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Does anyone know if the scores on the opted practice test use the old scale or the new scale?
Opted practice test scores
- Thread starter mshea413
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Although I cannot give a precise answer to this, I was myself trying to figure this out prior to taking my oat. I can tell you that the opted practice test was a good indicator of my actual scores (just took the oat yesterday), so if you do well on that practice test, you will likely do well on the actual exam. How similar will your scores be? Probably in the same general range (if you are getting say, a 300 in a section, you can probably expect a score at best in the low 300s, if you are getting a 350 in a section, you can expect a score in the mid 300s, etc.) unless you are better prepared for the actual test than the practice test (quite likely if you give yourself enough study time). The only section I would predict a high variance for would be Reading Comprehension. Basically, if you get lucky and get passages that 'click' well for you and/or you just happen to know a lot about (unlikely but hey, who knows), it won't in and of itself get you many more answers outright correct, but it will allow you to SAVE TIME which is a tremendous help for the entire section. As an example, on the opted practice test reading passage, I think I knew the answer to 8 of the questions without needing to have read the passage, so it was pretty easy for me to get a practice score of 400, while my actual oat reading score was 350. Yes there are people who consistently do extremely well on reading comp, so this wouldn't apply to them, but most people don't. For all of the other subjects, I felt the practice test was quite accurate. Hope this helps!
Yes good luck, and please anyone else who would care to do so should post a comparison of their opted practice scores vs. their real oat scores. Because, as I said, the practice scores very nicely predicted mine, however we all know that the more data we have available, the more statistically sound our conclusions will be.
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Woohoo!! I just got done, and wanted to post a (hopefully helpful) comparison of my actual OAT scores vs the opted ones (which I took just 2 days before the real test). The ones on the right in parentheses are the opted, predicted ones.
QR: 350 (380) --I thought QR on the real one was a bit tougher, but maybe I was just worn out
RC: 340 (400) --The opted RC section is only 15 questions! So the score predicted by it (as Arctic mentioned) might be quite variable.
Bio: 360 (400) --Also a fair amount lower, likely due to many seemingly random questions that I couldn't really study/prepare enough for.
GChem: 400 (370) --felt easy =)
OChem: 400 (350) -- ditto
Physics: 400 (340) --felt way easier (esp vs Kaplan)
TS: 400, AA: 380
I am soo excited right now, and honestly, what I did to study was 3.5 weeks straight of ~9hrs/day just reading through and outlining all of the Kaplan materials (from the course, which I obtained from someone else). I then spent the last 4 days doing 3 practice tests and last minute overview. So it was quite tough, but at least it was only 3.5 weeks, and didn't cost me too much. =)
QR: 350 (380) --I thought QR on the real one was a bit tougher, but maybe I was just worn out
RC: 340 (400) --The opted RC section is only 15 questions! So the score predicted by it (as Arctic mentioned) might be quite variable.
Bio: 360 (400) --Also a fair amount lower, likely due to many seemingly random questions that I couldn't really study/prepare enough for.
GChem: 400 (370) --felt easy =)
OChem: 400 (350) -- ditto
Physics: 400 (340) --felt way easier (esp vs Kaplan)
TS: 400, AA: 380
I am soo excited right now, and honestly, what I did to study was 3.5 weeks straight of ~9hrs/day just reading through and outlining all of the Kaplan materials (from the course, which I obtained from someone else). I then spent the last 4 days doing 3 practice tests and last minute overview. So it was quite tough, but at least it was only 3.5 weeks, and didn't cost me too much. =)
Great job, those are definitely solid scores! 
As for the comparisons between the two tests, it does look like the opted practice scores vs. real oat scores differed significantly more for you than for me, but that may be because I had so many scores at or near 400 on both (hence giving no chance of upward variance)?? Thanks for the post, and good luck!
As for the comparisons between the two tests, it does look like the opted practice scores vs. real oat scores differed significantly more for you than for me, but that may be because I had so many scores at or near 400 on both (hence giving no chance of upward variance)?? Thanks for the post, and good luck!Congrats on the excellent scores!
Out of curiosity, is your GPA just as awesome? I always wonder if anyone with an average or even a lower gpa is able to blow away the oat like you did.
Also, do you think you just got unlucky with the reading passages you got, since your opted was so much high in reading comp? Some people feel they get lucky because they are familiar with the subject matter; someone got a passage on the piano and they play the piano, etc...
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Hi cloud99,
Thank you! Yeah, my GPA is 4.0, so that might have been a factor. I actually really don't understand how my reading score was that much lower-- like I said, the opted one was only 15 questions, and the real one was 40 I think, so that was a big difference. Plus, one of the passages didn't really click with me, so maybe some of the "deeper, infer/extract more out of this" passage questions got me. Plus, I was freaking out of course, I was taking the OAT! =) Not that I am complaining about the score though, at all. And I do believe someone with a lower GPA could do really well too, because I actually relearned the large majority of the material-- I haven't had any math or general chemistry since high school, and my second semesters of bio and physics I had pretty awful professors. So if you have the time to dedicate to going through all of the Kaplan materials, for instance, and even remember half of the stuff you have learned in college science, your GPA certainly doesn't have to hinder OAT success. If you have any more questions about the test or preparing for it (SonyaM or anyone else too), feel free to PM me. Good luck. =)
Thank you! Yeah, my GPA is 4.0, so that might have been a factor. I actually really don't understand how my reading score was that much lower-- like I said, the opted one was only 15 questions, and the real one was 40 I think, so that was a big difference. Plus, one of the passages didn't really click with me, so maybe some of the "deeper, infer/extract more out of this" passage questions got me. Plus, I was freaking out of course, I was taking the OAT! =) Not that I am complaining about the score though, at all. And I do believe someone with a lower GPA could do really well too, because I actually relearned the large majority of the material-- I haven't had any math or general chemistry since high school, and my second semesters of bio and physics I had pretty awful professors. So if you have the time to dedicate to going through all of the Kaplan materials, for instance, and even remember half of the stuff you have learned in college science, your GPA certainly doesn't have to hinder OAT success. If you have any more questions about the test or preparing for it (SonyaM or anyone else too), feel free to PM me. Good luck. =)
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Wow, a perfect GPA and a perfect TS score!
I'm going to cite you as an example for people who think that students do optometry because they can't get into med. school.... Congrats!