HELLO ALL! i lurk on this forum A LOT and I wanted to do an OAT experience thing AS SOON as I did my OAT just as my way of also giving back to the community.
A little about me: I procrastinate A LOT. So naturally what happened was that I booked my exam 3 months ahead but had 3 weeks left to study and thats when I started doing Chad's videos starting from quantitative reasoning. I was really stressed because I had 8 hour work days and also volunteering. Eventually I had to drop some shifts to cram like crazy for the test. (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYBODY. PLZ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD START STUDYING 2 MONTHS AHEAD IF YOU DONT WANT TO SHORTEN YOUR LIFESPAN BY 2 YEARS THROUGH STRESS AND ANXIETY LIKE ME).
Pre-stuff: So I had a total of 4 hours of sleep and woke up depressed as heck. I was so anxious and nauseous due to lack of sleep and not eating that I almost puked in the morning. I got to the place 5 minutes before the actual test time and I was freaking out because the sign in time was taking EONS and EONS and I thought that everybody started altogether at 12:30pm but that was not the case. You start when you get to your computer LOL. Went through that tutorial which is relaly similar to Kaplan's online test (you should do this for a very accurate measurement of what you're going to score on the real test)
Biology: A BUNCH of specific and detailed questions that I wanted to breakdown after the first 4 questions. There were stuff about PLANTS, the female reproductive and some REALLY random question about microtubules that I had zero idea of. For this section I only read 75% of Baron's AP biology book (THIRD edition) I couldn't finish it because I HAD STARTED studying for biology on Saturday for my exam on Monday(extremely stressful and bad idea). I did not use Chad's videos. What I recommend is that if you can memorize every detail that would be optimal. HOWEVER, if you're pressed on time, just read everything in the AP biology book and get a general gist of stuff. There were a lot of questions that I could sort of guess because I knew a certain concept was related.
Gen Chem: I don't even remember this section. It's my worst in school so I practiced a lot. There were still a bunch I had to guess on this section because I had NO clue or it was taking me too long to figure out (i.e. the acid base ones). Know your thermodynamics stuff WELL. I watched Chad's videos and did his quizzes 3 times.
Orgo: This is supposed to be my BEST subject so I studied very little on. I used chad's videos and my own notes from school and basically just made flashcards of all the reactions and tested mytself. Unfortunately there were more than a few questions that I couldnt answer on this part. And they were more theory related rather than IF YOU HAVE X AND Y what does that equal.
RC: This part was really bad for me. The first passage I got was VERY scientific-y and I had a lot of trouble with it. The questions were weird because they would use adjectives that I did't even know the meaning of. It was like "how would you best describe XXX" and then it would list 4 adjectives that only people who READ and WRITE A LOT would know the definition of (English is my first language btw). I didn't practice for this section at all... For the OAT i just read everything slowly first (9 minutes) and then around 7 minutes ish to answer the 15 multiple choice for each passage. Writing out notes did NOT help me because rarely I would refer back to my whiteboard. Also, aint nobody got time for that.
BREAK ---- I didn't take it because I was depressed and wanted to get the exam over with and just know my grade, so i moved forward.
Physics: There were questions I spent literally 5 minutes on because I was so stumped. That burned up all my time for the questions ahead that were equally as challenging. I had a lot of relative motion question that Chad never covered in his videos. However, I remember how to do it pretty well from highschool so it wasn't a problem. For this section I used chad's videos and thats it.
QR: I had practiced the entire math destroyer book for QR so I was really confident until a bunch of triangle emphasis questions popped up. KNOW your COT SEC COT stuff VERY well (including the identities that associate with them). I ran out of time at the end because like physics, I got STUMPED on some questions (A>B>C BLHLBAHBALBHA >1 questions) and wasted too much time. I guessed the last 5. The calculator SUCKED. I would press 1 twice and it would only show up once and I kept getting the WRONG ANSWER (until i figured out why).
Study Materials: Chad's videos/quizzes + OAT/MATH destroyer
For practice questions I did SOME of the Destroyer questions. Honestly they just made me depressed. Especially the gen chemistry section. For gen chem practice you only relaly need Chad's quizzes. The Destroyer is WAY too hard for Gen chem. Also, I didn't do any practice questions for Organic chem except for chad's quizzes.
The math destroyer is really helpful in making you execute things faster and the Oat destroyer for physics was really good too because it explained the concepts WHICH you NEED to understand because the physics part was very very conceptual.
I only did 1 full test which was Kaplan's online the night before my exam because I didn't have time. Needless to say I was DePRESSED as hell at 10pm
Bio: 330
GC: 320
OC: 330
RC: (didn't do it)
PHYS: 370 =DD
QR: 320
NOW FOR MY REAL OAT SCORES!!!
Bio: 350
GC: 390
OC: 370
RC: 350
PHYS: 320 =((
QR: 360 or 350 I forgot
TS:360 AA:360
I did SO much better than I anticipated. After the survey of the natural sciences I wanted to cry. I was so exhausted, tired and anxious and I also thought I wasn't going to crack a 300+ on any section. What I learned is that You NEED to start studying early. 2 hours a day for 3 months or 2 months is better than 8+hours for 3 weeks. Also,a little confidence would help too : )
A little about me: I procrastinate A LOT. So naturally what happened was that I booked my exam 3 months ahead but had 3 weeks left to study and thats when I started doing Chad's videos starting from quantitative reasoning. I was really stressed because I had 8 hour work days and also volunteering. Eventually I had to drop some shifts to cram like crazy for the test. (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYBODY. PLZ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD START STUDYING 2 MONTHS AHEAD IF YOU DONT WANT TO SHORTEN YOUR LIFESPAN BY 2 YEARS THROUGH STRESS AND ANXIETY LIKE ME).
Pre-stuff: So I had a total of 4 hours of sleep and woke up depressed as heck. I was so anxious and nauseous due to lack of sleep and not eating that I almost puked in the morning. I got to the place 5 minutes before the actual test time and I was freaking out because the sign in time was taking EONS and EONS and I thought that everybody started altogether at 12:30pm but that was not the case. You start when you get to your computer LOL. Went through that tutorial which is relaly similar to Kaplan's online test (you should do this for a very accurate measurement of what you're going to score on the real test)
Biology: A BUNCH of specific and detailed questions that I wanted to breakdown after the first 4 questions. There were stuff about PLANTS, the female reproductive and some REALLY random question about microtubules that I had zero idea of. For this section I only read 75% of Baron's AP biology book (THIRD edition) I couldn't finish it because I HAD STARTED studying for biology on Saturday for my exam on Monday(extremely stressful and bad idea). I did not use Chad's videos. What I recommend is that if you can memorize every detail that would be optimal. HOWEVER, if you're pressed on time, just read everything in the AP biology book and get a general gist of stuff. There were a lot of questions that I could sort of guess because I knew a certain concept was related.
Gen Chem: I don't even remember this section. It's my worst in school so I practiced a lot. There were still a bunch I had to guess on this section because I had NO clue or it was taking me too long to figure out (i.e. the acid base ones). Know your thermodynamics stuff WELL. I watched Chad's videos and did his quizzes 3 times.
Orgo: This is supposed to be my BEST subject so I studied very little on. I used chad's videos and my own notes from school and basically just made flashcards of all the reactions and tested mytself. Unfortunately there were more than a few questions that I couldnt answer on this part. And they were more theory related rather than IF YOU HAVE X AND Y what does that equal.
RC: This part was really bad for me. The first passage I got was VERY scientific-y and I had a lot of trouble with it. The questions were weird because they would use adjectives that I did't even know the meaning of. It was like "how would you best describe XXX" and then it would list 4 adjectives that only people who READ and WRITE A LOT would know the definition of (English is my first language btw). I didn't practice for this section at all... For the OAT i just read everything slowly first (9 minutes) and then around 7 minutes ish to answer the 15 multiple choice for each passage. Writing out notes did NOT help me because rarely I would refer back to my whiteboard. Also, aint nobody got time for that.
BREAK ---- I didn't take it because I was depressed and wanted to get the exam over with and just know my grade, so i moved forward.
Physics: There were questions I spent literally 5 minutes on because I was so stumped. That burned up all my time for the questions ahead that were equally as challenging. I had a lot of relative motion question that Chad never covered in his videos. However, I remember how to do it pretty well from highschool so it wasn't a problem. For this section I used chad's videos and thats it.
QR: I had practiced the entire math destroyer book for QR so I was really confident until a bunch of triangle emphasis questions popped up. KNOW your COT SEC COT stuff VERY well (including the identities that associate with them). I ran out of time at the end because like physics, I got STUMPED on some questions (A>B>C BLHLBAHBALBHA >1 questions) and wasted too much time. I guessed the last 5. The calculator SUCKED. I would press 1 twice and it would only show up once and I kept getting the WRONG ANSWER (until i figured out why).
Study Materials: Chad's videos/quizzes + OAT/MATH destroyer
For practice questions I did SOME of the Destroyer questions. Honestly they just made me depressed. Especially the gen chemistry section. For gen chem practice you only relaly need Chad's quizzes. The Destroyer is WAY too hard for Gen chem. Also, I didn't do any practice questions for Organic chem except for chad's quizzes.
The math destroyer is really helpful in making you execute things faster and the Oat destroyer for physics was really good too because it explained the concepts WHICH you NEED to understand because the physics part was very very conceptual.
I only did 1 full test which was Kaplan's online the night before my exam because I didn't have time. Needless to say I was DePRESSED as hell at 10pm
Bio: 330
GC: 320
OC: 330
RC: (didn't do it)
PHYS: 370 =DD
QR: 320
NOW FOR MY REAL OAT SCORES!!!
Bio: 350
GC: 390
OC: 370
RC: 350
PHYS: 320 =((
QR: 360 or 350 I forgot
TS:360 AA:360
I did SO much better than I anticipated. After the survey of the natural sciences I wanted to cry. I was so exhausted, tired and anxious and I also thought I wasn't going to crack a 300+ on any section. What I learned is that You NEED to start studying early. 2 hours a day for 3 months or 2 months is better than 8+hours for 3 weeks. Also,a little confidence would help too : )