) and told if I needed more during my exam to just raise my paper in the air and they would collect it and replace it. The use of scratch paper is a temporary thing because of COVID. Usually, they hand out whiteboards or laminated paper but as a safety measure, they want to refrain from having people reuse materials. I had to take my mask off for a quick second to have my picture taken then I put it back on and kept it on until my break.
Tutorial
There's an optional 15 minute tutorial at the beginning of the test to teach you how to use the system and mark questions/highlight. If you have done any Kaplan Exams or DAT Bootcamp exams the system looks exactly the same, form marking questions, to highlighting and reviewing. Because of this I was already familiar with the system, but since I was told that taking notes was allowed during the tutorial I did the tutorial anyways. It doesn't take the full 15 minutes, but I let the tutorial run on the computer and I wrote down some notes for gen chem formulas, (pH, Henderson hassle back, etc) as well as for physics. I would highly suggest doing this because if you are anything like me, no matter how well you know something sometimes the nerves just get to you and you might blank out on an equation or two.
Bio:
Biology was a mix of everything. It was very random and jumped around to the point where one question was on genetics and the next on ecosystems. I'm a bio major so I just needed to do some brushing up, the 2020 Kaplan book was pretty helpful for brushing up but I WOULD NOT recommend it as your only source of studying unless you have a broad range of knowledge on the subjects (i have have taken genetics, physio, microbio or other upper-division courses). However, this worked well for me, and I just made sure to make flashcards and come up with mnemonics as I was studying and practicing problems from the DAT destroyer.
Gen Chem
I expected it to be much worse! Not as calculation heavy as the DAT destroyer /Kaplan exams / Chad's OAT exams (they will over-prepare you). It was very conceptual and had a bit of everything, acid-base, pH/pOH / periodic table trends/bond strength/ enthalpy, etc. Nothing to crazy and i def think chads OAT exams were super helpful for this as his explanations are *chefs kiss*. I didn't use the Kaplan book AT ALL for GC, it had been 3 years since I had taken gen-chem so I used chads' videos to reteach myself and they were a SAVER!
O chem
It was very conceptual, only one or two multistep synthesis and simple ones at that, a few predict the products, aromaticity, comparison of electron-withdrawing and deactivating groups, stereochemistry, some IUPAC, and 1 question on NMR. The dreaded organic chemistry. I will admit I didn't do too hot in my first semester of o-chem so I was quite nervous about this one, but again CHAD's Videos were a saver!!! His videos helped me really nail down the concepts. Again the questions on the actual OAT were so much more straightforward than those offered again in KAPLAN / CHAD's OAT prep / DAT destroyer and I would say the ADA OAT / DAT, as well as DAT Bootcamp, were great representations.
Reading and Comprehension
During my practice exams (Kaplan/ DAT Bootcamp) I used the search and destroy method. If the question asked something about the left ventricle, I would "command F" and type in "left ventricle", that usually seemed to work just fine for me and I was getting away with not reading the passages. However, during my OAT the spotlight search did not work!! I panicked because I thought I was doomed, I ended up still doing search and destroy but it took a longer than expected to have to search for keywords in the passage manually. I should have figured the spotlight search was not going to be a thing during the exam.
Break
To my surprise, my break was 30 minutes! I left the testing room had a snack, drank some water, and went to the bathroom I didn't take the entire 30 minutes, I believe when I came back into the room the clock still had 11 minutes left. I would suggest taking this break even if you think you don't need it. Let your eyes rest, get some fresh air, stretch your legs out and take even a 5-minute break.
Physics
I was super scared of physics because it is my weakest subject and I had the least amount of practice with it. There was a little bit of everything, kinematics, lenses, mirrors, forces, coulombic attractions etc. A good mix of conceptual and calculation problems. The problems were so much more simple than they were on any Kaplan Exam I took. For every single physics exam on Kaplan, I ran out of time and never finished and I also believe I never scored higher than a 300. I would say the physics on DAT Bootcamp and the problems on the 2006 ADA exam are most representative of what you will see. Again chad's videos were a saver for this section, as I had to re-teach myself everything from scratch.
Quantitative Reasoning
A good mix of "math-based" problems and reasoning problems. There was some solving for a system of questions, observing graphs, and comparing statements. For this, I would say practice practice practice! The Kaplan book gave pretty good strategies for this however their practice exams were too difficult. Chad's videos were also a bit harder, but the DAT Bootcamp problems and destroyer ones seemed just about right. During my last week of studying, I came across this website meant for GRE prep that had a good number of QR problems and I found really helpful. GRE Math Quantitative Comparisons : Practice tests and explanations
| Subject | Kaplan Diagnostic | Kaplan Test 1 | Kaplan Test 2 | ADA OAT 2006 | ADA DAT 2006 | Actual OAT | ||||
| Bio | 310 |
| 320 | 380 | 380 | 370 | ||||
| Gen Chem | 300 | 330 | 340 | 340 | 340 | 380 | ||||
| Ochem | 340 | 270 | 320 | 400 | 400 | 400 | ||||
| Reading | 340 | 360 | 350 | 360 | 340 | 340 | ||||
| Physics | 300 | 290 | 310 | 340 | ---- | 320 | ||||
| QR | 280 | 290 | 290 | 340 | 360 | 350 | ||||
| Total Science | 320 | 310 | 330 | 370 | 370 (minus physics) | 370 | ||||
| Academic Average | 320 | 320 | 320 | 360 | 360 (minus physics) | 360 |
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