Road to the West
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- Joined
- Aug 13, 2018
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I promised myself if I got a good score on the test that I'd post one of these since they helped me so much. I'm pretty happy with my score so here it is.
My Scores (Achiever/OAT):
Biology: 340/400
Gen Chem: 370/400
O Chem: 370/350
Reading: 300/340
Physics: 300/390
QR: 320/400
TS: 360/400
AA: 330/380
Biology: I graduated with a biology degree but was still worried about this section coming into the test. The OAT Destroyer really overestimated this section. I thought the Kaplan book had a good overview and crashcourse videos really helped with the visualization. I'm biased but I my advice would be to try and get interested in these topics. Biology has a lot of fun topics and there are plenty of great videos online.
Gen Chem: Nothing too difficult just get the thermochemistry, kinetics, and stoichiometry concepts down and the rest is simple memorization.
O Chem: Could've used more practice with this section. In hindsight I should have taken a more visual approach to learning this material rather than just learn the names of the reactions and their descriptions. Practice problems are key for this one. Don't worry too much about mechanisms; focus more on memorizing the what each set of reactants produces and which conditions favor each reaction. Also, don't forget about spectroscopy and learning the major peaks for different functional groups.
Reading Comp: As far as I know there are basically two ways of going about this section: 1) reading the passages before and making a map and 2) Starting with the questions and trying to find the answers right away in the passage. The first method works well for difficult questions that require taking information from multiple paragraphs like the ones you find in the OAT Achiever tests. However, I didn’t see too many of these on the actual test. I used this method on the first two passages which ate up a lot of time, so I switched to the 2nd method for the last passage which worked a lot better. Everybody will have their own preference but personally I’d probably skip reading the passages if I did it over again.
Physics: Get down the equations and make sure you understand the principles behind them. For physics and QR, practice problems are essential. It’s not enough to understand how to solve the problems; you have to be ready to identify the type of problem and begin working on the calculations quickly. No calculator on this section so if you find yourself working on difficult calculations, there’s a good chance you’re doing the problem wrong (this does not apply to the OAT Destroyer). It’s also common to see expressions displaying the calculations in the answer choices instead of their end values so be sure to glance at them before working on a problem. This goes for the QR section too.
QR: Similar to the physics section in a lot of ways. The nature of the questions will be familiar to anyone who does the practice problems. There were a few problems that were stupid simple, which threw me off and had me wasting time looking for tricky wording. I’m a big fan of using Kaplan’s methods of plugging in answer choices and choosing convenient numbers to plug into questions with variables in the answers. These really help when you’re not familiar with the problem.
How I studied
I studied for about two and a half months full-time. I used the Kaplan book, OAT Destroyer, and OAT Achiever and recommend all of them. I was familiar with a lot of the concepts, especially in the biology and physics sections, but I read through the entire book anyway which took about a month. As I read through the sections, I put every piece of information I wasn’t familiar with on a word doc. After finishing the book, I looked back at the doc to memorize everything. I put every vocabulary term in red font and put the definitions in black (not automatic). Word has a function that allows you to turn the background black so I used this to basically turn the word doc into flashcards, switching between black and white backgrounds. Similarly, I used the highlighter to black out key words in certain sentences and expressions in key equations. I only took one OAT achiever test in full and used the other two tests for the reading section. With all the practice problems, I would time myself and put down all the questions I missed on an excel spreadsheet to redo later.
What I would’ve done differently
Instead of taking notes first and going back to memorize later, I would’ve gone back to memorize previous topics in tandem with learning new ones. I found that I forgot a lot of info after finishing the Kaplan book and I wasted a lot of time relearning it. I also lost a lot of sleep worrying about the week of the test. Only you know how much work you’ve put into studying but for me, if I could go back and give myself some advice it would be to not worry so much (easy for me to say after the fact, I know).
These are just my opinions and what worked for me so it may not apply to you. A lot of my anxiety came from reading too much into these articles. Just study hard, give yourself enough time and you’ll do fine. I’ll try to answer any questions if you have them. Good luck everybody!
My Scores (Achiever/OAT):
Biology: 340/400
Gen Chem: 370/400
O Chem: 370/350
Reading: 300/340
Physics: 300/390
QR: 320/400
TS: 360/400
AA: 330/380
Biology: I graduated with a biology degree but was still worried about this section coming into the test. The OAT Destroyer really overestimated this section. I thought the Kaplan book had a good overview and crashcourse videos really helped with the visualization. I'm biased but I my advice would be to try and get interested in these topics. Biology has a lot of fun topics and there are plenty of great videos online.
Gen Chem: Nothing too difficult just get the thermochemistry, kinetics, and stoichiometry concepts down and the rest is simple memorization.
O Chem: Could've used more practice with this section. In hindsight I should have taken a more visual approach to learning this material rather than just learn the names of the reactions and their descriptions. Practice problems are key for this one. Don't worry too much about mechanisms; focus more on memorizing the what each set of reactants produces and which conditions favor each reaction. Also, don't forget about spectroscopy and learning the major peaks for different functional groups.
Reading Comp: As far as I know there are basically two ways of going about this section: 1) reading the passages before and making a map and 2) Starting with the questions and trying to find the answers right away in the passage. The first method works well for difficult questions that require taking information from multiple paragraphs like the ones you find in the OAT Achiever tests. However, I didn’t see too many of these on the actual test. I used this method on the first two passages which ate up a lot of time, so I switched to the 2nd method for the last passage which worked a lot better. Everybody will have their own preference but personally I’d probably skip reading the passages if I did it over again.
Physics: Get down the equations and make sure you understand the principles behind them. For physics and QR, practice problems are essential. It’s not enough to understand how to solve the problems; you have to be ready to identify the type of problem and begin working on the calculations quickly. No calculator on this section so if you find yourself working on difficult calculations, there’s a good chance you’re doing the problem wrong (this does not apply to the OAT Destroyer). It’s also common to see expressions displaying the calculations in the answer choices instead of their end values so be sure to glance at them before working on a problem. This goes for the QR section too.
QR: Similar to the physics section in a lot of ways. The nature of the questions will be familiar to anyone who does the practice problems. There were a few problems that were stupid simple, which threw me off and had me wasting time looking for tricky wording. I’m a big fan of using Kaplan’s methods of plugging in answer choices and choosing convenient numbers to plug into questions with variables in the answers. These really help when you’re not familiar with the problem.
How I studied
I studied for about two and a half months full-time. I used the Kaplan book, OAT Destroyer, and OAT Achiever and recommend all of them. I was familiar with a lot of the concepts, especially in the biology and physics sections, but I read through the entire book anyway which took about a month. As I read through the sections, I put every piece of information I wasn’t familiar with on a word doc. After finishing the book, I looked back at the doc to memorize everything. I put every vocabulary term in red font and put the definitions in black (not automatic). Word has a function that allows you to turn the background black so I used this to basically turn the word doc into flashcards, switching between black and white backgrounds. Similarly, I used the highlighter to black out key words in certain sentences and expressions in key equations. I only took one OAT achiever test in full and used the other two tests for the reading section. With all the practice problems, I would time myself and put down all the questions I missed on an excel spreadsheet to redo later.
What I would’ve done differently
Instead of taking notes first and going back to memorize later, I would’ve gone back to memorize previous topics in tandem with learning new ones. I found that I forgot a lot of info after finishing the Kaplan book and I wasted a lot of time relearning it. I also lost a lot of sleep worrying about the week of the test. Only you know how much work you’ve put into studying but for me, if I could go back and give myself some advice it would be to not worry so much (easy for me to say after the fact, I know).
These are just my opinions and what worked for me so it may not apply to you. A lot of my anxiety came from reading too much into these articles. Just study hard, give yourself enough time and you’ll do fine. I’ll try to answer any questions if you have them. Good luck everybody!
