cheeseycake
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Hope everyone is doing well! I took the OAT about a week ago and I just wanted to share my experience on here to help anyone else out!
I would just like to point out that I was working during the summer so I couldn’t commit the entire summer to studying. I also had a decently late start since I started studying on June 16th and wrote the OAT on September 2nd. All in all, I studied for about 3-5 hours a day for 2.5 months.
Sorry for the overly detailed breakdown but I tried to be as thorough as possible!
RESOURCES I USED FOR STUDYING (WITH RATINGS):
OATBooster – 9.8/10
I used this primarily. I heard about it through a friend and thought I would try it out. After playing around with the site for a bit, I noticed they had a thorough 70-day study schedule split into 3 phases. I followed the first phase of the schedule strictly. It would sometimes take me more than a day to finish the material due to other commitments, but I stayed more or less on track. The schedule was super helpful because it took the guessing out of how I would manage my time. I could also tweak it if something didn’t work for me. The videos and notes provided were super thorough and helpful because they covered almost everything that I needed to know. The only reason I didn’t give a full 10/10 is because there isn’t much for physics on the platform: there are about 7 practice tests on the site as well as a pretty good formula sheet. Physics was not one of my strong suits and so this was a bit inconvenient for me. The study schedule linked to some of Prof. Dave’s videos on YouTube and they were good, but they were not comprehensive. I especially liked the “testing comprehension” bit at the end of every video. Aside from that, OATBooster was an amazing resource and I’m so glad that I used it. There are sooo many questions on the site, and they’re decently representative of what I saw on the actual OAT.
OAT Destroyer - 5/10
I used this once I finished the first phase of the OATBooster schedule because it was recommended as a supplement. I purchased the book with organic chemistry, QR, biology & general chemistry, as well as the separate physics book. After using the books for a few days, I realized that the questions were more difficult than anything I had seen before. I also noticed that the calculations would sometimes be too difficult to do without a calculator or that rounding would give you the wrong answer. Since you only have a calculator for the QR section, I felt like it didn’t help if you had to be spending so much time on questions doing calculations you probably wouldn’t come across on the OAT, for example, calculating tan inverse to find an angle. The questions were also a lot harder than I feel was necessary and not representative of what I saw on the OAT. That being said, if you have the time, it helps to ensure that you know everything to the T.
Kaplan Book - 8/10
Firstly, I would just like to say that physics is not my strong suit, and I didn’t get to study it as much as I would have liked. I got this book from one of my friends and I used it for physics since OATBooster didn’t have much physics included. I found the content was explained well and covered pretty much whatever I needed for my OAT. I did find that I couldn’t answer some of the end of chapter review questions at times with solely my knowledge of reading the chapter. I had to recall from previous knowledge or search some stuff up for additional information. I liked the practice questions scattered through the chapter but I’m the type of person to try out any given questions to see if I can solve them and I found that I often couldn’t solve them. The reason for this was that the practice questions were there to expand on the text and not to test your comprehension (the end-of-chapter review questions were for that). For example, the chapter talked about the tension force and what it is conceptually but didn’t go into how you would solve a typical tension problem (hanging mass supported by 2 cords). The practice problem would teach you how to solve it. So, if you’re like me, just know that you wouldn’t be able to solve all the questions right away (unless you remember from your physics class or you’re just generally a physics genius lol).
Quizlet – 10/10
I was never a huge fan of flashcards. Honestly, this was more of me being too lazy to make them rather not liking the concept of them. However, Quizlet was very helpful in terms of solidifying ideas and recalling information. I would just search up the subject (for example, OAT organic chemistry) and do them in my free time. For me, this was in the morning when I would work out or at night after dinner before I wind down for bed. I would use the “Learn” feature and go through the material because I didn’t create the sets and I wasn’t sure what information was expected. I often would learn a new thing or two that would help. There were also mnemonics that other people had created to help remember information which was so so helpful. After finishing the deck, I would do a multiple-choice test on Quizlet until I got all of them correct. If I needed to focus on a certain topic, I would just search a more specific topic to engrain it in my head (for example, OAT organic chemistry reactions).
MY OVERALL EXPERIENCE:
I decided to use resources specifically made for the OAT rather than going through my notes from school because I didn’t want to waste time studying anything other than what I needed to know, since the time I had to study was already cut down by my other commitments. I took the OAT in the summer after my second year of undergrad because I had taken all the courses pertaining to the OAT. When I started studying in June, I got right into the OATBooster schedule. I didn’t take any diagnostic test beforehand, which I sort of regret. I feel like that would have really helped me pinpoint what I needed to improve and what I recalled from school. However, I finished the first 31 days (Phase 1: Content Learning) as planned on July 17. After this, I started Phase 2: Practice Questions/Tests & Review. However, I tweaked this part of the schedule a bit. I did the practice tests every few days according to the guide but in between I would focus on topics I found would be my weakest from the practice tests. I would split up my days between topics I needed to go over. Something else I found particularly helpful with regards to reviewing, was that while doing a practice test if there was a question I couldn’t answer, I would make a note of the topic as well as the question # (in case I didn’t know exactly what part of the topic I needed to review). For example, if question 2 was asking what kind of biome could be seen in the image, I would just jot down “biomes – 2”. This helped in 2 ways:
In Phase 3: Practice Test & Memorization, I followed the schedule until the week before my exam. I tweaked the schedule this last week into two types of days. So, I would have one review day (reviewing marked questions, reviewing topics from practice tests, doing Quizlets, going over mnemonics and formula sheets, etc) then a practice test day. I would alternate between these two days until the day before my exam. The day before, I did the ADA practice test to get an idea of what my score would be around before going into it. I found that the ADA test was very representative of the actual exam since I got the exact same score on both and I felt they were of equal difficulty.
SECTION BREAKDOWN (WITH SCORES):
Biology (400)
Contrary to what I thought, I had no plant biology questions. Very little taxonomy, genetics and bodily system questions. There was a decent amount of embryology, metabolism, and evolution.
Chemistry (320)
Lots of calculations, know periodic table trends as well as radioactive decay. Also, enthalpy, redox reactions and balancing equations, as I had a few of those. Not much acid/base, buffer or titration questions.
Organic Chemistry (400)
Know your reactions. This section was almost totally reactions with a few NMR/IR questions. There were quite a few chirality questions but no R/S configuration questions.
Physics (320)
Know forces and kinematics very well because there are a lot of those. A few momentum/collisions, tension and rotational motion questions. Quite a few electrostatics, circuits and optics. Know the optics and circuits (distinguish between series and parallel) formulas.
Reading Comprehension (380)
Since this is all passage, I don’t have much to say regarding content, however, the question types are very similar to the ones you’d find on OATBooster, so I would recommend doing all the practice tests.
Quantitative Reasoning (320)
Mostly algebra and probability. There were quite a few graphs to interpret as well as a few statistical questions (mean, standard dev., etc)
Total Science (370)
Academic Average (360)
FINAL ADVICE:
Everyone’s OAT will be different. I wouldn’t recommend using my section breakdown as a guideline on what to study. For example, I expected there to be a lot of taxonomy and plant bio based on what I heard and that was not the case for me. I would recommend being comfortable with all the material found on the OAT Examinee Guide from the ADA. Do practice tests to identify sections of weakness and work to improve that. Find someone that is writing the OAT around the same time as you and check in with them occasionally just to track your progress and motivate each other to keep going. It helps to know you’re not alone, especially when you know them personally.
I cannot stress this enough but TAKE BREAKS. It is so so important to take care of yourself. You will probably be dedicating a lot of time to this exam in order to do well, but you want to fit in time to get your mind off of it. It’s also helpful to have something to look forward to. Personally, I planned 2 trips during my summer. The first was early August because I knew I would be somewhat burnt out by that time, and I just needed to recharge. The second trip was right after my OAT. I booked my OAT a bit far away from my hometown a) because my town doesn’t have a testing centre and b) so that I could spend a few days after the OAT just relaxing before school starts back up.
I also used the Pomodoro technique to keep me on track when studying, which I found very helpful. It was good to get a break every now and then just to close my eyes, take a walk or get a snack. I wouldn’t recommend using your phone during the breaks because you want to give your mind a break during the time.
Lastly, if you studied hard and put effort into it, you will do amazing. A good score is very attainable, and the hard work pays off. Just make sure that you are 100% in it because it is a huge time commitment, and you don’t want to waste your summer on something you are not sure about. If you are unsure on whether optometry is for you, try shadowing to see what a day-in-the-life is like. If you have any questions, feel free to message me!
DISCLAIMER: Everyone’s learning style is different, so what worked for me might not work for you. Take my advice with a grain of salt and tweak whatever you need to, to fit your needs.
Wishing you all the best
I would just like to point out that I was working during the summer so I couldn’t commit the entire summer to studying. I also had a decently late start since I started studying on June 16th and wrote the OAT on September 2nd. All in all, I studied for about 3-5 hours a day for 2.5 months.
Sorry for the overly detailed breakdown but I tried to be as thorough as possible!
RESOURCES I USED FOR STUDYING (WITH RATINGS):
OATBooster – 9.8/10
I used this primarily. I heard about it through a friend and thought I would try it out. After playing around with the site for a bit, I noticed they had a thorough 70-day study schedule split into 3 phases. I followed the first phase of the schedule strictly. It would sometimes take me more than a day to finish the material due to other commitments, but I stayed more or less on track. The schedule was super helpful because it took the guessing out of how I would manage my time. I could also tweak it if something didn’t work for me. The videos and notes provided were super thorough and helpful because they covered almost everything that I needed to know. The only reason I didn’t give a full 10/10 is because there isn’t much for physics on the platform: there are about 7 practice tests on the site as well as a pretty good formula sheet. Physics was not one of my strong suits and so this was a bit inconvenient for me. The study schedule linked to some of Prof. Dave’s videos on YouTube and they were good, but they were not comprehensive. I especially liked the “testing comprehension” bit at the end of every video. Aside from that, OATBooster was an amazing resource and I’m so glad that I used it. There are sooo many questions on the site, and they’re decently representative of what I saw on the actual OAT.
OAT Destroyer - 5/10
I used this once I finished the first phase of the OATBooster schedule because it was recommended as a supplement. I purchased the book with organic chemistry, QR, biology & general chemistry, as well as the separate physics book. After using the books for a few days, I realized that the questions were more difficult than anything I had seen before. I also noticed that the calculations would sometimes be too difficult to do without a calculator or that rounding would give you the wrong answer. Since you only have a calculator for the QR section, I felt like it didn’t help if you had to be spending so much time on questions doing calculations you probably wouldn’t come across on the OAT, for example, calculating tan inverse to find an angle. The questions were also a lot harder than I feel was necessary and not representative of what I saw on the OAT. That being said, if you have the time, it helps to ensure that you know everything to the T.
Kaplan Book - 8/10
Firstly, I would just like to say that physics is not my strong suit, and I didn’t get to study it as much as I would have liked. I got this book from one of my friends and I used it for physics since OATBooster didn’t have much physics included. I found the content was explained well and covered pretty much whatever I needed for my OAT. I did find that I couldn’t answer some of the end of chapter review questions at times with solely my knowledge of reading the chapter. I had to recall from previous knowledge or search some stuff up for additional information. I liked the practice questions scattered through the chapter but I’m the type of person to try out any given questions to see if I can solve them and I found that I often couldn’t solve them. The reason for this was that the practice questions were there to expand on the text and not to test your comprehension (the end-of-chapter review questions were for that). For example, the chapter talked about the tension force and what it is conceptually but didn’t go into how you would solve a typical tension problem (hanging mass supported by 2 cords). The practice problem would teach you how to solve it. So, if you’re like me, just know that you wouldn’t be able to solve all the questions right away (unless you remember from your physics class or you’re just generally a physics genius lol).
Quizlet – 10/10
I was never a huge fan of flashcards. Honestly, this was more of me being too lazy to make them rather not liking the concept of them. However, Quizlet was very helpful in terms of solidifying ideas and recalling information. I would just search up the subject (for example, OAT organic chemistry) and do them in my free time. For me, this was in the morning when I would work out or at night after dinner before I wind down for bed. I would use the “Learn” feature and go through the material because I didn’t create the sets and I wasn’t sure what information was expected. I often would learn a new thing or two that would help. There were also mnemonics that other people had created to help remember information which was so so helpful. After finishing the deck, I would do a multiple-choice test on Quizlet until I got all of them correct. If I needed to focus on a certain topic, I would just search a more specific topic to engrain it in my head (for example, OAT organic chemistry reactions).
MY OVERALL EXPERIENCE:
I decided to use resources specifically made for the OAT rather than going through my notes from school because I didn’t want to waste time studying anything other than what I needed to know, since the time I had to study was already cut down by my other commitments. I took the OAT in the summer after my second year of undergrad because I had taken all the courses pertaining to the OAT. When I started studying in June, I got right into the OATBooster schedule. I didn’t take any diagnostic test beforehand, which I sort of regret. I feel like that would have really helped me pinpoint what I needed to improve and what I recalled from school. However, I finished the first 31 days (Phase 1: Content Learning) as planned on July 17. After this, I started Phase 2: Practice Questions/Tests & Review. However, I tweaked this part of the schedule a bit. I did the practice tests every few days according to the guide but in between I would focus on topics I found would be my weakest from the practice tests. I would split up my days between topics I needed to go over. Something else I found particularly helpful with regards to reviewing, was that while doing a practice test if there was a question I couldn’t answer, I would make a note of the topic as well as the question # (in case I didn’t know exactly what part of the topic I needed to review). For example, if question 2 was asking what kind of biome could be seen in the image, I would just jot down “biomes – 2”. This helped in 2 ways:
- It would help me pinpoint the exact topic I needed to go over
- It took a few seconds to jot down and organize during the timed practice test, so all in all it would amount to maybe a minute or two. This made me make sure I would work a little faster to finish and because of this I didn’t have any problem finishing any of the sections on the actual OAT. It might sound like an exaggeration, but as someone who was always running out of time on tests, it was a huge relief being able to finish the exam without feeling rushed.
In Phase 3: Practice Test & Memorization, I followed the schedule until the week before my exam. I tweaked the schedule this last week into two types of days. So, I would have one review day (reviewing marked questions, reviewing topics from practice tests, doing Quizlets, going over mnemonics and formula sheets, etc) then a practice test day. I would alternate between these two days until the day before my exam. The day before, I did the ADA practice test to get an idea of what my score would be around before going into it. I found that the ADA test was very representative of the actual exam since I got the exact same score on both and I felt they were of equal difficulty.
SECTION BREAKDOWN (WITH SCORES):
Biology (400)
Contrary to what I thought, I had no plant biology questions. Very little taxonomy, genetics and bodily system questions. There was a decent amount of embryology, metabolism, and evolution.
Chemistry (320)
Lots of calculations, know periodic table trends as well as radioactive decay. Also, enthalpy, redox reactions and balancing equations, as I had a few of those. Not much acid/base, buffer or titration questions.
Organic Chemistry (400)
Know your reactions. This section was almost totally reactions with a few NMR/IR questions. There were quite a few chirality questions but no R/S configuration questions.
Physics (320)
Know forces and kinematics very well because there are a lot of those. A few momentum/collisions, tension and rotational motion questions. Quite a few electrostatics, circuits and optics. Know the optics and circuits (distinguish between series and parallel) formulas.
Reading Comprehension (380)
Since this is all passage, I don’t have much to say regarding content, however, the question types are very similar to the ones you’d find on OATBooster, so I would recommend doing all the practice tests.
Quantitative Reasoning (320)
Mostly algebra and probability. There were quite a few graphs to interpret as well as a few statistical questions (mean, standard dev., etc)
Total Science (370)
Academic Average (360)
FINAL ADVICE:
Everyone’s OAT will be different. I wouldn’t recommend using my section breakdown as a guideline on what to study. For example, I expected there to be a lot of taxonomy and plant bio based on what I heard and that was not the case for me. I would recommend being comfortable with all the material found on the OAT Examinee Guide from the ADA. Do practice tests to identify sections of weakness and work to improve that. Find someone that is writing the OAT around the same time as you and check in with them occasionally just to track your progress and motivate each other to keep going. It helps to know you’re not alone, especially when you know them personally.
I cannot stress this enough but TAKE BREAKS. It is so so important to take care of yourself. You will probably be dedicating a lot of time to this exam in order to do well, but you want to fit in time to get your mind off of it. It’s also helpful to have something to look forward to. Personally, I planned 2 trips during my summer. The first was early August because I knew I would be somewhat burnt out by that time, and I just needed to recharge. The second trip was right after my OAT. I booked my OAT a bit far away from my hometown a) because my town doesn’t have a testing centre and b) so that I could spend a few days after the OAT just relaxing before school starts back up.
I also used the Pomodoro technique to keep me on track when studying, which I found very helpful. It was good to get a break every now and then just to close my eyes, take a walk or get a snack. I wouldn’t recommend using your phone during the breaks because you want to give your mind a break during the time.
Lastly, if you studied hard and put effort into it, you will do amazing. A good score is very attainable, and the hard work pays off. Just make sure that you are 100% in it because it is a huge time commitment, and you don’t want to waste your summer on something you are not sure about. If you are unsure on whether optometry is for you, try shadowing to see what a day-in-the-life is like. If you have any questions, feel free to message me!
DISCLAIMER: Everyone’s learning style is different, so what worked for me might not work for you. Take my advice with a grain of salt and tweak whatever you need to, to fit your needs.
Wishing you all the best
