Here is just a brief outline of how i Studied, how long, and what kinds of questions are on the test for each section.
I studied for about 2 months taking the Kaplan on site course, reading the big Kaplan book, flash cards and little book.
i ONLY used kaplan, NOTHING ELSE. Lots of people say kaplan doesn't prepare you enough but it definitely does haha.
I took all 5 full length practice tests:
Diagnostic: 300
K1: 310 AA
K2: 320 AA
K3:310 AA
K4: 320 AA
K5: 340 AA
So for the actual test...
Pretty intense environment, they took a metal detector to me making sure I had no cellphones and stuff. They give you noise cancelling headphones and 2 pieces of graph paper with erasable marker. (these are garbage haha i probably spent 5 minutes total just licking my fingers and using my shirt to erase old sections formulas 😛
1st Section was Biology
Everyone says "ohhh this section is brutal, so many questions on it".. in reality just be confident and you'll be fine. Was pretty hard. But then the next one was like hardy weinberg equilibrium so it wasn't bad. Know genetics, blood types, cell bio organelles and hormones. Found this to be easiest section out of them all. Definetely easier than people say, and easier than kaplan makes them out to be.
2nd was General Chem
This was decent, lots of stoichiometry, ideal gas, Q=mct, lots of if temperature increases and volume decreases what happens. Some molarity, acid base, few redox, and some lewis structures. ex) Which of the following is NOT pyramidal geometry? Overall, kaplan prepares you well, some random questions were pretty stupidly hard so guess and move on.
3rd Came orgo....
This section was absolutely ridiculous for me. Basically ALL reactions involving multiple steps. It gave you like an alkene and said what is the product after adding Br2, Co2, H20, Uv, and had like 4 steps it was stupid. Know the IR / HNMR/ CNMR stuff because I had some greeeassy ones. It would show me the CNMR and ask me what molecule it was, but all the answers were super similar (differed by 1H or 1 O atom). I felt pretty defeated after this section, knew it didn't go well. KNOW THE NAMED REAGENTS, saw some kaplan never ever talked about.
4th came RC
After orgo, i was pretty rattled. Started loosing confidence. This section was probably harder than Kaplan. Probably because the passages I got were insanely long and complex. Nothing about alligators or stuff that made sense haha. One passage was 16 paragraphs long another had very complex language. Lots of "what is the authors tone? What is the best synonym for this word in paragraph 2? Pretty hard tbh i mapped out the passages and search and destroy, didn't go so well.
BREAK time.. i forgot my food at home so used this time to write down formulas for physics.
Physics section
Found this pretty easy, very very conceptual. Some newtons laws,, lots of friction, lots of kinetics and concepts with momentum. One magnetism question (direction of force in a field) and some tough conceptual questions about electricity. Know resistors and optics, (inverted Real all that) but it was pretty easy tbh. Kaplan goes WAY TO HARD on this, definitely more basic than they make it to be. Felt restored after this section.
Finally, QR.
Ive always been decent at math, not amazing not bad. This section went by fast. Lots of LONG word problems, all i did was skip them instantly. Went to the ones where you could solve for x, for plug and chug numbers into a calculator. Lots of triangles, know SOH CAH TOH and identities. Know probability there was bunch on rolling dice and class sizes. Overall this section was pretty easy. Didn't study much for it and was exactly like kaplan.
now came the stupid survey
Obviously your mind is racing and anxiety is building up. but now..
the scores..
I felt pretty defeated because of orgo and didn't expect much.
Actual OAT
QR - 340
RC - 300 (great...)
Biology - 360 (yay)
General Chem - 330
Orgo - 290 - HAHAHAHA wowww.... -_-
Physics - 350
TS- 340 83rd percentile
AA- 330 80th percentile
Not sure how competitive these scores, my top school is NOVA would love to live in florida. GPA is around 3.4 so you can see, hard work pays off anyone can do it if they are passionate about the profession!! Never give up. Now its time to submit optomCAS and enjoy the rest of summer 🙂
I studied for about 2 months taking the Kaplan on site course, reading the big Kaplan book, flash cards and little book.
i ONLY used kaplan, NOTHING ELSE. Lots of people say kaplan doesn't prepare you enough but it definitely does haha.
I took all 5 full length practice tests:
Diagnostic: 300
K1: 310 AA
K2: 320 AA
K3:310 AA
K4: 320 AA
K5: 340 AA
So for the actual test...
Pretty intense environment, they took a metal detector to me making sure I had no cellphones and stuff. They give you noise cancelling headphones and 2 pieces of graph paper with erasable marker. (these are garbage haha i probably spent 5 minutes total just licking my fingers and using my shirt to erase old sections formulas 😛
1st Section was Biology
Everyone says "ohhh this section is brutal, so many questions on it".. in reality just be confident and you'll be fine. Was pretty hard. But then the next one was like hardy weinberg equilibrium so it wasn't bad. Know genetics, blood types, cell bio organelles and hormones. Found this to be easiest section out of them all. Definetely easier than people say, and easier than kaplan makes them out to be.
2nd was General Chem
This was decent, lots of stoichiometry, ideal gas, Q=mct, lots of if temperature increases and volume decreases what happens. Some molarity, acid base, few redox, and some lewis structures. ex) Which of the following is NOT pyramidal geometry? Overall, kaplan prepares you well, some random questions were pretty stupidly hard so guess and move on.
3rd Came orgo....
This section was absolutely ridiculous for me. Basically ALL reactions involving multiple steps. It gave you like an alkene and said what is the product after adding Br2, Co2, H20, Uv, and had like 4 steps it was stupid. Know the IR / HNMR/ CNMR stuff because I had some greeeassy ones. It would show me the CNMR and ask me what molecule it was, but all the answers were super similar (differed by 1H or 1 O atom). I felt pretty defeated after this section, knew it didn't go well. KNOW THE NAMED REAGENTS, saw some kaplan never ever talked about.
4th came RC
After orgo, i was pretty rattled. Started loosing confidence. This section was probably harder than Kaplan. Probably because the passages I got were insanely long and complex. Nothing about alligators or stuff that made sense haha. One passage was 16 paragraphs long another had very complex language. Lots of "what is the authors tone? What is the best synonym for this word in paragraph 2? Pretty hard tbh i mapped out the passages and search and destroy, didn't go so well.
BREAK time.. i forgot my food at home so used this time to write down formulas for physics.
Physics section
Found this pretty easy, very very conceptual. Some newtons laws,, lots of friction, lots of kinetics and concepts with momentum. One magnetism question (direction of force in a field) and some tough conceptual questions about electricity. Know resistors and optics, (inverted Real all that) but it was pretty easy tbh. Kaplan goes WAY TO HARD on this, definitely more basic than they make it to be. Felt restored after this section.
Finally, QR.
Ive always been decent at math, not amazing not bad. This section went by fast. Lots of LONG word problems, all i did was skip them instantly. Went to the ones where you could solve for x, for plug and chug numbers into a calculator. Lots of triangles, know SOH CAH TOH and identities. Know probability there was bunch on rolling dice and class sizes. Overall this section was pretty easy. Didn't study much for it and was exactly like kaplan.
now came the stupid survey
Obviously your mind is racing and anxiety is building up. but now..
the scores..
I felt pretty defeated because of orgo and didn't expect much.
Actual OAT
QR - 340
RC - 300 (great...)
Biology - 360 (yay)
General Chem - 330
Orgo - 290 - HAHAHAHA wowww.... -_-
Physics - 350
TS- 340 83rd percentile
AA- 330 80th percentile
Not sure how competitive these scores, my top school is NOVA would love to live in florida. GPA is around 3.4 so you can see, hard work pays off anyone can do it if they are passionate about the profession!! Never give up. Now its time to submit optomCAS and enjoy the rest of summer 🙂
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