This is Part 2 of a series of breakdown posts that will outline the Optometry Admission Test. The OAT is a marathon of an exam with 4 large sections and clocking in at nearly 5 hours so let’s take a closer look at each section, shall we? On the menu today: The Survey of Natural Sciences, which is the longest section of the test, both in time and in number of questions!
Survey of Natural Sciences is the first section of the OAT, there are 100 questions, and you have 90 minutes. Within the section, there are 3 sciences tested: Biology (40 questions), General Chemistry aka Inorganic Chemistry (30 questions), and Organic Chemistry (30 questions). The content of these questions is limited to the things you learned in your entire first-year course in biology, general/inorganic chemistry course, and the organic chemistry class. Basically this means no upper level concepts beyond what you saw in those courses.
On your score report you will see scores for each subsection in addition to a total Survey of Natural Sciences section score. Remember: Your scores are based on the number of correct responses, which means you’re not penalized for guessing. That means don’t leave any question blank but make educated and smart guesses!
The ASCO gives a fairly detailed list of topics within the subsections so you can really hone in on certain areas when studying. Check out each subsection topic breakdown and a couple ASCO-supplied sample questions below:
Biology, 40 questions
Sample Question: 
General/Inorganic Chemistry, 30 questions
Sample Question: 
Organic Chemistry, 30 questions
Sample Question: 
The Survey of Natural Sciences is first big hump in your OAT day adventure and it’s a doozy. The key is perfecting your time management to keep you calm so you can focus on the questions and not worry about running out of time. Practice and ace it with OAT Cracker, where you can take practice tests in each section with questions that look and feel like the real thing! Stay tuned for further breakdowns!
