My day of OAT test is finally a history, and I thought I'd share my experience. I am still recovering.
I have studied for 6 weeks, from Kaplan MCAT material, OAT Achiever and AP science books (best kept secret!), but I always felt there is more I need to learn - I was overwhelmed! And I kept getting 320's on OAT Achiever practice tests, which worried me. Well, ready or not, here it came - the OAT day. I got to the test site an hour earlier, went to the nearby coffee shop and looked over the formulas for Gen and O Chem and Physics. 5 mins before 10am I walked in and went through the motion of identification, picture taken and thumb print, while my body was going through fight-or-flight response.
I get in front of the computer and start the Biology section: Question 1 - no idea. Question 2 - no idea... I even checked if I am taking the right test! The questions were bizarre, and I kept marking every other one to come back to. I could hear my heart beat in my head. I flew through Biology section before it freaked me out even more, and Gen Chemistry was a relief I desperately needed - easy, common sense questions, with no complicated calculations. I haven't marked one. O Chem was good, familiar and logical, nothing tricky. I was done with the whole Natural Science section in 45 minutes, and then went back to the Biology to stare at those questions some more...
Reading Comprehension - ha! I play piano! I am normally not that good at this section (speed reading is not my strongest skill), but one of the sections was about piano and that was lucky for me. Other two I actually had to read.
Break - more coffee and a powerbar while my sympathetic system screams in protest, and back for round two.
Physics - easy. Really. Nothing like the homework we used to do. Questions were basic, one step calculations, although one was weird - I read and knew exactly what to do. I plugged in numbers into the formula, looked up .... and my answer wasn't there! So, I am still puzzled, because it was a simple questions.
Quantitative Reasoning came on the screen, and I came marking, solving, marking and double checking... until the time was up. It was over.
I held my breath for the scores, and the annoying survey come on instead. With lightning speed I went through it, and my scores finally got displayed:
QR 330 (what?)
RC 370
BIO 340 (I made it through!)
G Chem 400
O Chem 380
Physics 390
TS 390 (98.3%)
AA 370 (98.7%)
QR was all I could see because I needed my scores to be above 340. Besides, math supposed to be my strongest skill, not gen chemistry - what happened? To get this score of 330 I got 24 questions right, out of 40!?! Wow. Some math skills...
With my brain slightly swollen (lol) I got home and went into a deep sleep, to compensate for the night before. When I woke up, it all seemed like a dream (a nightmare), besides the "Unofficial Optometry Admission Test Score Report" printout on the table with those scores below my name. I guess I really did it!
I have studied for 6 weeks, from Kaplan MCAT material, OAT Achiever and AP science books (best kept secret!), but I always felt there is more I need to learn - I was overwhelmed! And I kept getting 320's on OAT Achiever practice tests, which worried me. Well, ready or not, here it came - the OAT day. I got to the test site an hour earlier, went to the nearby coffee shop and looked over the formulas for Gen and O Chem and Physics. 5 mins before 10am I walked in and went through the motion of identification, picture taken and thumb print, while my body was going through fight-or-flight response.
I get in front of the computer and start the Biology section: Question 1 - no idea. Question 2 - no idea... I even checked if I am taking the right test! The questions were bizarre, and I kept marking every other one to come back to. I could hear my heart beat in my head. I flew through Biology section before it freaked me out even more, and Gen Chemistry was a relief I desperately needed - easy, common sense questions, with no complicated calculations. I haven't marked one. O Chem was good, familiar and logical, nothing tricky. I was done with the whole Natural Science section in 45 minutes, and then went back to the Biology to stare at those questions some more...
Reading Comprehension - ha! I play piano! I am normally not that good at this section (speed reading is not my strongest skill), but one of the sections was about piano and that was lucky for me. Other two I actually had to read.
Break - more coffee and a powerbar while my sympathetic system screams in protest, and back for round two.
Physics - easy. Really. Nothing like the homework we used to do. Questions were basic, one step calculations, although one was weird - I read and knew exactly what to do. I plugged in numbers into the formula, looked up .... and my answer wasn't there! So, I am still puzzled, because it was a simple questions.
Quantitative Reasoning came on the screen, and I came marking, solving, marking and double checking... until the time was up. It was over.
I held my breath for the scores, and the annoying survey come on instead. With lightning speed I went through it, and my scores finally got displayed:
QR 330 (what?)
RC 370
BIO 340 (I made it through!)
G Chem 400
O Chem 380
Physics 390
TS 390 (98.3%)
AA 370 (98.7%)
QR was all I could see because I needed my scores to be above 340. Besides, math supposed to be my strongest skill, not gen chemistry - what happened? To get this score of 330 I got 24 questions right, out of 40!?! Wow. Some math skills...
With my brain slightly swollen (lol) I got home and went into a deep sleep, to compensate for the night before. When I woke up, it all seemed like a dream (a nightmare), besides the "Unofficial Optometry Admission Test Score Report" printout on the table with those scores below my name. I guess I really did it!