HEY
So I wrote my OAT today. Thought I'd share my experience with you all; over the past few months I've used this forum as emotional support hahahaha, so wanted to give back a little bit.
Little bit about me. I just finished my 4th year at the University of Toronto, majoring in biology and psychology. I decided on optometry a little late, so I'm staying for a 5th year to finish off prereqs that the University of Waterloo (only school in Canada) needs.
TODAY. So I got to the Prometric centre. They gave me a locker, took my thumbprint, picture, and I had to sign in. My test was scheduled for 11:30, but because I got there a little bit early, I ended up starting around 11 or so.
Biology: Very scattered. Because I did a lot of bio in school, I didn't study for this section too much. Any topic was fair game! I definitely panicked on a few questions, but overall, it went pretty well.
General Chemistry: Let me tell ya, I am no chemistry genius. I got a very bad mark in first year chem, and have stayed away from it ever since. However, I found that this section was mostly straightforward! All of the questions were very fair, nothing was designed to trip you up.
Organic Chemistry: Again, not my strong suit, and it showed. For me, the questions were very 50/50; some I knew right away, some I had no idea and guessed.
Reading Comprehension: I wasn't too too worried about this section; I had done a bunch of practice from Kaplan and OAT Achiever. BUT these passages were quite a bit more tricky, and written in such a way to potentially trip you up. I read each passage first, and then answered the relevant questions.
Break: Taaaaake this break, I can't stress it enough. Go outside, get some fresh air. I stayed for 10 minutes, wrote out some physics formulas, and then went outside to enjoy NATURE.
Physics: This was the section I was most worried about. I did very well in physics in first year, but when I did some practice tests, I was consistently scoring low, and running out of time. However, this went fairly well! I found it to be much easier than any of the practice programs I used (ie. much simpler calculations). It was about 50/50 concepts and calculations.
Quantitative Reasoning: Very straightforward. Some probability questions that I was little iffy on, but other than that, very fair. As per the new guideline, there was no trigonometry, but lots of the quantitative comparison questions; still, very simple.
SCORES
Bio: 380
GenChem: 400
OrgChem: 320
RC: 350
Physics: 350
QR: 380
TS/AA: 370/360
So overall, I'm very happy with these scores! I started studying about mid-May, with very varied studying hours (I went to British Columbia for 5 weeks during this time). Primarily, I used the big Kaplan book (2017-2018), and Chad's videos for General Chem. About 3 weeks out, I bought the OAT Achiever program (7 tests), as well as the OAT Destroyer books, and just worked on these questions. These 2 resources were definitely a bit too extensive, with the questions much harder than what the actual test was. Still, they pointed out my weaknesses, and if I had to do it all over again, I would 100% invest in these resources.
Thanks guys!
So I wrote my OAT today. Thought I'd share my experience with you all; over the past few months I've used this forum as emotional support hahahaha, so wanted to give back a little bit.
Little bit about me. I just finished my 4th year at the University of Toronto, majoring in biology and psychology. I decided on optometry a little late, so I'm staying for a 5th year to finish off prereqs that the University of Waterloo (only school in Canada) needs.
TODAY. So I got to the Prometric centre. They gave me a locker, took my thumbprint, picture, and I had to sign in. My test was scheduled for 11:30, but because I got there a little bit early, I ended up starting around 11 or so.
Biology: Very scattered. Because I did a lot of bio in school, I didn't study for this section too much. Any topic was fair game! I definitely panicked on a few questions, but overall, it went pretty well.
General Chemistry: Let me tell ya, I am no chemistry genius. I got a very bad mark in first year chem, and have stayed away from it ever since. However, I found that this section was mostly straightforward! All of the questions were very fair, nothing was designed to trip you up.
Organic Chemistry: Again, not my strong suit, and it showed. For me, the questions were very 50/50; some I knew right away, some I had no idea and guessed.
Reading Comprehension: I wasn't too too worried about this section; I had done a bunch of practice from Kaplan and OAT Achiever. BUT these passages were quite a bit more tricky, and written in such a way to potentially trip you up. I read each passage first, and then answered the relevant questions.
Break: Taaaaake this break, I can't stress it enough. Go outside, get some fresh air. I stayed for 10 minutes, wrote out some physics formulas, and then went outside to enjoy NATURE.
Physics: This was the section I was most worried about. I did very well in physics in first year, but when I did some practice tests, I was consistently scoring low, and running out of time. However, this went fairly well! I found it to be much easier than any of the practice programs I used (ie. much simpler calculations). It was about 50/50 concepts and calculations.
Quantitative Reasoning: Very straightforward. Some probability questions that I was little iffy on, but other than that, very fair. As per the new guideline, there was no trigonometry, but lots of the quantitative comparison questions; still, very simple.
SCORES
Bio: 380
GenChem: 400
OrgChem: 320
RC: 350
Physics: 350
QR: 380
TS/AA: 370/360
So overall, I'm very happy with these scores! I started studying about mid-May, with very varied studying hours (I went to British Columbia for 5 weeks during this time). Primarily, I used the big Kaplan book (2017-2018), and Chad's videos for General Chem. About 3 weeks out, I bought the OAT Achiever program (7 tests), as well as the OAT Destroyer books, and just worked on these questions. These 2 resources were definitely a bit too extensive, with the questions much harder than what the actual test was. Still, they pointed out my weaknesses, and if I had to do it all over again, I would 100% invest in these resources.
Thanks guys!
what would you say was the best resource for the QR material? for some reason, basic math seems to be my biggest struggle and I would love to get advice as to what worked for you 