After thoughts about the OAT.

[vandal]

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I saw Naerls' topic about his thoughts of the OAT, and it helped me get a better idea of what to expect so I thought I would do the same about my own experience with the OAT.


Biology
This was definitely one of the harder subjects because there's so much material and information to know. As for specific questions I had: I remember a brain question about function/regulation, a circulatory question about blood velocity, and one on the female reproductive system/birth control and how it works. There was also a question with a picture, which I had no idea about. I believe it was a picture of cells/bacteria, and you were supposed to identify where you could find it in the body.

I can't really help out with what topics to focus more on because many different things were covered. Human physiology is pretty important so definitely study that. A big surprise to me was that I had no plant questions whatsoever. The OAT has a reputation about having a few plant questions that throw people off. If you're low on time or can't remember everything, I would cut out think taxonomy/ecology(I only had one question on it and it was just about kingdoms, phylums, etc). So all in all, I think biology is more the luck of the draw and getting questions on material that you're familiar with. So study EVERYTHING if you can. Most likely, if you paid attention to your biology classes that you took in college, that should help you out.

Gen Chem
I thought gen chem was pretty easy/straight forward. Nothing really stood out about this section. Just know basic stochiometry, STP, ideal gas law, concepts behind the ideal gas law(i.e if you change volume, what happens to pressure), intermolecular forces, etc. I had a diagram question about enthalpy and entropy of a solute/solvent. I also had a question that had a duplicate answer so hopefully they get that fixed. The big Kaplan book prepares you quite well for this part of the section.

Organic Chem.
Organic chem. was alright. This is one of the topics I was more concerned about, but it came out as expected. You should know the end products of reactions, SN1/SN2, E1/E2 conditions, NMR splitting, IR peaks(C=O, OH, benzene, alkene, aldehyde should be sufficient), acidity/basicity, know the strengths of intermolecular forces i.e hydrogen vs ionic vs dipole dipole, stuff like that.

Reading Comp.
Reading comp. is easily my weakest section. Due to how the reading comp. section is structured, I found that reading the question and looking for the answer in the passage was the best way to do it. After I found the answer to one question, I would go on to the next one and look for the answer in the passage. My best advice is to do the 3rd passage first!!!!! This will help you out a lot!!!!!! Just mark all the questions before the 3rd passage and then work on the 3rd passage. It is by far the most direct and easiest to read passage and will help boost your score significantly. If you get stuck on a question, SKIP IT. Don't waste time as reading comp. is very time constraining. After a while, you tend to read the whole passage and can do the questions that require you to understand the entire passage.

Physics
The Kaplan physics questions require a lot more calculation than you need. However, this is not to say you don't have to calculate anything at all. You NEED to understand the concepts behind everything. There will be a simple calculation, usually dividing or multiplying by gravity or some force. You should focus on mostly on kinematics, forces, momentum, gravitation force between two objects, and conservation of energy. There are also some fluids, capacitance, voltage, and simple harmonic motion stuff on there to. So be familiar with how things change when you halve distance, or increase some characteristic of the system. I actually ran out of time on this section so work at a good pace.

Quantitative Reasoning
Everyone knows how fast quantitative reasoning goes by. If you can't figure out a question in a minute, then make your best guess and go on. DO NOT WASTE TIME ON ONE QUESTION! This is very crucial. This section tests your ability to reason an answer out. Usually the types of questions here are ones where you can eliminate 2-3 answers, and have to figure out between the last two. Know your triangles, 3-4-5, 5-12-13, etc. Know how to set up systems of equations from the information and how to solve them quickly!!! This is VERY important as systems of equations are the most common type of problems. There are maybe one or two trig. questions, which can be solved easily using c^2 + s^2 = 1, and the related trig identities. Be very comfortable with using SOHCAHTOA to solve triangle problems. Also, make sure your arithmetic is sharp. Being able to simplify numbers quickly will save you time and help increase your score.
There is a very basic calculator, which I didn't use at all. Honestly, I forgot that it was there, so I'm not sure whether it would have helped me if I did.

Overall, I believe biology and reading comprehension are the hardest sections to study for. Physics, org chem., and gen chem. are concept heavy while quantitative reasoning is a race against time. Be careful of how you pace yourself. Don't get stuck on one question and waste your time.

How I studied
My main source of review was the big Kaplan book. I read the book once way through pretty thoroughly and did all the review sections. Then, I went through the book again, this time taking detailed notes on each section. By doing this, it helped me take note of what I thought was important and review/improve any weak spots I had. Though this took a REALLY long time, it helped me retain the information much better. Next, I did the Kaplan flash cards. By this time, the only thing that the flashcards helped me on was biology because I had already hammered in the concepts from gen chem., org chem. and physics. After that, I started testing myself. I used the Kaplan DAT practice tests, which are pretty similar to the OAT stuff. I also used the DAT destroyer, which was a lot more intense than the actual OAT itself. The DAT destroyer was the most useful for biology. For general chemistry and organic, the level of difficulty was too high compared to the actual test, so it wasn't as helpful/representative. I suggest doing the destroyer for the biology section mostly. I got the destroyer for free, but if I don't know if it's worth buying. Lastly, I did the opted test, which was a very good indicator of the test and my results. I highly recommend doing the opted test.
The day of the test, I got up, showered, ate and then did brief review. I didn't study hardcore or anything because I wanted to reserve my mental energy for the test. I was EXTREMELY nervous, but after I started the test, my nerves calmed down, and I got down to business.

As for my results:
Quantitative Reasoning: 360
Reading Comp: 340
Bio: 360
Gen Chem: 400
Org Chem: 370
Physics: 370
Total Science: 390
Academic Average: 370

As for my student profile, I hope to go to Berkeley or SCCO. I am a 4th year at UCLA and have 4 quarters of biology, 3 quarters of ochem, 2 quarters of gen chem, and 3 quarters of physics, and 6 quarters of math under my belt. Though these classes went a lot more in depth than I needed for the OAT, they sure helped me because I didn't really need to learn any new material.

As a final note:
This forum helped me out a lot, so I want to give back what I can. Thanks guys for answering my questions. If you guys have any questions, feel free to either PM me or reply to this thread and I'll try to answer them as best as I can.

P.S Take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is just how MY test went. I cannot say this is how your test will go, so yeah. So please don't get mad at me if what I say doesn't apply to your actual test. =D

 

[al074755]

Thanks for your post! I'm scheduled to take the OAT on 9/10 and I'm having a really hard time studying gen chem, physics and quant. Do you have any suggestions? Focus on formulas, concepts, etc? Quant I've been practicing to get the hang of things, but as for Physics and gen chem I get so frustrated I shut down mentally and just guess. I have less then 2 weeks and I just don't know how to improve.

I've been using Exam Krackers audio osmosis and their books (Awesome for Bio!) and I also have the big DAT kaplan book and OAT book. I'm doing okay scoring wise, I just don't feel confident in those three subjects, which tend to be my lowest.

Thanks again!

 

[vandal]

Hi al074755,

For quantitative reasoning: How comfortable are you with translating words to equations? For example, if I tell you that I have 300 students that ate about 350 lbs of food. Guys eat about 1.5 lbs of food while girls eat about 1 lb of food each. How many guys and girls are there? This problem can easily be solved with using systems of equations.

Also, how good are you at dealing with triangles and using SOHCAHTOA? For example, if I tell you that a tree is 25 meters high and the angle of depression from an observer is 30 degrees. Can you tell me how far the observer is from the tree?

Another example is percentages and fractions. Are you able to convert percent increases/decreases and utilize fractions? One question I had dealt with percent discounts. I.E A person gets 40% a 50 dollar item. The person then subsequently gets another 20% off. How much is the total discount?

My overall advice for QR is if you're not that keen at translating the problem to equations is to just practice as variety of questions as possible while putting a strict time constraint on yourself. This is very important. Practicing with a time limit helps simulate the actual test and will help you decide whether you need to work faster and perhaps skip questions that you can't solve quickly.

For gen chem, I think if you have a fundamental understanding of the concepts behind chemistry you'll be okay. Don't just blatantly memorize formulas without really understanding them. For instance, take LeChatlier's Principle for an endothermic reaction A + B <-> C + D. Let's say we put this endothermic reaction system into an ice bath, what should increase? Well, we know endothermic reactions require heat. Since we are putting the system in an ice bath, we are in a sense "losing heat" so we should try to restore heat by making more of the reagents on the left side. Know the periodic table trends, i.e atomic radius, ionic radius and why it occurs like that. I know I'm being vague, but it's hard to really shortcut anything in science. Again, just try to understand the concepts and you should be fine.


For physics, this is also very concept heavy. If you know the concepts, you can usually pull out an answer, usually the correct one. Know how newton's laws apply to certain systems, how forces change with distance especially for gravitational force, know how to do force diagrams on elevator systems and how to solve "how much does the scale read" when an elevator is accelerating upward or downward kinda problems i.e N - mg = ma, know how to do torque problems(i.e seesaws, and other systems). I believe if you know the basic concepts really well, you'll be able to apply to any situation you haven't seen before. Know the basic formulas for kinematics, F = ma, F = Gm1m2/r^2, stuff like that. But you don't have to go too hardcore like the OAT Big kaplan book does.

As for giving up/being mentally strained, if you don't know how to do the problem at all, try to think "hmm... what doesn't make sense AT ALL?", this will help you eliminate at least 1 answer usually. Just try to think positive and trust your intuition and understanding of the material. If you do get something wrong, check the answer key and understand why you got it wrong and why the answer is that answer. Look for relationships between things, forces, acceleration, velocity etc!!!

For example, F = ma. a = change of v/change in t. F is now related to V by: F=m(change in v)/(change in t). Now, let's say we have a graph of v against t. We know that slope is = change in y over change in x. Since we have a graph of v over t, we know that this is the slope of this graph is equal to acceleration of the system. Understanding things like this are key to doing well on the test.

I suggest you do a lot of practice questions the days before the test. Try to get all the "memorizing" and learning done at least a week before so you can try to test your understanding. I think this will help gauge how well you know the material.

Good luck!

 

[al074755]

Your response was perfect. You def helped me narrow in on how I should spend the next week. Thank you! I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[vandal]

No problem! Good luck!

 

[fittycent]

Thanks! This, along with naearl's post, is very helpful!


edit: Wow, this is my first post in over three years of being registered. Lurk much?

 

[vandal]

You're welcome! And it's perfectly fine to lurk if you're timid. =D