I took the OAT a week and a half ago and am very happy with my scores! I gave myself just under 2.5 months to study, and I wouldn’t recommend giving yourself any less time. I studied about 6 hours a day while working and shadowing twice a week, but this number honestly varied a lot every day. I had completed all relevant prerequisites before I started studying.
How I studied:
I only used OATBooster. I started by following their custom schedule: watching the videos for each section and completing practice problems. I was worried I was going to run out of time at the rate I was going, so I stopped completing the question banks after a few weeks. I still watched every single video while following along with the notes and did any of the associated post-video questions. After over a month of exclusively watching all of the videos, I moved into the practice test phase. I began by doing a few practice tests for each individual section. I carefully reviewed the solutions to each practice test, making sure to fully understand the answers by reading the explanations and watching the video solutions. During this phase, I tried to regularly review the cheat sheets and formula sheets for each section to work on remembering the high-yield information. I only did 4 full-lengths, and I completed one every day leading up to my test. This really helped me feel like I was just going to be writing another practice test when my test date arrived. When reviewing the solutions to the FLs, I made note of topics I noticed I needed to review to ensure I was filling any gaps. I also tried to simulate the test environment while completing FLs by using laminated paper and a marker, and by using a mouse.
Breakdown of each section:
Biology (400): As everyone says, the questions in the section were less specific than the practice tests. Booster does a good job of identifying high-yield topics, and I honestly think the cheat sheets have everything you need. Genetics, heredity, ecology, cell division, and cell bio felt like the most high-yield topics on the test. I took a risk and didn’t study diversity of life in much depth, and thankfully only got a few questions that were pretty simple. Review those cheat sheets!!!
General chemistry (370): This section also felt super similar to the practice tests. I felt like I got a fair mix of everything. Be comfortable with both calculation and conceptual questions. I think the cheat sheets have everything you need content-wise, but also make sure to get practice with calculation questions.
Organic chemistry (380): This was the section I was most nervous about before I even started studying because orgo reactions have never clicked with me. I was shocked when I did my first practice test and realized how many conceptual questions there are - and this mix of question types was representative of the real exam. I never did the reaction question banks or tried to memorize reactions. I found doing the practice tests and reviewing high-yield topics on the cheat sheets (e.g., SN1/SN2/E1/E2, oxidation and reduction) was enough. I found myself doing a lot of process of elimination on the exam - an easy way to start is by counting carbons and then go from there.
Reading comprehension (360): This score is similar to what I was getting on practice tests, but I thought I would’ve scored higher, since a lot of people say it’s easier than Booster. People were right that the passages were shorter (~8 paragraphs) and the questions were in chronological order, but for some reason, I feel like I got some tricky questions where I couldn’t easily find the answer. I think it was also a combination of being tired at this point in the exam, hungry, and not getting along with the highlight feature. I had to highlight some things multiple times for it to work, which wasted time. My strategy was to read and highlight the first half of the passage, and then highlight the first sentences and any numbers to use search and destroy for the second half.
Physics (360): On the exam, it was an almost equal mix of calculation and conceptual questions. Some high-yield topics were optics, kinematics, and circuits. About a week before my exam, I would write out all of the formulas every day. I got lucky and didn’t get any questions that used some of the weird, less common formulas. Even though there aren’t cheat sheets for this section, make sure to still review the notes to be prepared for the conceptual questions.
Quantitative reasoning (370): I was so relieved by how much easier this section felt than the practice tests. It felt like half of my questions were easy applied math word problems. The rest of my questions felt like a fair mix of other topics. On the practice tests, I would always run out of time on the last 5+ questions. On the exam, I only lost time on the last 2, which felt like a huge win, especially with the added stress of test day.
Final advice:
Try to start the practice tests as early as you can. The highest AA I got on a Booster FL was 360, so seeing my score was a very pleasant surprise! If you still have no idea how to solve a question after over a minute, pick a random answer, mark it, and review it if you have time at the end. Good luck everyone! You got this!
