I just finished the OAT and I know I had a lot of questions going into it so I thought I would post my experience to hopefully make it easier on those of you taking it soon. I just finished the OAT Any specific questions let me know, just kind of firing off what I remember, which could get a little more hazy as I make progress on this celebratory ale 
. Also, if you have anything that you feel is a dumb question on anything don't be afraid to PM me, I had plenty going into today.
Biology
Quite a bit harder than I expected. Really had me worried about how the rest of the test would be. I feel like if I had had anatomy and/or physiology I would have done better in this section. Nothing in particular sticks out to me as something I should have studier harder on, just a number of questions I was not familiar with.
Gen chem
Mostly what I expected based on Kaplan and official practice test (free one on ADA website). Really no calculations that I can remember short of "if the concentration of X is increased, what happens to the rate..." type questions. However, I had one that had a duplicate answer, reported it on the ending survey, so might get fixed. I did have 2 or three questions that I had no idea what they were talking about and one with a diagram that didn't make a lot of sense based on the answers available.
Organic
Fairly similar to official practice test. Only maybe 6 reactions. Lot of concept questions. 2 NMR, no other spectrometry or technique questions. Some sterics questions, nothing on stoichiometry, acidity questions, standard stuff.
Reading comp
This went a lot better than I expected, first two passages were pretty easy, straightforward find thing info in the paragraph type questions. If you go to the tutorial on the OAT website the setup of that section is not very accurate. There is one question at the top of the page, but the reading section takes up the bottom 3/4th of the page and is in the same text format as the questions and the paragraphs are numbered. Much easier than the tiny notepad-style text on the tutorial. When I practiced I would read all of the questions then go back read the section and take notes on each paragraph. Due to the format of the test I found it a lot easier to read the first question, read until I found the answer, then go to the next question and continue reading... This worked a lot better than jumping back and forth between questions. The last passage was a lot harder than the first two because it asked for a lot of inferences and guessing what the author meant instead of simple find the answer stuff. That one I ended up going through the questions until I found a find the answer one, then read the passage. Went back and answered inference questions after I read the whole passage.
Physics
This one took me a little longer to do than in my practice tests. Mostly stuff that I expected. If you are practicing out of Kaplan then there are a lot less calculations. The official one was more on the money. Make sure you know your concepts as these are the bulk of the questions. You don't really need to know equations as much as relationships (ie, if we move the planets x distance apart, what happens to gravity...). For me, equations to know dealt with harmonic motion. Momentum and energy was important as well.
Quantitative Reasoning
I was really worried about my timing on this section because I ran out on every practice test I did. The real exam was easier and I had a little bit of time left over to go back and review the ones I skipped. However, work on your pacing for this because you really do need to move quickly. Skip the ones that will take you more than 30 seconds and come back to them. (you have 67 seconds per question, some will require a lot more, some a lot less). The calculations here were again a lot easier than Kaplan stuff and more in line with official test.
Trig identities, know them. I had 3 or 4 and had to guess cus I skipped that stuff. Know your sin cos in a triangle stuff. 3-4-5 triangles are your friend. Learn to cancel and simplify fractions like Rambo cus you will do a lot and have to do it fast. I memorized area and volume equations but they were given on all of my sections, usually more of an application of them than just a calculation. Learn to estimate things well too, that came up a lot and one of my questions was a simple simplification like "26/53 is almost:" (answer being 1/2). Also, because I know this comes up a lot: there is a calculator that you can bring up. However, it is extremely basic, take the standard windows calculator chop off everything but the numbers, 4 functions, and = sign and thats it. Learn to do everything without it. There were about 3 questions that I did use it for, but could have worked out on my own or estimated and probably would have saved time.
Overall
Concepts and relationships are more important than calculations and equations. Don't get bogged down in calculations on any section, move on and come back to it. Prioritization of easy questions is key. Read all of the possible answers. I had several questions where I thought I knew the answer was A or B until I read E and realized the question was asking something different than I thought. Also, if you don't know what an answer is to one of the chem questions, org especially, check the answers to see if they jog your memory.
As I said, watch your timing carefully. The science sections took me longer on the official test than the practice ones, but I got through them with plenty of time. Don't get discouraged if you get behind, go into triage mode. Meaning that if you don't know it, move on. It is more efficient if you can answer the question the first time because you will lose time rereading the question, redrawing the diagram, redoing simple calculations...but don't get bogged down in a question too long. There are 15 and 5 minute warning reminders, which are nice, but you have to click multiple times to get rid of them (please fix that).
How I studied
I purchased the big kaplan book and went through all of it. Then I made flash cards of the stuff that I knew I was going to need to work on. I hit these really hard. (For example, all the harmonic motion equations were on a card, motion equations, endocrine hormones, ... anything I needed to memorize got flash carded) For org, physics, and gen chem I made a list of all the important equations and made sure I knew them. Org I figured out what reagents were reducers, oxidizers, add carbons to a molecule... I then went through my notes that I took while going through the Kaplan book (which were very sparse as I don't take a lot of notes) and then went through MCAT foundation review notes that I had. These are really an outline of material, but if highlighted stuff that I was not familiar with.
Next up was the Kaplan flash cards. These were much more in line with what came up on the test than the end of section problems. Any flashcard that I did not get or I found the answer particularly useful I set aside to read again. As I finished up with a subject I would do the practice sets in the small kaplan OAT book (don't buy kindle edition, you want to be able to write in it. These were quite a bit harder than the actual test, but they gave me good practice.
Last thing I did was take the official practice test. I did a lot better on this than the Kaplan ones and it was way more reflective of what to expect on the actual test. If you are feeling down with your kaplan test don't feel too bad because the real one is better. I would save the official test for right before real test, the momentum of doing well on that will carry you through to the real test.
Shameless plug-my stuff is all for sale now! PM me for details. It'll go up on ads page in next few days.
I think going into the test with a good frame of mind is critical. Go to the testing site a few days early so you are comfortable getting there. Also, get used to working your brain at the time of your test. If your test is at 8 AM then get used to getting up by 7 so you are ready to go by the time it starts. I have a friend who was used to getting up at 10 and bombed her 8 AM test because she was so groggy. Don't let that be your downfall.
Random bit of info: any clothing your wear into the testing room must stay on your body. It was hot in my room, but if you wear in a hoodie you have to keep it on until your break. You want to be comfortable so dress accordingly. This may be overkill, but you could probably call ahead and find out how hot the room usually is.
Random advice: make sure your dry erase board erases before you go in and ask for a new one if it doesn't. Mine were crap and didn't erase very well, but the new ones were way better. The last thing you need while scrambling on the math section is to struggle to erase your previous work. If you discover that it doesn't erase once you start then raise your hand and ask for a new one.
Results
To be honest I was really surprised with how well I did. I got a 360 AA on the official practice test and 330s on the kaplan ones I took so I was hoping for 350 range. I was pretty ecstatic when the final scores page came up with:
QR: 350
Reading comp: 400
Bio: 350
Gen chem: 400
Org: 360
Physics: 380
Total Science: 380
Academic Average: 370
I really do have to say thank you to these forums for this score because the posts on here really did help me out a lot.
Sorry about the ridiculous length of this post but I tried to put up anything that I thought might help you on test day. Let me know if you have any questions.
. Also, if you have anything that you feel is a dumb question on anything don't be afraid to PM me, I had plenty going into today.Biology
Quite a bit harder than I expected. Really had me worried about how the rest of the test would be. I feel like if I had had anatomy and/or physiology I would have done better in this section. Nothing in particular sticks out to me as something I should have studier harder on, just a number of questions I was not familiar with.
Gen chem
Mostly what I expected based on Kaplan and official practice test (free one on ADA website). Really no calculations that I can remember short of "if the concentration of X is increased, what happens to the rate..." type questions. However, I had one that had a duplicate answer, reported it on the ending survey, so might get fixed. I did have 2 or three questions that I had no idea what they were talking about and one with a diagram that didn't make a lot of sense based on the answers available.
Organic
Fairly similar to official practice test. Only maybe 6 reactions. Lot of concept questions. 2 NMR, no other spectrometry or technique questions. Some sterics questions, nothing on stoichiometry, acidity questions, standard stuff.
Reading comp
This went a lot better than I expected, first two passages were pretty easy, straightforward find thing info in the paragraph type questions. If you go to the tutorial on the OAT website the setup of that section is not very accurate. There is one question at the top of the page, but the reading section takes up the bottom 3/4th of the page and is in the same text format as the questions and the paragraphs are numbered. Much easier than the tiny notepad-style text on the tutorial. When I practiced I would read all of the questions then go back read the section and take notes on each paragraph. Due to the format of the test I found it a lot easier to read the first question, read until I found the answer, then go to the next question and continue reading... This worked a lot better than jumping back and forth between questions. The last passage was a lot harder than the first two because it asked for a lot of inferences and guessing what the author meant instead of simple find the answer stuff. That one I ended up going through the questions until I found a find the answer one, then read the passage. Went back and answered inference questions after I read the whole passage.
Physics
This one took me a little longer to do than in my practice tests. Mostly stuff that I expected. If you are practicing out of Kaplan then there are a lot less calculations. The official one was more on the money. Make sure you know your concepts as these are the bulk of the questions. You don't really need to know equations as much as relationships (ie, if we move the planets x distance apart, what happens to gravity...). For me, equations to know dealt with harmonic motion. Momentum and energy was important as well.
Quantitative Reasoning
I was really worried about my timing on this section because I ran out on every practice test I did. The real exam was easier and I had a little bit of time left over to go back and review the ones I skipped. However, work on your pacing for this because you really do need to move quickly. Skip the ones that will take you more than 30 seconds and come back to them. (you have 67 seconds per question, some will require a lot more, some a lot less). The calculations here were again a lot easier than Kaplan stuff and more in line with official test.
Trig identities, know them. I had 3 or 4 and had to guess cus I skipped that stuff. Know your sin cos in a triangle stuff. 3-4-5 triangles are your friend. Learn to cancel and simplify fractions like Rambo cus you will do a lot and have to do it fast. I memorized area and volume equations but they were given on all of my sections, usually more of an application of them than just a calculation. Learn to estimate things well too, that came up a lot and one of my questions was a simple simplification like "26/53 is almost:" (answer being 1/2). Also, because I know this comes up a lot: there is a calculator that you can bring up. However, it is extremely basic, take the standard windows calculator chop off everything but the numbers, 4 functions, and = sign and thats it. Learn to do everything without it. There were about 3 questions that I did use it for, but could have worked out on my own or estimated and probably would have saved time.
Overall
Concepts and relationships are more important than calculations and equations. Don't get bogged down in calculations on any section, move on and come back to it. Prioritization of easy questions is key. Read all of the possible answers. I had several questions where I thought I knew the answer was A or B until I read E and realized the question was asking something different than I thought. Also, if you don't know what an answer is to one of the chem questions, org especially, check the answers to see if they jog your memory.
As I said, watch your timing carefully. The science sections took me longer on the official test than the practice ones, but I got through them with plenty of time. Don't get discouraged if you get behind, go into triage mode. Meaning that if you don't know it, move on. It is more efficient if you can answer the question the first time because you will lose time rereading the question, redrawing the diagram, redoing simple calculations...but don't get bogged down in a question too long. There are 15 and 5 minute warning reminders, which are nice, but you have to click multiple times to get rid of them (please fix that).
How I studied
I purchased the big kaplan book and went through all of it. Then I made flash cards of the stuff that I knew I was going to need to work on. I hit these really hard. (For example, all the harmonic motion equations were on a card, motion equations, endocrine hormones, ... anything I needed to memorize got flash carded) For org, physics, and gen chem I made a list of all the important equations and made sure I knew them. Org I figured out what reagents were reducers, oxidizers, add carbons to a molecule... I then went through my notes that I took while going through the Kaplan book (which were very sparse as I don't take a lot of notes) and then went through MCAT foundation review notes that I had. These are really an outline of material, but if highlighted stuff that I was not familiar with.
Next up was the Kaplan flash cards. These were much more in line with what came up on the test than the end of section problems. Any flashcard that I did not get or I found the answer particularly useful I set aside to read again. As I finished up with a subject I would do the practice sets in the small kaplan OAT book (don't buy kindle edition, you want to be able to write in it. These were quite a bit harder than the actual test, but they gave me good practice.
Last thing I did was take the official practice test. I did a lot better on this than the Kaplan ones and it was way more reflective of what to expect on the actual test. If you are feeling down with your kaplan test don't feel too bad because the real one is better. I would save the official test for right before real test, the momentum of doing well on that will carry you through to the real test.
Shameless plug-my stuff is all for sale now! PM me for details. It'll go up on ads page in next few days.
I think going into the test with a good frame of mind is critical. Go to the testing site a few days early so you are comfortable getting there. Also, get used to working your brain at the time of your test. If your test is at 8 AM then get used to getting up by 7 so you are ready to go by the time it starts. I have a friend who was used to getting up at 10 and bombed her 8 AM test because she was so groggy. Don't let that be your downfall.
Random bit of info: any clothing your wear into the testing room must stay on your body. It was hot in my room, but if you wear in a hoodie you have to keep it on until your break. You want to be comfortable so dress accordingly. This may be overkill, but you could probably call ahead and find out how hot the room usually is.
Random advice: make sure your dry erase board erases before you go in and ask for a new one if it doesn't. Mine were crap and didn't erase very well, but the new ones were way better. The last thing you need while scrambling on the math section is to struggle to erase your previous work. If you discover that it doesn't erase once you start then raise your hand and ask for a new one.
Results
To be honest I was really surprised with how well I did. I got a 360 AA on the official practice test and 330s on the kaplan ones I took so I was hoping for 350 range. I was pretty ecstatic when the final scores page came up with:
QR: 350
Reading comp: 400
Bio: 350
Gen chem: 400
Org: 360
Physics: 380
Total Science: 380
Academic Average: 370
I really do have to say thank you to these forums for this score because the posts on here really did help me out a lot.
Sorry about the ridiculous length of this post but I tried to put up anything that I thought might help you on test day. Let me know if you have any questions.
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