MY FAILURE EXPERIENCE AND MY OET STRATEGY

Ive seen everyone here share their succeeds, which is great. I am offering different thing
here hopefully benefit anyone who havent succeed yet (or success in different way )

I come from small town in South East Asia (Indonesia) where no one talk English. We talk
either in Bahasa Indonesia (which is our national language) and Javanese (which is my
ethnic group language). We learn English at school and in University we sometimes
use/read books in English. That explains how it took me 5 times or 6 times to pass OET.
And until now after twice taken written test in dentistry I havent passed yet. It also took
me a while adjusting myself living in Australia and find out about how to get a dentist
qualifications in Australia. Very very slow compare with some of you. I married to
Australian, thats why I moved to Australia and luckily my partner is happy to support me
financially. So why I am still bothered to get a qualifications? It is a personal choice I guess
and too broad to tell everyone here (not important to ). Another thing is its so expensive
here if you want to change career, you have to do a proper education in Australian
institution and very expensive, you can get government loan or scholarship but the
pathway a bit confusing. A pathway to get dentist qualifications is more simple I think (poor
me poor me and my small brain, cant think 2 things in 1 one time, that honestly the
reason for excuse above). Again it took a while for me to get a job here. Its infamous that
everyone here has difficulty to get a job, not just for us, as a newcomer but also for
Australian citizen. I worked in nursing home before as a kitchen assistant before I got a
job as a dental assistant. Anyone interested in finding a job in Australia, how to make a
CV, where to get information about job vacancy, contact me! Its fun to work as DA but to
be honest I would say not enough money (work as a kitchen assistant would give you
more money! We should talk about equality here if we want to talk about DA wages!)

Before giving you strategy about OET, here is my analysis about written exam :
1. Never read dentistry book in English before (yeah, 1 or 2 or 3 chapter in University)
so even reading the book is a struggle for me. I cant compare myself to other
candidates who said never read that book and then in 3-6 months master those
books and passed the exam in the first attempt. Very genius people! So for me, 3-6
months is really not enough. Ive been studying for about 1 year now (and working
as well, I dont know how much time exactly Ive spent for study only)
2. Never seen most of the suggesting book. I bought some of them through online
bookshop like : bookdepository, amazon, etc.
3. Im such a conservative, I like studying/reading book not through
internet/computer/gadget but now I have to training myself to get the material online
and study in front of computer/laptop/tablet because its cheaper to get the book
online and more practical.
4. Im also an old style type of person. Never befriend with anyone in facebook but my
close friend but now I have to befriend with people who I have no idea at all a part
from that they an ADC candidates. I have to quickly learn about social media
(facebook) so I can keep up with technology and still manage private and
professional relationship through facebook separately.
 5. one of the reason (or excuse) why Im so bad at technology is internet connection
in Indonesia is so poor, I couldnt be bothered!!! But hey, I left Indonesia 5 years
ago, it might be better now, I dont know.
6. Like others candidates, I tried to get some help from successful candidates before
but not all of them interested in helping you. Fair enough. I felt like this : Ok, I dont
need anyone help, I wont beg you, I wont bother anyone, Ill do it myself!!!
Unfortunately it doesnt happen that way . I would say this group is fantastic. A lot
of people offers help, material, share their experience genuinely, for free! So in the
bottom of my heart: thanks a lot. I only knew this group after I failed my written test
in first attempt (March 2014), so Ive joined this group only about 3-4 months ago.
Someone I knew from supportadc group in yahoo added me. If you read this,
thanks a lot!!!
7. I asked many different candidates who passed : a dentist who worked with me at
clinic, she is from India, she only studied 5 materials for 3 months to prepare written
test and passed it at first attempt. Those 5 materials are : Odell, Oxford, TG, 1000
MCQ and bouchers! How does that happen? No clue! Another person who studied
together with me for written test ; born in Australia from Bangladesh decent so her
English is excellent, studied dentistry in Bangladesh in English but still need to do
the same ADC process to get dentist qualifications in Australia ; only studied like 2
months before, only got TG a week before the exam, she have had and read some
of the suggestion books from Uni in Bangladesh, stressed nearly all the time,
panicked and depressed, she doesnt join any support group and.passed the
exam in the first attempt! How? I think from some countries they use English at Uni,
use the same books as we are using now in ADC process or they just super genius
people. Correct me if Im wrong

STRATEGY FOR OET

These is my result for OET :

Oct 2010 : Listening C, reading B, Writing D, Speaking B
Jan 2011 : C *B C *B
Oct 2011 : B B B C
Mar 2012 B B B D
Jul 2012 A B B C
May 2013 B B B B

You see the * symbol when I took in January 2011, it was because I thought we only need
to resit for the subject that we failed so I only took and pay for reading and speaking. I
found out before on the day of the test that we have to pass in ONE SINGLE SITTING
(stupid me!). Here the tips for you. Remember, last time I took OET was in May 2013. Im
not aware if there is any changing in the system or format.

LISTENING :
1. Just write the point, dont bother them write any explanation, even if its not logic but
you hear it then write it instead of leave it blank.
 2. Focus, focus, focus.
3. Never think about previous question, keep focusing what you are listening, the
question and spot the answer.
4. Extra time in the end (around 2 minutes I guess, use it to fill the blank or come back
to previous question that you hesitate about. Before that circle or tick the question
that you think you know the answer but couldnt get the right word or missed the
word or just disappear on your mind, use the 2 minutes in the end to complete this
question.

READING :
1. Honestly I dont know what to tell, I always passed this subject so I dont really
know the secret.
2. For part 1 :
read quickly the article. Remember : quickly!
Read the question and get the answer by re read the paragraph. The
question would be in order with the paragraph. Start from early
paragraph to last paragraph.
Sometimes you can spot the answer just by reading the sentence
sometimes you need to read whole paragraph to get the answer. I always
read and try to understand the whole paragraph to get the answer.
3. For part 2 :
Do it back to front. Look at the question and decided from where the
answer would be in the text. It can be jump around for example question
number 1 can be from text for, question number 2 from text 1, question
number 3 from text 3, question number 4 back to text 1, question number
5 from text 2 and so on.
Skim the text! Dont read whole text first but read the question thoroughly
before deciding from which text you can get the answer.
Careful with tenses!

WRITING :
1. Use the format you comfortable with.
2. Use the sentence youre comfortable with
3. Remember, they ask you to write the body of the letter in 180-200 words long,
unless your letter is short but excellent try to fulfill 180-200 words. Find the method
so you can estimate how many words you use in 1 line with your hand writing so
you know how may word you use (not exactly just for estimation)
4. Learn how to make a readable hand writing (useful for listening and reading too!)
5. Read a lot of sample material and youll find the format and sentence youre
comfortable with.

SPEAKING :
As you notice I always failed in speaking. The odd thing is I passed speaking test on first
attempt when I had only lived in Australia and spoken English for 9 months! How come?
1. I think self confident play a big role. If youre not confident, pretend you are!
 2. Nervous. I always felt nervous in Speaking, looked at this assessor who mostly
Australian born with their perfect English and excellent chosen word! Hard to me to
learn to take control of the situation, that is just not me, I always quite with the new
person, never talk much about dentistry, I like to keep my dentist life for myself and
patient only, I dont like talking about my dental ability although I know I have a
good skill if its about dental job. But again I push myself. A tutor suggested me to
imagine the room as my surgery, I know that surgery better than anyone else, I
know what I need to do for my patient, I know how to look after my patient, I know
how to take control of the situation.
3. So there I went in the last attempt. I went into the room, looked at around and I told
myself ; this is my surgery, Im a good dentist, I know how to look after myself better
than the assessor so even the assessor cant intimidate me because now, here
she/he is my patient who I would take care as best as I could.
4. I know we have given the scenario but in the reality not everything happen based
on scenario card. Listen to the assessor; dont let them dictate you to give them the
answer twice. Thats what I mean to take control. They are not the patient, they
pretend to be the patient. They dont know about dentistry, they only read the
scenario card. They dont really assess us as you know, they record the
conversation and 2 others assessor asses our speaking through the recording.
Sometimes we already answer the other point from patients scenario card but
because the assessor doesnt listen then they follow the scenario card and asked
again and we get frustrated, dont know what to say or dont get quite different way
to explain thing. You can just say in the beginning : as I told you before, and then
repeat your answer.

Some of you asked me about the material. The only way I can give you material for free is
by scanning my books that I got from OET and that would take forever. Or by sending you
another material I got from online course. That would also take me a century since Im
really hopeless with the technology (Im joking about the century thing but honestly Im
hopeless with technology!).

I got the material from :

1. OET website. www.occupationalenglishtest.org
2. Online course. I recommend this test because the price is reasonable, they have a lot of
up to date material and you can choose any course that suit you. For me I only took self
study option where I got plenty of material for $75 at that time and after I failed Speaking
test couple times although a tutor from AMES helped me a lot in Speaking but still not
enough for me (anyone who immigrate to Australia would know what AMES is), I also took
Speaking course too, the tutor was the one who helped me to treat the test room as my
surgery! You can contact : www.oetonline.net.au/

This is all from me now. I dont mean to discourage anyone. I just want to share my
experience. This is not all or nothing. For you who passed, congratulations and good on
you! For you who failed or havent success yet, youre not alone and life is still good