To Anyone Who Has Taken the OAT

[homie]

On the RC section what types of topics are covered? Were they easy to read? Also any suggestions on physics? (Exam crackers, princeton review, ect?????) I have the Kaplan lesson book ect. Thanks for your help!!!!

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[iDoc2012]

the reading comprehension was just some random topic about something science related. just like the SAT, they let you read it and then ask questions of varying difficulty. For physics, i used the princeton review mcat book and it was great. i had never taken physics and it was my best score on the oat.

 

[zyg0te]

Do they let you jump around questions on the RC, or do you have to wait until you've gone through every question?

 

[kkoch]

Do they let you jump around questions on the RC, or do you have to wait until you've gone through every question?

You can jump around using the forward and back buttons or you have the option of marking questions to be reviewed at the end of the section.

 

[kkoch]

On the RC section what types of topics are covered? Were they easy to read? Also any suggestions on physics? (Exam crackers, princeton review, ect?????) I have the Kaplan lesson book ect. Thanks for your help!!!!

RC topics are science realated (mine were all bio based). As far as the difficulty of the reading, that is pretty subjective based on your reading ability. They are written for a scientific audience and use some scientific vocabulary, but they were not overly long or difficult to read. The difficulty of the RC section comes from the wordiness of the questions. Some would test you on factual material and they are easy to answer if you can find the right paragraph to look in. Other questions tested whether you could synthesize ideas presented and make inferences. For example, I would get a question that gave two statements and it would have the work BECAUSE in between the two statement. The answer choices would say:
a) The first statement is true because the second statement is true
b) Both statements are true, but the first is not necessarily true because of the second statement
c) The first statement is true but the second is false
d) The first statement is false but the second is true
e) Both statements are false
I had like 6-8 questions of a similar format on my test. To me, these were tough questions because you can't just go back and check factual info (especially if you are considering answers a. or b.), you need to truly understand the passage and all of the reasoning that is involved in it. I used the OAT Achiever to practice for this section and found the computer format and difficulty level was very similar to the real test.

As far as physics goes, I would advise using an old text if you have one. I studied physics using a high school text and did fine (360). I also studied OChem and Bio using only a text and working practice exams and going through the provided solutions. My philosophy was why spend money when I already had resources that I could utilize. Of course being a broke undergrad influenced my study material selections.

Good luck to all those you haven't taken the exam yet!

 

[homie]

kkoch, Thanks for all of the useful information. I have another question, if you score a little above 300's on the Acheiver test in RC do you think you will be ok on the OAT?

 

[xmagic9x]

I took the OAT today and the RC was a bit harder then expected. I got 360 on Achiever and ended up with 330 on the real albeit i accidentally left 2 blank (Huge Mental error). I scored 360 on opted and only took the first achiever because I ran out of time. I did well overall though but reading was my lowest. As for the question type with two statements and deciding which is true or not..I only had one maybe two.