opted/kaplan scores vs. Real OAT scores

[pamin002]

hey guys,

im taking my OAT on march 1st,

here is the break down of my practice test scores:

OPTED Practice Test:

• Science
  • Biology: 370
  • Ochem: 350
  • Gen Chem: 340
• Physics
  • 310
• Math (QRT)
  • 400
• Reading
  • 390

Kaplan:

• Science Avg: 360
• Physics: 300
• Math: 380
• Reading: 390

Can anyone share their past experiences with how these two types of practice tests correlate w/ the real thing?

Also, as you can see, I;m stinking it up on the physics portion (go figure: two blow off physics professors ). Anyone have any tips to get the most out of my remaining studying time? (5 days?)

thanks in advance!

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[WeeNinja]

my opted score was exactly the same as the score i got on the real test. i don't think that happens to very many people, though. you seem to be doing very well on your practice tests - just be sure you don't underestimate the real thing! good luck! =)

 

[OpticalBlackOut]

Do a search of opted v.s. real test scores, there have been numerous discussions before (conclusion usually is: opted ~ real scores. kaplan much harder than real test)

Unfortunately, there is no quick way to improve on a subject like physics. It was also my worst subject, and ~a week before the test, I panicked and finished an entire AP Physics book.
In hindsight, I think you should focus more on understanding the basic concepts instead of bogging yourself down with calculations. I don't remember writing down too much on the actual test, good luck.

 

[pamin002]

Do a search of opted v.s. real test scores, there have been numerous discussions before (conclusion usually is: opted ~ real scores. kaplan much harder than real test)

Unfortunately, there is no quick way to improve on a subject like physics. It was also my worst subject, and ~a week before the test, I panicked and finished an entire AP Physics book.
In hindsight, I think you should focus more on understanding the basic concepts instead of bogging yourself down with calculations. I don't remember writing down too much on the actual test, good luck.

Your right, I just took my OAT's yesterday and the physics section didn't have many formula related questions, actually made a 350 on it!

 

[mathcod]

Kaplan: 320/310

OAT four days later: 400/380

 

[Slapshot13]

Expect a score similar to that of your opted.

 

[pamin002]

Expect a score similar to that of your opted.

Yup just took it. AA 350 TS 360

 

[zyg0te]

Yup just took it. AA 350 TS 360

that's amazing p, congrats!

 

[pamin002]

that's amazing p, congrats!

Haha thanks!

 

[keepitonthedl]

Maybe I was out of it or something during the real OAT, but my quantitative reasoning and reading comp were significantly lower than my opted score. The opted QR was extremely straightforward compared to the OAT QR.

In (parenthesis) are the opted scores.

Bio (400) 390
GChem (380) 370
OChem (380) 390
Reading Comp (360) 300
Physics (350) 370
Quantitative Reasoning (390) 310

Total Science (400) 390
Academic Average (380) 360

It's weird since there's such a huge discrepancy between my sciences and my QR and RC. In all, opted sample test, especially the QR section, is not representative of the real OAT at all.

 

[UMiamiOD]

Maybe I was out of it or something during the real OAT, but my quantitative reasoning and reading comp were significantly lower than my opted score. The opted QR was extremely straightforward compared to the OAT QR.

In (parenthesis) are the opted scores.

Bio (400) 390
GChem (380) 370
OChem (380) 390
Reading Comp (360) 300
Physics (350) 370
Quantitative Reasoning (390) 310

Total Science (400) 390
Academic Average (380) 360

It's weird since there's such a huge discrepancy between my sciences and my QR and RC. In all, opted sample test, especially the QR section, is not representative of the real OAT at all.

me too!!
i took my OAT yesterday and my bio quantitative reasoning and reading comp were significantly lower than my opted score. i found the OR to be reallllly hard on the actual OAT i have been scoring no less than a 360 on ALL practice test!

In (parenthesis) are the opted scores.

Bio (360) 310
GChem (350) 360
OChem (370) 390
Reading Comp (390) 300 !!!!!!!!
Physics (340) 340
Quantitative Reasoning (380) 300

Total Science (370) 350
Academic Average (365) 340

 

[DaveSch]

Hmm, do you guys think it has anything to do with the new scaling? Or they have made the real test more difficult?

It seems like people writing in September are getting a harder exam. Does anyone else who has written recently (in the last month or two) have any scores to compare?

I just finished the Opted sample and got a 380 AA but now you have me worried about the RC and QR!

 

[cheriemousse]

I don't know what it was but I did way worse on the real OAT. I took mine on Sept 11th. In parenthesis (OPTED)

Bio (350) 310
Gen Chem (350) 320
Physics (280) 320
Ochem (310) 290
Quantitative R (340) 280
Reading Comprehension (380) 300


Gonna have to retake it again..... =/

btw..I thought the bio was much harder on the real oat. At least I felt like I knew the info on the opted test. It was way random on the real thing. Gen Chem I thought was similar to opted as well as Physics. O-chem has always been a weak point for me as I have to spend more time studying the reactions which was mostly what the test was. The math was way more difficult and as for reading comprehension, I probably just needed some practice since the opted was only one article which was also pretty simple in reading.

 

[Arctic]

I'm going to begin an OAT section on www.optometrystudents.com for anyone who is interested (it is completely free so I don't think this violates any advertisement rules??) The site is new and it may be a couple weeks until too much is up, but rest assured I'll do my best to help create this section, so please check it out!
A big thanks to everyone who has posted side by side scores and/or comments, as I'm trying to collate as much data on this as possible.

Long Post, jump to last paragraph for the practice vs. real test scoring conclusions.

I took my OAT on August 15, here are my side by side scores, Opted are in Parentheses:

Bio: (390) 400
General Chemistry (380) 400
Organic Chemistry (350) 390
Reading Comprehension (400) 350 This is just too easy on opted to give an accurate assessment!!
Physics (390) 380
Quantitative Reasoning (400) 400
Note: I counted my correct answers as WRONG when scoring my practice test for the handful of questions on it in which the answer key is wrong. I knew that would never affect the overall score by much, so I didn't really care.

My thoughts on the differences:

Reading Comprehension is ALL about finding a strategy that works FOR YOU! I've said it on many other threads, and I'll briefly repeat here, that the Opted practice reading comp is not at all indicative of your expected oat performance.

According to most people I've heard from so far, all the other sections seemed similar (at least in content) to the opted test, except that yes, biology is very random, so you will likely be asked things on that section you'd have no idea to study for simply based off of the opted practice test.

The remaining question is, did the scoring scale make the actual oat more harsh than the practice test scale?? I still don't have enough data as of yet, so please ANYONE who has taken the oat with the new scale, please post your opted vs. real scores. But, I'm virtually certain the opted practice test DOES USE the old scoring system; I just haven't figured out yet in precisely what ways the new scoring system affects the oat.


However, I do have preliminary guidelines for scoring comparisons based on around a dozen samples; not great at all, but better than nothing I guess. Excluding Reading Comprehension (which is a terrible section on the practice test), most physics, gen. chem and organic chem scores are rarely substantially lower (if lower at all) on the actual oat than the opted practice test. Bio and QR, for whatever reason, are seemingly more likely to be significantly lower (20 or more points). Unfortunately, this could easily be a statistical fluke resulting from the small sample size; I wouldn't even bother using a chi-squared statistical analysis on my conclusions even with double the sample size! Please note that it is very common for multiple scores to go up, sometimes significantly, between the practice and actual oat (I attribute this largely to studying/preparation in the interim time period).

Hope this helps!! And again, I'll start working on an oat section for the site listed above, so please check that out by late september.

 

[eyebelieve]

Wow awesome job Arctic!

I took mine at the end of August and got the same scores as pamin002: AA 350 TS 360.

I don't remember my Opted scores, but I'll try to describe how the real test compared:

Bio: exactly the same. As others have stated, it's very random. I studied the most for this section, and yet very little of what I studied was actually on it. You either know or you don't. After the first 10 questions I was convinced that I would be retaking the test. (I ended up with a 350 on bio)

Gen Chem: same

Organic Chem: same

RC: Personally I found it much easier, but this seems to opposite for most. On Kaplan I was scoring <300. I am a fairly slow reader and under the time constraint, I would start to rush and then not be able to focus. For the actual test, I found my reading passages to be very interesting and easy to relate to (only 1 was science-based). I used the method of quickly skimming the passages to write down key words first and then I would move on to the questions. I ended up with a 390 and had a couple of minutes to spare.

Physics: easier. Know lenses/mirrors, vectors, circuits, kinematics. It was very simple math.

QR: same. Note: I ran into a problem of balancing my time, mostly due to the dry-erase boards. I would start some problems, work through part of the math, and then realize it was more difficult than I had anticipated. I wouldn't want to move on though b/c I didn't want to have to erase all of my work. My only advice is to work quickly/calmly, and don't even start the longer word problems until the end. I was too stubborn trying to figure out the answer rather than to just move on.


Overall, the test went by pretty quickly, and what a relief it was when it was over! Good luck!

 

[Arctic]

Thanks for the input eyebelieve. I hadn't really put much thought into dry erase board problems before, as the ones I was provided with worked quite well, however I've heard numerous reports that they give some people trouble. I'm quite shocked you improved that drastically on RC (100 points); terrific job! Maybe the passages you got just clicked well for you?? One of the passages I had (just one) didn't click at all for me, and so I had major problems with that one, which totally threw off my timing for the other two. I was really disappointed with my RC score, but I did pretty well on the test, so I realize it would be quite pathetic (and rude) of me to complain.

One thing about QR, and honestly math in general throughout the test: I did the vast majority of the math in my head, utilizing shortcuts (I'm not a mathematical savant or anything close to that, they just give you nice numbers to work with, I think). I've been a high school and college level tutor for a number of years now (more than half the time in math), so I fully realize that this method leads to a catastrophically high error rate for many people so I can't really recommend it as a general tip, but it definitely saved me loads of time on science (general chemistry and genetic probability in bio), physics, and obviously QR. For QR, I had close to 15 minutes left for the three or so problems I'd temporarily skipped (I didn't see a quick shortcut the first time I looked at them), but I still had plenty of time to work through them the long way.

 

[DaveSch]

Thanks Arctic, and everyone who posted their comparisons. I'm writing on Tuesday, so I will post my scores then.

 

[DaveSch]

As promised, here are my comparison scores between the Opted practice test and the real OAT (Opted test scores are in brackets).

QR (400) 330
RC (400) 360
Bio (380) 390
Chem (370) 400
OChem (360) 400
Physics (350) 400
TS (380) 400
AA (380) 380

I found everything to be pretty comparable, except the QR. Like other posters have said, it could just be that I was getting burned out, but it seemed like the questions required longer calculations on the real thing. I ended up skipping a few and coming back to them with only a couple minutes left.

 

[Arctic]

Thanks for the scores post, and terrific job!
Like I said before, I personally felt the opted QR was incredibly easy, however I'm also extremely fast/efficient and accurate at math anyway, so the actual OAT QR section was a cakewalk for me too. And I do remember the types of problems I was asked on the actual OAT, and they did seem just like the types of problems on the opted test, so based on my personal experience alone I could never have said the QR on the actual OAT is much different than the opted practice test.

However.... It is quite obvious that numerous people are scoring extremely highly on the opted QR and much lower on the actual test. I've heard from enough people now that I simply cannot ignore this trend; the only thing now is to figure out why?? It's important I figure out what can be done about this, as I'm currently writing a massive OAT guide for optometrystudents.com (I'll try and have substantial content for ALL sections up before the end of October, and I'll keep working on it anyway, so probably by December/January I can hopefully have a comprehensive, FREE online resource for the OAT) I'll delve into this some more, so again I greatly appreciate anyone who will post scoring comparisons, comments, tips, anything!

 

[Lily08USF]

for you guys that took the test already, did you ever use the OAT Destroyer for preparation? I just wanted to know if it helped on the Real OAT. Thanks!

 

[DaveSch]

Arctic - thanks!

Lily - I used OAT Destroyer and I found it very helpful. I like to study by doing practice questions and then reviewing things I can't answer or get wrong and Destroyer is pretty thorough.

 

[Lily08USF]

Thanks DaveSch! You did pretty well on your test! I am currently attempting to finish all the Destroyer questions before i take my test next week. I hope this helps a lot. It seems like it is the only thing i am doing right now, off the Destroyer.

What other sources did you use to study?

Arctic - thanks!

Lily - I used OAT Destroyer and I found it very helpful. I like to study by doing practice questions and then reviewing things I can't answer or get wrong and Destroyer is pretty thorough.

 

[DaveSch]

I started out using Kaplan but ended up using it mainly for a structure of what I needed to study. I did the majority of my studying from my textbooks to review all of the concepts, then used destroyer to make sure I covered everything. I also did a few Kaplan full lengths just to get used to writing a 4 hour test.

 

[Winggirl2]

I just scored a 230 on my diagnostic exam from Kaplan. I have 7 weeks until my actually test. Possible to score a 300 or above??