Complete Newbie

[leslie113]

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Hi guys,

I have honestly never thought of going into optometry before. I'm in a health sciences program. I have just decided to do the OATs, so basically, my situation is that I'm a 4th yr student, I am going to register for a date before dec 31 of this year to write the OATs, and have not started studying yet. Is this even a possible plan? Is 1 month of studying enough?

The questions i have may sounds extremely dumb..but i dont know anyone else who wants to study optometry and i just started wanting to, so i'm quite confused with how everything works.

I just ordered the Kaplan 2007-2008 review book and I'm super confused! How come there is no review material, it's all just practice Qs??!?! I took the MCATs this summer and there was 3 books of review material to go through. Are you just suppose to elucidate topics that will be covered from the practice questions and read up on them yourself? But how do you know the extent of information to cover??

Any help would be greatlyyyy appreciated!

 

[msjang]

Go to opted.org, and click on oat information, and then examinee guide, its a pdf file, and on pgs 30 and 31 it lists all the topics you need to know for the OAT.

The MCAT covers everything on the OAT. (OAT got Bio, general chem, organic chem, physics, quantitative reasoning, and reading comprehension) The reading comprehension is different from the verbal on MCAT. Most ppl say, and I agree, that the RC on OAT is easier than MCAT, since RC is basically hunting the passage for answers, not so much questions such as "you can infer from this passage that...", so you're hunting for details in the passage on the OAT. So if you have already taken the MCAT, I think you are prepared for the OAT, plus you've got 1 month to review anything you might have forgotten....just make sure to go over the list of topics covered I mentioned above. Check out the sample test thats on opted.org too, that will give you an idea of level of difficulty of the actual ques.

Normally I would suggest to get the big, thick Kaplan OAT review book (this isnt sold online or in bookstore, its from the in-class course) but since you took the MCAT, i think you are good to go. But if you really want, you can most likely buy it from someone here on the forum 🙂 and yeah, the kaplan book you buy from store is only good for doing practice ques., not so much for reviewing.

 

[Oogilily]

I also reviewed MCAT review books from Princeton Review. I didn't even use any OAT review books. The MCAT material prepared me well for the OAT. So maybe go back and study your MCAT review books. You should do fine. Check out the practice test on opted.org to get an idea where you stand.