OAT Breakdown (390 AA/ 400 TS)

[Emma Yang]

Hi! I took the OAT on July 31 after around 7.5 weeks of studying full time 6-8 hours/day. I took chemistry and some biology electives in college, but haven’t taken physics since high school. I learned most effectively by testing myself via practice questions and using fill-in-the-blank/ masked anki cards.
Study materials I used: I don’t learn efficiently from videos, so I didn’t use Chad’s videos or most of the booster videos. (In hindsight, I could have supplemented Booster physics with another resource.)

• OAT Booster (9/10): I mostly used the study notes and practice questions. I scored 370 on my last three Booster practice exams, so I found the real exam much easier (or the scoring was more generous).
• Anki (8/10): Critical for reactions and formulas. I didn’t start using anki until after the learning phase (last 4.5 weeks of studying), but wish I had started earlier (esp. for the booster organic reactions and biology decks) so I could review concepts as I was learning them.
  • I’m a big fan of using the fill-in-the-blank function for formulas or key facts you really need to practice to know by heart. I made my own fill-in-the-blank decks for:
    • Physics formulas
    • General Chemistry formulas
    • Hormones (source/ function/ type)
    • Other biology concepts requiring detailed memorization (embryonic layers, integumentary layers, and lung volumes)
  • OAT Booster decks:
    • Organic reactions anki deck: I relied heavily on this deck to memorize reactions.
    • Feralis DAT Bio deck: I started using this deck really late, and didn’t get through much of it-- it’s dense and massive, better for passive repeated exposure than for deliberately memorizing all those details.

Study schedule: I followed a condensed version of the 8-week schedule during the first 3 weeks of studying. I took practice exams as scheduled for the last 4.5 weeks, but on non-exam days, I just did anki and independent review.

1. Learning Phase (3 weeks): I condensed the study guide's 5.5-week learning phase into 3 weeks by working at double-pace every day for the first two-ish weeks.
   1. I skipped the reading comprehension and quantitative reasoning sections, and only used study notes/ question banks (skipped most videos) for the remaining sections.
2. Practice/Review Phase (4.5 weeks): Here, I took a practice exam every few days as written in the study guide.
   1. Exam days: The same day I took the exam, I reviewed all of the questions on a document. For questions I got wrong or guessed on, I noted: (1) the topic/ relevant chapter (2) the concept I got wrong, and, if relevant, (3) any other points of confusion that prevented me from getting the right answer by process of elimination. I added anki cards only for concepts from (2) that really demanded memorization. Otherwise, I felt that I just needed to understand/ clear up whatever points of confusion had led me to be incorrect.
   2. Non-exam days: instead of following the study guide, I did ~3 extra reading comprehension practices (in one sitting like a practice exam), anki cards, and carefully reviewed topics/ chapters that popped up a lot when I was reviewing mistakes
3. Day before the exam: I took the ADA 2006 exam, looked over those exam results, and skimmed the biology cheat sheets.

Preparing for each section:
Biology [390]: My first few practice scores were around 350, and my last few practice scores fluctuated around 370.

• Learning Phase: I read and took notes from the study notes for each chapter (except Diversity of Life, which I skimmed at the very end).
  • I also did some of the bio bits but found them a bit too repetitive and detailed to be very helpful (especially because they were in chronological order. Hopefully booster will sort them randomly in the future!).
  • I skimmed Diversity of Life at the end of this phase because I knew it would be memorization-heavy but would not appear much on the real exam.
• Review/Practice Phase: I reviewed chapters that needed extra attention but did not feel I needed to anki-fy all my mistakes. I made fill-in-the-blank anki decks as listed above. Over the two days before my exam, I looked over all the biology cheat sheets.
• Actual Exam: The questions were similar to or slightly less detailed than the booster questions. I tried to speed through this section a bit to leave more time for general chemistry questions.
• Note: Most of the questions on the real OAT are not as detailed as the booster questions, but some are. While the difference between a 380 and a 400 might be a few detailed questions (and some luck), I didn’t think it was worth the extra time it would take me to learn all of the biology content at a 400 level of detail for 10 - 20 more points.
  • It helped to understand general feedback mechanisms enough to eliminate some options and make strong guesses.

General Chemistry [400]: My first few practice scores were around 330, and my last few practice scores fluctuated around 360. I had the most frustrating time improving my scores in this section. I struggled a lot with running out of time and making silly calculation/reading errors. I think the most important part of approaching this section is thinking clearly and understanding the relationships between factors and outcomes. It helped to get more exposure to the questions and use anki to memorize important formulas.

• Learning Phase: I read/ took notes from the study notes for each chapter and did all of the corresponding extra practice questions.
• Review/Practice phase: I reviewed common errors (eg confusing energy, reaction rate, and melting/boiling point relationships). I also found it helpful to grind practice questions to help me become more familiar with the question formats and get faster.
  • When I ran out of practice questions, I timed myself doing the “non-timed practice exams,” which are the same as the corresponding timed practice exams.
• Actual Exam: I forgot how to balance a redox reaction under basic conditions . I was able to sort of reverse- engineer myself to the correct answer, which might be a helpful skill to practice!

Organic Chemistry [400]: My first practice score was a 330, and afterwards I fluctuated at around 370. I find this section far more straightforward than general chemistry. Know IUPAC nomenclature, stereochemistry, acid/base strength, and the very basics of IR/ NMR, and you will score pretty well. Understanding these things will also help if you forget a reaction.

• Learning Phase: I read/took notes on the study notes and did all of the corresponding extra practice questions. I color-coded each reaction by ‘type of mechanism’ (yellow for concerted [SN2/E2], pink for carbocation [SN1/E1], green for other), and learned the general form of (or a prototypical example of) each type of mechanism. I made sure to work through and understand tricky mechanisms (eg enolate chemistry).
• Review/Practice phase: I completed the reaction QBanks, reviewed from the booster organic reactions anki deck every day, and set aside one of the non-exam days to make my own reaction chart. For each reaction, I memorized:
  • reactants/ catalysts/ products (in the Booster anki deck)
  • type of mechanisms/ important intermediates: if you understand each general mechanism type, you won't need to memorize the specific mechanisms for most reactions
  • stereochemistry/ regioselectivity when relevant (in the Booster anki deck)
• Actual Exam: I had few questions on reactions, and many of those were asking about intermediates and/or reaction conditions. I did not need to know specific NMR values, just a general sense of what functional groups might be more upfield and what might be more downfield.

Physics [360]: My first few practice scores were around 320, and my last few practice scores fluctuated around 350. I found this section, like general chemistry, to be pretty frustrating. I also struggled with running out of time and making calculation/reading errors here. I’ve seen a lot of people recommend Chad’s prep and in hindsight, it might have been a good idea for me to look into it.

• Learning Phase: I read/took notes on the study notes and did all of the corresponding extra practice questions.
• Review/Practice phase: At the beginning of this phase, I made a fill-in-the-blank anki deck for physics formulas and added to it as I took practice exams (some content popped up in the exams that I didn’t recognize from the study notes). Like general chemistry, I did lots of practice questions to get faster, and practiced reverse-engineering the answer sometimes.
• Actual Exam: I got two ice skater questions-- understand rotational motion of ice skaters! I felt much better about the questions conceptually than the questions on the booster practice exams, but my score was pretty similar (maybe I made some silly mistakes?). I also got zero fluid dynamics questions, which was weird because I had a lot in the booster exams.

Reading [400]: I was scoring 390s and 400s throughout the practice exams. I used the search and destroy method. The most important thing to remember is that there is one objectively “most correct” answer, which should be distinguished from the others based on a specific evidence line in the passage. I like to highlight these evidence lines to help me confirm this in my head, and sort of keep track of the topics in each paragraph as I read more of the passage.

• Learning Phase: I didn’t touch this section during the learning phase. During the review/practice phase, I did three passages a day on non-exam days (timed and in one sitting, like a practice exam) to build stamina until I was consistently scoring 400s.
• Actual Exam: This is the only section where the actual OAT felt harder than the booster practice exams. As others have pointed out, answer options on the actual OAT don’t always use the same specific wording as in the passage, which can make it harder/slower to use search and destroy. I had two questions asking what the author “implies” about something. For those, I still looked for a specific line in the passage to support my answer.

QR [400]: My first practice score was a 360, and afterwards I scored 390s/400s.

• After my first/ diagnostic booster exam, I figured out which formulas I had forgotten (combination/ permutation formula, probability formulas, how to do work rates). I didn’t touch this section again during the learning phase. At the beginning of the review/practice phase, I reviewed those formulas, then focused on finding shortcuts to do the questions quickly so I had more time to watch out for calculation/reading errors.

General advice:

1. Spend as little time on the learning phase as possible. I definitely felt super discouraged because my practice exam scores didn’t change much before/after the learning phase. Don't fret if this happens-- I saw improvement once I started really practicing and honing in on areas of concern!
2. Focus on: (1) filling in specific and commonly-tested holes in your knowledge and (2) getting faster at recognizing problem-solving patterns in gen chem/ physics.

	First Booster	Last 3 Boosters Avg	ADA 2006	Actual OAT
Biology	350	370	370	390
Gen Chem	330	360	380	400
Org. Chem	330	360	380	400
Physics	270	340	360	360
QR	360	400	400	400
RCT	370	380	400	4000

Please feel free to ask me any questions, and best of luck with your studying!

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