blueberrywhale
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- Pre-Optometry
Hi everyone! I just wrote the OAT yesterday and was super happy with my scores, so I thought I’d share a bit about my experience because I found these breakdowns very helpful when I was studying.
How I prepared/Study materials:
I studied for around 3 months while working part-time at an optometry clinic, averaging around 6-8 hours of studying on the days I wasn’t working and 3-4 hours on the days I worked. I also made time for extracurriculars and shadowing. I took a few days off here and there, but I tried to at least do some flashcards and Bio Bits every day. I do think that it’s important to incorporate breaks into your studying because it can be very overwhelming and isolating to solely focus on the OAT! This exam is a huge undertaking, but it’s manageable if you stay dedicated and consistent.
OATBooster (10/10)
This was pretty much the only resource I used to study. I found their practice questions and tests to be very useful and pretty representative of real OAT questions (if not harder). I followed their 10-week study schedule for the content learning phase, then transitioned to my own study schedule, doing practice tests and focusing on my weak points. I will say that it was definitely a struggle to keep up with Booster’s study schedule in the beginning (especially for Bio) because it’s very content-heavy. However, I think it’s really important to be diligent during the learning phase of your preparation. There were definitely days when I wasn’t able to finish everything on the schedule, but I made sure to never fall more than 3 days behind because it’s very hard to catch up when there’s so much content to learn.
When I was completing practice tests, I tried to do at least one per week for the last two months leading up to the exam. I would write the practice test in the morning, then review it in the afternoon/evening, adding all the questions I got wrong to a spreadsheet and noting down why I got them wrong (i.e., content deficit, unfamiliar question type, misread the question, etc.). In between practice tests, I would focus on improving the topics that appeared the most on my missed questions spreadsheet. I would do practice questions from the Booster question banks and sometimes retake a practice test for a specific section. I also found the Game Challenges to be super useful for improving timing in the Gen Chem and QR sections.
Kaplan Prep Book (7/10)
I had access to an old Kaplan book from 2019 and used it to supplement my studying for my weaker sections during my last few weeks of preparation. I can only speak for the Biology and Physics sections, but I found the book to be super thorough in its explanations, making it helpful for understanding concepts I was struggling with. The Physics section was especially helpful for Optics and DC Circuits, which are two topics I struggled with when I was just using Booster. I also thought their general advice for studying at the beginning of the book was very informative.
Section Breakdown:
Biology (Score: 400)
I found the actual OAT to be a bit surface-level in comparison to the Booster practice tests. I was quite stressed for this section because there was so much content to remember, but I think the most useful thing for me while studying was completing all the Bio Bits and reviewing the cheat sheets. It’s definitely important to be familiar with Taxonomy because there were more than a few questions about it on the exam.
General Chemistry (Score: 400)
The Booster practice tests were highly representative of the real OAT, and there was a good mix of questions from the different topics included in this section. Doing Booster’s Anki flashcards every day helped me memorize both formulas and concepts, and the Game Challenges also helped me get a lot faster at answering questions.
Organic Chemistry (Score: 370)
When I was studying for this section, I mostly focused on redoing the Reaction Qbanks until I was familiar with all the different reagents and products, which I think might be why I scored a bit lower. While it is important to be familiar with all the different types of reactions, I think it’s more important to prioritize memorizing concepts. The majority of the questions on the real exam were concept-based rather than just predicting the product of a reaction.
Reading Comprehension (Score: 400)
This is the section that I was the most confident in while I was studying, so I didn’t really do much to prepare other than the Booster practice tests. I would finish skim-reading each passage in 6-7 minutes and only select an answer once I found the explicitly related sentence/paragraph in the passage. The Booster practice tests were highly representative of the real OAT, so I felt well-prepared for this section.
Physics (Score: 400)
This section was a lot easier than the Booster practice tests. What helped me the most was marking every single question I was even slightly unsure about and then going through all my marked questions until I was confident in them. I noticed that there were quite a few questions from kinematics, optics, and DC circuits.
QR (Score: 400)
This section was pretty straightforward, and there were no surprises. The Booster practice tests and questions were highly representative of the real OAT. I think familiarizing yourself with the different types of questions (i.e., quantitative comparison, statement sufficiency, etc.) is super important. It’s also important to know your unit conversions!
Final advice:
When I first started studying, I was super nervous because I’d never written an exam like this before, but from my experience, this exam is quite manageable if you stay focused and consistent while studying. Make mnemonics, start using Anki early to reinforce difficult concepts, make your own formula cheat sheets, and switch up your study habits if they’re not working. But most of all, be confident in yourself - if you put in the work, you’ll get good results!
Good luck studying!
How I prepared/Study materials:
I studied for around 3 months while working part-time at an optometry clinic, averaging around 6-8 hours of studying on the days I wasn’t working and 3-4 hours on the days I worked. I also made time for extracurriculars and shadowing. I took a few days off here and there, but I tried to at least do some flashcards and Bio Bits every day. I do think that it’s important to incorporate breaks into your studying because it can be very overwhelming and isolating to solely focus on the OAT! This exam is a huge undertaking, but it’s manageable if you stay dedicated and consistent.
OATBooster (10/10)
This was pretty much the only resource I used to study. I found their practice questions and tests to be very useful and pretty representative of real OAT questions (if not harder). I followed their 10-week study schedule for the content learning phase, then transitioned to my own study schedule, doing practice tests and focusing on my weak points. I will say that it was definitely a struggle to keep up with Booster’s study schedule in the beginning (especially for Bio) because it’s very content-heavy. However, I think it’s really important to be diligent during the learning phase of your preparation. There were definitely days when I wasn’t able to finish everything on the schedule, but I made sure to never fall more than 3 days behind because it’s very hard to catch up when there’s so much content to learn.
When I was completing practice tests, I tried to do at least one per week for the last two months leading up to the exam. I would write the practice test in the morning, then review it in the afternoon/evening, adding all the questions I got wrong to a spreadsheet and noting down why I got them wrong (i.e., content deficit, unfamiliar question type, misread the question, etc.). In between practice tests, I would focus on improving the topics that appeared the most on my missed questions spreadsheet. I would do practice questions from the Booster question banks and sometimes retake a practice test for a specific section. I also found the Game Challenges to be super useful for improving timing in the Gen Chem and QR sections.
Kaplan Prep Book (7/10)
I had access to an old Kaplan book from 2019 and used it to supplement my studying for my weaker sections during my last few weeks of preparation. I can only speak for the Biology and Physics sections, but I found the book to be super thorough in its explanations, making it helpful for understanding concepts I was struggling with. The Physics section was especially helpful for Optics and DC Circuits, which are two topics I struggled with when I was just using Booster. I also thought their general advice for studying at the beginning of the book was very informative.
Section Breakdown:
Biology (Score: 400)
I found the actual OAT to be a bit surface-level in comparison to the Booster practice tests. I was quite stressed for this section because there was so much content to remember, but I think the most useful thing for me while studying was completing all the Bio Bits and reviewing the cheat sheets. It’s definitely important to be familiar with Taxonomy because there were more than a few questions about it on the exam.
General Chemistry (Score: 400)
The Booster practice tests were highly representative of the real OAT, and there was a good mix of questions from the different topics included in this section. Doing Booster’s Anki flashcards every day helped me memorize both formulas and concepts, and the Game Challenges also helped me get a lot faster at answering questions.
Organic Chemistry (Score: 370)
When I was studying for this section, I mostly focused on redoing the Reaction Qbanks until I was familiar with all the different reagents and products, which I think might be why I scored a bit lower. While it is important to be familiar with all the different types of reactions, I think it’s more important to prioritize memorizing concepts. The majority of the questions on the real exam were concept-based rather than just predicting the product of a reaction.
Reading Comprehension (Score: 400)
This is the section that I was the most confident in while I was studying, so I didn’t really do much to prepare other than the Booster practice tests. I would finish skim-reading each passage in 6-7 minutes and only select an answer once I found the explicitly related sentence/paragraph in the passage. The Booster practice tests were highly representative of the real OAT, so I felt well-prepared for this section.
Physics (Score: 400)
This section was a lot easier than the Booster practice tests. What helped me the most was marking every single question I was even slightly unsure about and then going through all my marked questions until I was confident in them. I noticed that there were quite a few questions from kinematics, optics, and DC circuits.
QR (Score: 400)
This section was pretty straightforward, and there were no surprises. The Booster practice tests and questions were highly representative of the real OAT. I think familiarizing yourself with the different types of questions (i.e., quantitative comparison, statement sufficiency, etc.) is super important. It’s also important to know your unit conversions!
Final advice:
When I first started studying, I was super nervous because I’d never written an exam like this before, but from my experience, this exam is quite manageable if you stay focused and consistent while studying. Make mnemonics, start using Anki early to reinforce difficult concepts, make your own formula cheat sheets, and switch up your study habits if they’re not working. But most of all, be confident in yourself - if you put in the work, you’ll get good results!
Good luck studying!
