The Optometry Admission Test (O.A.T.) is a test used to determine applicants' qualification for admission to a school of optometry. All twenty colleges of optometry in the United States and the University of Waterloo in Canada use scores from the exam, in addition to work done at the undergraduate level of study, to decide whether to accept candidates. The test is administered by the American Dental Association (A.D.A.).
Contents
Administration
The OAT is a multiple-choice examination offered year round at Prometric centers. The registration fee is $435 as of July 1st, 2016 and there may be additional fees for rescheduling and requesting score reports. All twenty colleges of Optometry in the United States require their applicants to submit OAT scores in order to be considered for acceptance.
The test consists of four sections:
The four sections of the test will take a total of 4 hours and 40 minutes. Before testing there is a 15-minute optional tutorial, and after testing there is a 15-minute optional post-testing survey.
Test Content
The Survey of the Natural Sciences is composed of 100 questions total broken up into three subsections of Biology, General Chemistry, and Organic Chemistry. The Biology subsection consists of 40 questions and the General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry subsections consist of 30 questions.
The Reading Comprehension, Physics, and Quantitative Reasoning each have 40 items. Reading Comprehension will consist of three reading passages and tests one's ability to understand the passage and analyze scientific information. The Quantitative Reasoning section includes both mathematical problems and applied mathematical problems.
Scoring
Scoring of the OAT ranges from 200 to 400. The results are not a raw score of correct answers. Rather, the raw score is converted to a scale score between 200 and 400, with the 50th percentile set at approximately 300.