Sight5's OAT scores after taking it 6/2/07!!!

[Sight5]

I think this might be a long post so I will give the short version before the long version:

Short Version:

I got a 400/390 TS/AA on the OAT today. I used the Kaplan 07-08' review notes (1200 page book), the Kaplan 07-08' small book with 2 tests and practice problem sets, Topscore Pro, OATprofessor, and an MCAT review book. If you have any questions, you can ask me!

Long Version:

I am so happy! Here are my scores!

QR: 400 (100th)
RC: 400 (100th)
Bio: 390 (97.9th)
GCHEM: 370 (96.6th)
Ochem: 400 (100th)
Physics: 400 (100th)

TS: 400, AA: 390 (both 100th percentile).

This is my advice for all you out there about to take/retake this exam.

1. Find good review material! I didn't want to waste anytime poring over class notes (mine are pretty all over the place anyways) or college textbooks but rather wanted a nice big review book. I couldn't find any OAT books at first so I got a princeton review MCAT review book which was pretty good. The book was good, but didn't include some important topics like plant bio, ecology, evolution, and the physics wasn't exactly what I wanted. SO then I went for a real OAT book designed for the OAT. The only one I could think of was the Kaplan one.

I didn't want to shell out the $1300 (who does?) for the Kaplan course but I definitely wanted their 1200 page review book (which you can ONLY get if you sign up for the class) so I bought it from someone else who had never used it but for some reason had it from signing up for the class. It's a good book, and has good review problems with solutions to everything (also 3 complete reading comp tests). I would definitely recommend NOT paying the money for the course because essentially all they do is hold your hand and tell you to read the book. It didn't go into great detail on some things like the Ochem and bio parts, but my MCAT book more than filled the gap. Between the two books, there was absolutely nothing that I couldn't find in one of those books. The Kaplan flash cards are also nifty and help you hammer out those pesky biology facts you have floating in your head, or like those frequent "crap, whats the difference between Sn2 and E2 again?!".

After studying all the subjects that I needed to according to www.opted.org's examinee guide. I started to test myself repeatedly. I signed up for OATprofessor and good lord what a WASTE OF MONEY. The questions are not very good, and they get lazy and basically recycle the same ones. Poor product, don't go for it.

Then I got the kaplan 07-08' small book (two sets of practice, and then 2 complete tests with solutions) for like $30. It's worth it, it has good practice problems and solutions. And it's cheap, heck I'll sell you mine for $20 (it's almost new, no marking on it either). I scored roughly 340-350 range on those tests.

I then did the topscore CD, I took all 3 of their tests the week of the exam. I took one this tuesday, wednesday, and thursday and basically got 340 AA on all three. Friday I just relaxed.

My advice to you is to just take as many practice exams (TIMED! Don't be lazy! =) ) as possible. If you do Kaplan/Topscore, basically take whatever you score and add 40-50 points because they are that much harder than the real thing.

PM if you want to buy any of my OAT materials, they are all in good condition with no markings whatsoever and I'll sell it to you for cheap.

Feel free to ask me any questions about the exam, I have been browsing this forum quite a bit and it's helped me out a lot!

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[Vision34]

CONGRATS!! Your scores are incredible

 

[rallthenamesgon]

Sight5,

1st off congrats on the exam, you killed it! 2nd, how much time did you spend studying for the OAT? I have started to study this month, and my plan is to break the sections down over the months until I take it except for OChem and Physics. I start those classes in the fall and figured I will study them concurrent with school. I have topscore and the small Kaplan book with the practice tests so I plan to start taking those tests about a month before I take the OAT.

 

[alleigh79]

Very good and thanks for the great advise - I still have another yr. before I take the OAT. Did the flash cards come with the 07-08 (1299 pg) book? I bought my book off e-bay (it's in the mail) but I haven't been able to find the flash cards.

 

[Clovers]

Very good and thanks for the great advise - I still have another yr. before I take the OAT. Did the flash cards come with the 07-08 (1299 pg) book? I bought my book off e-bay (it's in the mail) but I haven't been able to find the flash cards.

What small kaplan book with practice tests are you guys referring to?

 

[Sight5]

The Kaplan book with two practice tests is:

http://www.amazon.com/Kaplan-OAT-20...0410417?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180863162&sr=8-1

It is not the same as the big 1300 page book which you can't buy anywhere.

 

[Bulls-eye]

Wow...that's about all I can say Sight5. Your scores are incredible and it must be such a relief now to finally be done with the test. How much time did you spend studying for the test?

 

[Sight5]

Sight5,

1st off congrats on the exam, you killed it! 2nd, how much time did you spend studying for the OAT? I have started to study this month, and my plan is to break the sections down over the months until I take it except for OChem and Physics. I start those classes in the fall and figured I will study them concurrent with school. I have topscore and the small Kaplan book with the practice tests so I plan to start taking those tests about a month before I take the OAT.

I studied for about 3 1/2 months. Though kind of fragmented throughout because I work full time at a biotech company (about 45 hrs a week), was taking a community college class on wednesday nights, and volunteering at an optometrist's office on saturdays

I would just study like 2 hours after work except wednesdays (though it was hard because I was always tired after work). 5 hrs on saturday, and all day sunday. I took a whole week off of work before the exam to polish off the Topscore tests and because I didn't ever have a long span of time to just study. I think studying consistently over the summer between school years for 2 months would be plenty for anyone.

 

[Sight5]

Very good and thanks for the great advise - I still have another yr. before I take the OAT. Did the flash cards come with the 07-08 (1299 pg) book? I bought my book off e-bay (it's in the mail) but I haven't been able to find the flash cards.

Yup the flash cards came with the package I got.

 

[Sweetmeet112]

congrats your score is incredible!

 

[Sweetmeet112]

Congrats again! but which book do you think helped you the most?

 

[Sight5]

Congrats again! but which book do you think helped you the most?

The big blue Kaplan (1200 pages) probably helped me out the most. I would say don't waste time poring over class notes and old textbooks, just get that book and it should cover anything you'd need to know. I did not encounter ANYTHING on the real exam that I could not have learned from that book.

My princeton review MCAT book was a good supplement but not 100% necessary. I would say the MCAT book was much better for the biology section for sure - especially the physiology parts. It went into more detail which is nice to know though too much detail might distract you and cause you to focus a disproportinately long time studying something that in all likelihood you'll be asked maybe 5 questions out of the 40 biology questions on which is only one part of your TS score.

 

[Sight5]

A lot of people have been PM-ing me about how to get a 400 on the reading comprehension section, so here is what I did (FYI I got the croc passage everyone hates also):

So as you know you have to read 3 passages, and you are given 50 minutes to answer 40 questions. Basically what you need to do is finish each passage in 16.6 minutes.

This is what I did but it might not work for everyone. I went immediately to the first question. Read it, then I spent roughly 2.5-3 minutes reading the passage. If I found the answer along the way I would pick my answer and move on to #2. I would then read #2 and keep reading the passage and if I found the answer along the way I would move onto #3. Etc etc.

But of course if I finished reading the whole passage and somehow missed the answer to #1, I would just fish around for the answer some more until I found it. If I couldn't find the answer in about 30 seconds I would just literally bubble C and come back to it later if I had time. I would do this frequently, if I couldn't find the answer immediately after 30 seconds or so I would make the best guess I could and move on. The key is to not get flustered even if you end up skipping a lot in a row =). It will only slow you down if you get flustered and panicky.

When I was taking practice tests I tried at first just to go STRAIGHT to the questions and fish around for each one, one at a time. It worked out terribly for me because since if I didn't read/at least skimmed the whole passage, I would be looking all over the place and waste more time then if I had just devoted the 2.5-3 minutes to read the passage and understand the gist of it. Also the OAT doesn't exactly ask the questions in chronological order so if question 3 asks a question that is contained in the last 2 paragraphs, I would be fishing all the way down until I finally found it.

I ended up finishing the reading comp section in about 43 minutes. Which left me 7 minutes to just go back and hammer out the ones I wasn't sure about and that I had semi-guessed on. Reading comprehension section of the OAT is great in that EVERYTHING you need to know is somewhere in the passage. The only real challenge is the time constraint but if you keep your cool and skip the ones that give you trouble, you should be able to finish within the time limit.

Because I finished with 7 minutes left I was able to go over the ones I wasn't as confident about (which was like 5-6) and thoroughly look through the passage for my answer.

I doubt I missed more than 1-2 questions out of the 40.

I DO have to say though that the reading comprehension part of the REAL oat is as hard if not harder than Kaplan/Topscore/Oatprofessor. Unlike the other parts where if you get a 340 in the practice Kaplan/Topscore test, you'll probably get a 380-400 on the real thing etc.

 

[prettygreeneyes]

Congrats on the awesome scores and thanks for the helpful posts!

 

[waterautumn]

Congrats!
I'm interested in your review book.
Some people told me that Kaplan reviewbooks for DAT and OAT are almost the same. Is that true?

 

[Sight5]

Congrats!
I'm interested in your review book.
Some people told me that Kaplan reviewbooks for DAT and OAT are almost the same. Is that true?

You are correct. They ARE the same except that the Kaplan DAT book won't have physics.

 

[cessna]

Where can I get REAL practice exams for the OAT? What have you all found to be most helpful? I've been studying for the OAT out of used 2005 Kaplan materials for the past 1.5 months, but I have yet to take a full practice exam - there aren't many days that I can spare 5 hours. I'm taking the OAT in 2 weeks, so you can understand my level of anxiety right now.

Also, I've heard that some Prometric centers have begun using handheld whiteboards rather than scratch paper. For those of you who have taken the OAT recently, which did you use?

 

[OnionKnight]

Also, I've heard that some Prometric centers have begun using handheld whiteboards rather than scratch paper. For those of you who have taken the OAT recently, which did you use?

The OAT testing guide that's on the website says whiteboard/markers will be available. However, I took the test two weeks ago and was offered scratch paper instead (this was in California). I guess it depends on where you are and whether they have them available.

 

[Sight5]

Where can I get REAL practice exams for the OAT? What have you all found to be most helpful? I've been studying for the OAT out of used 2005 Kaplan materials for the past 1.5 months, but I have yet to take a full practice exam - there aren't many days that I can spare 5 hours. I'm taking the OAT in 2 weeks, so you can understand my level of anxiety right now.

Also, I've heard that some Prometric centers have begun using handheld whiteboards rather than scratch paper. For those of you who have taken the OAT recently, which did you use?

I suppose the only REAL practice exam that I know of is from ASCO (www.opted.org). Everything else will be from people like Kaplan, Oatachiever, Topscore who try to make tests as similar as the real thing but of course aren't the real thing. In a way they are better in terms of preparation because they are harder (better harder than easier =) ). I think the Kaplan tests are great because they give detailed solutions but Topscore doesn't (they just gave me solutions, or mb I wasn't looking in the right places). I have heard good things about Oatachiever so I can indirectly recommend you trying them since I think you can download it very easily and I am sure it is very challenging (might be faster to download something rather than wait for it to come in through the mail so OatAchiever might be your best bet).

If you can't spare 5 hours to take a practice exam, you might be at a disadvantage because taking practice tests helps you get down your timing, gets you more comfortable with the format of the test and what types of questions you can encounter. Of course if taking it in 2 weeks is a must for you, you can always take the test in two weeks and after 3 months take it again if you don't like your score.

I got scratch paper, but whiteboards sound kind of cool.

 

[Sweetmeet112]

Thanks for answering my question about the books you used! I really appreciate it! Your posts have been really helpful! I just had another question for you, were you still willing to sell your kaplan review notes? Because I am having a hard time locating that book! If you could let me know I would really appreciate it!

 

[JMU07]

Where can I get REAL practice exams for the OAT? What have you all found to be most helpful? I've been studying for the OAT out of used 2005 Kaplan materials for the past 1.5 months, but I have yet to take a full practice exam - there aren't many days that I can spare 5 hours. I'm taking the OAT in 2 weeks, so you can understand my level of anxiety right now.

Also, I've heard that some Prometric centers have begun using handheld whiteboards rather than scratch paper. For those of you who have taken the OAT recently, which did you use?

I was offered the scratch paper, there were no whiteboards in sight. I'm in VA.

 

[brownyeyed]

Also, I've heard that some Prometric centers have begun using handheld whiteboards rather than scratch paper. For those of you who have taken the OAT recently, which did you use?

i was offered scratch paper also...live in TN (Go Vols!)

 

[jc812]

How the heck do I get my hands on the 1200 pg book that you are referring to??

 

[Sight5]

How the heck do I get my hands on the 1200 pg book that you are referring to??

Try asking other SDNer's, I am sure some else has the Kaplan materials. Unfortunately, I just sold my Kaplan 1200 blue book, but good luck!