Just took the OAT 5/29/07

[brownyeyed]

For all of you that are studying for the OAT, i know ur pain all too well. here they are....

Bio 320
G Chem 340
O Chem 380
RC 280 (ugghh!)
Phy 370
QR 380

TS 360
AA 350

My question to you all is do you think that the 280 in RC will hurt me? I feel that my other scores are somewhat competitive, though i hear that schools look at the RC score alot. i don't know whether schools will frown at my application because of that on score. the schools i will be applying to are UAB, SCO, Nova, ICO, Indiana, and SUNY. anyone's opinion about this or their own experience would greatly help!
-Mimi

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[brownyeyed]

oh yeah, and if any of you guys have any questions (not specifics) but general stuff about it like studying or format, feel free to ask. this forum has helped me so much with my questions!

 

[Grover2k9]

I too STINK at reading comprehension... I took a practice OAT and got 400 on the organic section and a 250 RC..... Good thing I am not taking it until august!

Any suggestions after making it through it?

 

[brownyeyed]

if i had to do something differently, i would study a lot more for biology. i am completing my minor in it but that section through me off...when i saw the first couple of questions i felt like vomiting....i thought i was prepared for bio because i was doing well with kaplan exams but then again it tests you over their kaplan material ( which i knew very well)
my suggestion to people who are studying is to relax and study to do well...make sure you give yourself some breaks from studying and don't wear yourself out! good luck on ur studying!

 

[daysend85]

I got a 330 on the RC section when I took the OAT this Feb. I had the infamous pontoon and crocodile passages that everyone here talks about. I've always sucked at RC and have done rather poorly on other standardized exams that involved RC. I never understood why I had such a hard time with it, after all I had taken AP English in high school and did well in that and even took the AP English exam and got out of taking a writing course in college. So I was fed up and wanted to find out what the hell was wrong with the RC sections on standardized tests.

Here are my suggestions and important conclusions I have made:

Unless you are a speed reader AND at the same time you understand everything you read as you zoom along, it is nearly impossible to read all of the passages and still have time to accurately answer all of the questions that follow. That being said, if you're not a speed reader, the RC section is not about reading comprehension AT ALL, it's only about searching for answers in a jumbled word mess. What I did was do a very quick scan over the topic sentence in each paragraph. This gave me the idea of not only what the passage was talking about but also what each paragraph discussed. Don't spend too much time doing this. Then go straight to the questions and get the idea of what they're looking for. Then go to the paragraph that corresponds to the question. The answer should be in that paragraph somewhere. For some questions, this task is easy...others, not so much. You should be able to tackle the "main idea" type questions if you scanned over the beginning of each paragraph. You might have to read a little to answer these type questions (introductory and concluding paragraphs are great for these). But most of all, it takes a lot of practice to discover your own technique and improve it. I spent a lot of time practicing for the RC section because I really wanted to beat the system...and...in my mind, I did.

 

[Eye4anEye]

With the reading comprehension are you allowed to use the "ctrl f" button to search for key words in the article. If so, does this really even help?

 

[daysend85]

With the reading comprehension are you allowed to use the "ctrl f" button to search for key words in the article. If so, does this really even help?

I'm not sure because I didn't even try that. If it does work, it could be helpful for the definition type questions.

 

[Habitual Rx]

With the reading comprehension are you allowed to use the "ctrl f" button to search for key words in the article. If so, does this really even help?

My OAT exam was just its own program with no use of control buttons... however i did not try this...

 

[brownyeyed]

Bio 320
G Chem 340
O Chem 380
RC 280 (ugghh!)
Phy 370
QR 380

TS 360
AA 350

is there anyone with similar scores to mine who was accepted or is in opt school that was asked to retake the oat (because of RC) at their interview? if so, what schools were they?

 

[jc812]

BrownEyed-Congrats, I think that you did VERY well... though RC was tough to look at. I'm sure that you can improve in that area. They say that you should learn your style of test taking skills and do what works best for you. Do you do better reading the passage first then answering the Q's or.. reading the Q's first, then reading the passage. I'm sure you've heard of this before, but it's good to try just one type at a time for practice tests and see which you score better with.

What sort of books did you use to study and how often did you study?

 

[brownyeyed]

jc812, i used the kaplan dat book to study for most of it...for physics i just used my own notes and text from lectures....i used the kaplan oat for practice tests and sets.

i also used oat achiever for more practice, which i thought was useful and useless at the same time....it was good for tests, but the physics portion was way off, and it didn't seem to help me in RC, on achievers RC tests i was scoring ~340s consistently then ended up with a 280 on the real thing.

i studied for about 2 months (apr and may) but about the last 2 weeks of apr i had bunch of finals so couldn't really dedicate much time to study for it. i just focused mostly on my weak areas (physics and bio) and didn't study as much for the chem part (i am biochem major).

Good luck!

 

[BYUIDoctor]

i also used oat achiever for more practice, which i thought was useful and useless at the same time....it was good for tests, but the physics portion was way off, quote]

What was so off about topscore pro with physics? too hard? too easy?
How did Kaplan physics RC and physics compare to the real thing?

Sounds like Achiever is just all around better from what I read on here.

 

[prettygreeneyes]

For all of you that are studying for the OAT, i know ur pain all too well. here they are....

Bio 320
G Chem 340
O Chem 380
RC 280 (ugghh!)
Phy 370
QR 380

TS 360
AA 350

My question to you all is do you think that the 280 in RC will hurt me? I feel that my other scores are somewhat competitive, though i hear that schools look at the RC score alot. i don't know whether schools will frown at my application because of that on score. the schools i will be applying to are UAB, SCO, Nova, ICO, Indiana, and SUNY. anyone's opinion about this or their own experience would greatly help!
-Mimi

Overall, your scores look great! Yes, that RC score is a little below average. Your best course of action is to contact each school you are interested in and ask specifically if they have cutoff scores for each section, and if based on that score and your overall performance they would recommend you retake the exam. I don't think you'll have to, but of course I can't say for sure!

 

[opto2020]

I don't believe any of the schools have a min. requirement for the RC section, except SCCO. I know that SCCO required a 300 or above for the 2006-7 admissions cycle. But things can change when you apply. Good luck! You will be very competitive with those scores!

 

[opto2020]

I don't believe any of the schools have a min. requirement for the RC section, except SCCO. I know that SCCO required a 300 or above for the 2006-7 admissions cycle. But things can change when you apply. Good luck! You will be very competitive with those scores!

 

[SearchSquad]

is there anyone with similar scores to mine who was accepted or is in opt school that was asked to retake the oat (because of RC) at their interview? if so, what schools were they?

You did an amazing job. You must've studied really well or you're a natural.
I didn't do as well as you in most of the sections, I mean a 370 in Physics is like WOW. I got a 320 or 330 in RC...haha, isnt it funny that I don't even remember. Your scores are way above average even if your RC stinks. They will def. bring it up during interviews because your other scores are so high...and you can prepare a responce to that. But please celebrate..because you did a great!!

 

[optisforme]

I know a lot of schools do look at RC...for ex. scco and umsl. AS for SUNY, i think you have a chance if you have a high GPA. I didnt do well on my RC either but I got accepted to nova, neco, and ico. I got an interview from SUNY and waitlisted for houston. When you send in your application, some schools will inform your oat rc score is too low and give you a chance for you to retake oat before they make a decision. goodluck!

 

[brownyeyed]

What was so off about topscore pro with physics? too hard? too easy?
How did Kaplan physics RC and physics compare to the real thing?

Sounds like Achiever is just all around better from what I read on here.

i didn't use topscore but i heard it doesn't come with explanations to the answers whereas achiever does so that is why i used achiever instead

kaplan physics was also harder than the real thing...it does help you in the fact that since it does go much more into detail, you learn a whole lot more. it makes you have to study more and look up concepts and facts you may have forgotten from lectures...my practice tests scores for kaplan physics ranged from 280-320.

 

[brownyeyed]

and thanks to all you guys for the words of encouragement! i'll be calling the schools i'll be applying to and ask them for their advice and see if it they have any type of cutoff score!
Goodluck to everyone who is applying this year!