29th percentile reading?

[ivisioni]

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I just took my OAT this morning and it turned out much better than i thought. Only thing that I wasn't too happy about was a 310 in reading. I thought that 300 was about 50th percentile, but it says 29.1 next to mine. Is that very bad?

Here are the rest of my scores:
QR 380
RC 310
Bio 380
Gen Chem 360
OChem 400
Physics 330
TS 380
AA 360

If anyone is curious, i just studied off of the Kaplan books that i borrowed from someone. QR was intensely easy, as well as the organic chemistry part, very simple questions. The physics was harder than i expected, but that wasn't my strongest aspect any way.

I had questions earlier about the RC so i figured i might answer it for people who will be taking the test soon. I believe the passages were shorter than practice exams i've taken from the kaplan material. However, the questions were at least half inference based, so you couldn't look for a specific keyword in the test, so it would have been better if i read it for comprehension a little better rather than scanned it.

 

[StephanieOD2B]

I wouldn't worry too much about the percentage score that is beside your 310- schools won't see it. They don't get the percentage score- just the 310. Congrats on the high scores!

 

[4eyed]

Congrats! 🙂
Just out of curiosity, how did you think the physics on the real OAT compared to the kaplan physics practice questions? Was it mostly conceptual.. or formual based questions ?

thanks 🙂

 

[phuongle2]

Congrats ivisioni, that are such great scores. Ok, what is your secret? we all want to know 🙂 How long did you study for the test, and did you take any computerized practice tests? For the big Kaplan book, do you do the review problems at the end? Also, did you do any of the subject tests Kaplan have for their courses? Thanks.

 

[ivisioni]

Congrats! 🙂
Just out of curiosity, how did you think the physics on the real OAT compared to the kaplan physics practice questions? thanks 🙂

It was much easier, but i was just so out of practice that i didn't know how to answer the questions. I even remember a couple of the questions off hand. There were some calculations and a few concepts. I don't really remember the mix since i was in a rush.

Edit: I took out the questions, because something was pointed out to me.

 

[ivisioni]

Congrats ivisioni, that are such great scores. Ok, what is your secret? we all want to know 🙂 How long did you study for the test, and did you take any computerized practice tests? For the big Kaplan book, do you do the review problems at the end? Also, did you do any of the subject tests Kaplan have for their courses? Thanks.

I've been studying for a little over a month, maybe a month and a half. i figured that i wouldn't have enough time to finish the Kaplan course by school time so i didn't want to waste my money. i just spent minimum 3hrs sometimes 6-7 a day going through first the Review book and reading while taking notes. I also took pieces of practice tests along the way, different sections that is. I never took a full length practice test because i figured the test would go so fast that i wouldn't really get tired, which was true for the most part (this is true for me, may not be for others). I also went over the entire review book and worked out all the problems.

Something good to mention is that the day before the test i went over some of the Kaplan flashcards. Some of the questions were actually on the test so it turned out pretty good.

Also, i forgot to mention. There was actually a mistake on the test. One question asked for the cosine of angle C in a triangle ABC. However, there was no triangle shown and no other information at all. The answers were all fractions like 3/4 1/3 etc, so i'm sure there should have been a picture to go with it, so the question was flawed. In the comments section i told em about it, but i doubt anything will come of it.

 

[Ma1]

I've been studying for a little over a month, maybe a month and a half. i figured that i wouldn't have enough time to finish the Kaplan course by school time so i didn't want to waste my money. i just spent minimum 3hrs sometimes 6-7 a day going through first the Review book and reading while taking notes. I also took pieces of practice tests along the way, different sections that is. I never took a full length practice test because i figured the test would go so fast that i wouldn't really get tired, which was true for the most part (this is true for me, may not be for others). I also went over the entire review book and worked out all the problems.

Something good to mention is that the day before the test i went over some of the Kaplan flashcards. Some of the questions were actually on the test so it turned out pretty good.

Also, i forgot to mention. There was actually a mistake on the test. One question asked for the cosine of angle C in a triangle ABC. However, there was no triangle shown and no other information at all. The answers were all fractions like 3/4 1/3 etc, so i'm sure there should have been a picture to go with it, so the question was flawed. In the comments section i told em about it, but i doubt anything will come of it.

that happened to me too!! I wrote that in the comments..I'm not sure what that was all about and if other people recieved the picture.

 

[diams]

I just took my OAT this morning and it turned out much better than i thought. Only thing that I wasn't too happy about was a 310 in reading. I thought that 300 was about 50th percentile, but it says 29.1 next to mine. Is that very bad?

Here are the rest of my scores:
QR 380
RC 310
Bio 380
Gen Chem 360
OChem 400
Physics 330
TS 380
AA 360

If anyone is curious, i just studied off of the Kaplan books that i borrowed from someone. QR was intensely easy, as well as the organic chemistry part, very simple questions. The physics was harder than i expected, but that wasn't my strongest aspect any way.

I had questions earlier about the RC so i figured i might answer it for people who will be taking the test soon. I believe the passages were shorter than practice exams i've taken from the kaplan material. However, the questions were at least half inference based, so you couldn't look for a specific keyword in the test, so it would have been better if i read it for comprehension a little better rather than scanned it.

Which kaplan books did you study with OAT kaplan books or MCAT kaplan books are they about the same. Also what was your sretegy for the reading compositiona nd how did you study for that section.

 

[ivisioni]

Which kaplan books did you study with OAT kaplan books or MCAT kaplan books are they about the same. Also what was your sretegy for the reading compositiona nd how did you study for that section.

I studied out of a DAT book actually for the first month, which has everything exactly the same as the OAT book except no physics and it has another added section that we don't need (perceptual). That may be why i didn't do too well in physics. I got my hands on some OAT Kaplan Material about 2-3 weeks ago and have been studying off of those ever since. I kind of wonder if i didn't do the reading practice exams in the Kaplan fashion whether i would have done better. The passages were about 3/4 the size of a Kaplan practice reading in the review books. There were more inferences thanI had expected on the actual OAT.

 

[vornskr1030]

Actually I had about the same scores as you did, with generally high scores and a low RC. I got a 330, which they said was a 39.5 percentile. But a UHCO represenative came to talk to my school's pre-opt club, and he said he's noticing that a lot of applicants have been contacting him and asking about that problem too. He personally thinks there was something wrong in the scoring, but he doesn't know about other optometry schools. That made me feel a little better...

 

[Tortugabebe]

Good job on the test. I ran into that problem with the math question too. I actually got a revised math score a few weeks ago, so maybe they figured out that there was a bad question on there.

RC was my worst score. Speed reading wasn't a skill I picked up aparently. Most of the people I spoke to that got good scores on RC read the questions first. Maybe that was my problem...?

 

[Clovers]

Actually I had about the same scores as you did, with generally high scores and a low RC. I got a 330, which they said was a 39.5 percentile. But a UHCO represenative came to talk to my school's pre-opt club, and he said he's noticing that a lot of applicants have been contacting him and asking about that problem too. He personally thinks there was something wrong in the scoring, but he doesn't know about other optometry schools. That made me feel a little better...

Were the reading passages numbered? If it is not, how do you keep track when trying to jot down keywords?

 

[aam0050]

Were the reading passages numbered? If it is not, how do you keep track when trying to jot down keywords?

I read on another post that they aren't numbered. 🙁 RC is the one I'm most worried about, which feels really weird, but it seems like lots of others are having problems with it too.

I'm not too sure how I'm going to handle the RC without it being numbered (I'm taking the OAT on Halloween!) I guess I'll have to figure it out by then. 😉

 

[lesset01]

I've been studying for a little over a month, maybe a month and a half. i figured that i wouldn't have enough time to finish the Kaplan course by school time so i didn't want to waste my money. i just spent minimum 3hrs sometimes 6-7 a day going through first the Review book and reading while taking notes. I also took pieces of practice tests along the way, different sections that is. I never took a full length practice test because i figured the test would go so fast that i wouldn't really get tired, which was true for the most part (this is true for me, may not be for others). I also went over the entire review book and worked out all the problems.

Something good to mention is that the day before the test i went over some of the Kaplan flashcards. Some of the questions were actually on the test so it turned out pretty good.

Also, i forgot to mention. There was actually a mistake on the test. One question asked for the cosine of angle C in a triangle ABC. However, there was no triangle shown and no other information at all. The answers were all fractions like 3/4 1/3 etc, so i'm sure there should have been a picture to go with it, so the question was flawed. In the comments section i told em about it, but i doubt anything will come of it.

Out of curiosity, could there have been a button on there that you were supposed to click to make the diagram appear? Whenever I encountered problems like that there was something to click to make the pertinent info pop up in a different window....just wondering. 🙂

 

[princesspinknes]

hey ivisioni, do u have any practice section scores? just wondering..im taking the test this thurs and ive been avging 280 - 320 on each section, is this indicative of my actual score?

 

[jtenb7]

Im too embarrassed to say what I got on the reading but it was really really bad. Much worse than 29th percentile. I just don't get it. I find it interesting that there are so many complaints about that section.

 

[adenosine]

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