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UCAT: Verbal Reasoning

whys

Regular Member
I've been not doing too great in VR. I heard that last years VR was unbelievably long and inference based. I was wondering what approach to VR people who did well had. For example did you skim read the passage and then answer questions from what you remember or did you go to the question first, identify keywords and then scan the passage for support?
I recommend you skim the passage for around 10 seconds and note down where each of the main ideas are. E.g. in a passage about cystic fibrosis, there may be a paragraph each about general info, diagnosis and treatment. By scanning the passage, you are able to get the main ideas and can easily locate info when necessary. Also, for the duration of this 10 seconds, it may be useful to note down keywords or phrases that could be useful later on. After this, spend around 25 seconds for each question. By using this method, I have found that my results have improved significantly from before, when I just used a random approach to all VR questions. Also remember to guesstimate flag more complicated, inference-based questions so you can complete the easy T/F/C questions first and come back to the harder questions at the end (don't flag ALL inference-based questions though). This is to ensure you don't run out of time and miss any easy marks.
 

dande

Regular Member
I recommend you skim the passage for around 10 seconds and note down where each of the main ideas are. E.g. in a passage about cystic fibrosis, there may be a paragraph each about general info, diagnosis and treatment. By scanning the passage, you are able to get the main ideas and can easily locate info when necessary. Also, for the duration of this 10 seconds, it may be useful to note down keywords or phrases that could be useful later on. After this, spend around 25 seconds for each question. By using this method, I have found that my results have improved significantly from before, when I just used a random approach to all VR questions. Also remember to guesstimate flag more complicated, inference-based questions so you can complete the easy T/F/C questions first and come back to the harder questions at the end (don't flag ALL inference-based questions though). This is to ensure you don't run out of time and miss any easy marks.
I'll give it a shot!
 

LouiseDisease

best western
I got 830 in VR and I have to honestly tell you all to ditch any sort of genuine strategy with answering the questions until you hit your mocks (which should be june at the earliest) and focus on learning how to speed read and become accustomed to the historical/scientific jargon that is used within the passages. From what I found VR just felt like it was siphoned straight out of wikipedia. Read a lot of random wikipedia, read novels, read the paper. It is all about your explicit ability to genuinely read. Also I would say that the true/false/can't tell are just as difficult as the text heavy comprehension when it comes to the 'can't tell'.
 

TKAO

oowah!
Valued Member
I got 830 in VR and I have to honestly tell you all to ditch any sort of genuine strategy with answering the questions until you hit your mocks (which should be june at the earliest) and focus on learning how to speed read and become accustomed to the historical/scientific jargon that is used within the passages. From what I found VR just felt like it was siphoned straight out of wikipedia. Read a lot of random wikipedia, read novels, read the paper. It is all about your explicit ability to genuinely read. Also I would say that the true/false/can't tell are just as difficult as the text heavy comprehension when it comes to the 'can't tell'.
I would legit try and do this. I just tried to stick to some sembelence of strategy and I ended up with a 670 VR, which is good, but by no means fantastic. Brush up on the basics and then try to get a strategy later, not the other way around.
 

Fili

Dentist 🦷
Moderator
I would say nerves definitely got the best of me on VR given that it was the first section of UCAT. I remember being zoned out for 2/3 of VR and my heart rate being high af.

(I could hear just how fast my heart beat was due to the ear plugs). It only started lowering when I took a quick pause to breathe and calm myself. I reckon this helped me actually get focused and not bomb the entire test.
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
It would be really interesting to see what the high VR scorers were doing. I attempted to speed read the whole text and then answer all the questions from there but that landed me a 600 in the final thing, I believe nerves were also at play here as the speed caught up on me. I'm thinking perhaps that some variant of skimming/scanning will be more advantageous. Thoughts?

LouiseDisease, who got 830, literally described her approach two posts up from yours. She's one of the highest scorers we saw here at MSO (I can only think of three higher off the top of my head who have posted here lately).
 
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Kezza

Kevin
I got 830 in VR and I have to honestly tell you all to ditch any sort of genuine strategy with answering the questions until you hit your mocks (which should be June at the earliest) and focus on learning how to speed read and become accustomed to the historical/scientific jargon that is used within the passages.
I'm going to 100% disagree here. There is absolutely no reason at all you should buy into the 'don't study to early/you only need 2 weeks of prep/you'll burn yourself out"

You should be starting to practice ASAP and as often. Spaced repetition and active recall is the key to success in learning. Do you think Magnus Carlson doesn't start playing chess and studying strategies until a few weeks before a major tournament? Becoming accustomed to the structure and learning a method that works for you is something that takes time. This is true for everything you learn, not just the UCAT.

TLDR: There is no such thing as too much study or studying too early.
 

LouiseDisease

best western
In no way am I advocating to leave things to the last minute, actually the opposite. If you start your mocks, as was explicitly stated, before June then you simply will run out of mocks.

But hear me out on VR: people's constant qualm is that they don't get better in their practicing with VR, and they come out with fairly low VR subsection results (<650). This is clearly not ideal if WSU is your first preference from the pattern we saw. I said to develop and hone your reading skills then get back to the questions. Unlike DM and AR, QR and VR can easily be worked on in ways isolated from UCAT materials and procedures to develop those skills.
 

Some guy

Member
I also got 830 VR, and agree with LouiseDisease that the best long-term prep is wide reading of complex passages, like historic texts or fact-heavy government reports.

But if you're after more immediate tips the two I found most useful were:

One, try reading the question first and then the passage. It helps your speed in finding the key sentences that answer what;'s being asked. Worked for me anyway.

Two, read it like a lawyer - ignore general knowledge or "obvious" answers and look for facts or direct inferences in the passage alone. An example I read somewhere: "the three crew members of the first lunar mission were Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins." then a question saying "Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon." Based on real-life knowledge the answer is "true." Based solely on the passage the answer is 'Can't tell."

In passing I also agree with Fili, if you get too stressed in section 1 it can affect the rest of your test. So a third piece of advice - however hard the question: relax, keep to time, and breathe. 😎
 

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DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
Two, read it like a lawyer - ignore general knowledge or "obvious" answers and look for facts or direct inferences in the passage alone. An example I read somewhere: "the three crew members of the first lunar mission were Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins." then a question saying "Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon." Based on real-life knowledge the answer is "true." Based solely on the passage the answer is 'Can't tell."

Yes, this is very important. It's easy to go "Oh, I know the answer to this!" when you're panicking and looking for easy points, but it's VITAL you ONLY use the information provided in the passage. Don't bring your own general knowledge to the table.
 

Some guy

Member
I bought a book of UKCAT questions. I probably shouldn't advertise in this thread, but google will steer you in the right direction if you are looking for one. There'll also be some practice questions at ucat.edu.au when the test window comes closer.
 

dande

Regular Member
I do also feel like your VR is heavily reliant on your natural ability. Thats not to say you can't improve your score however I do feel like lots of the very high scorers (800+) mainly skim read the passage first and then answered the question. It probably worked for them because they were naturally just super quick at reading. I could be wrong though so if I am please let me know. I feel like maybe it would be worth switching from strategy to strategy based on the question type.
 

TKAO

oowah!
Valued Member
I do also feel like your VR is heavily reliant on your natural ability. Thats not to say you can't improve your score however I do feel like lots of the very high scorers (800+) mainly skim read the passage first and then answered the question. It probably worked for them because they were naturally just super quick at reading. I could be wrong though so if I am please let me know. I feel like maybe it would be worth switching from strategy to strategy based on the question type.
I don't think anyone is naturally good at skim reading to such a large extent. Such things require habit and are more of a skill to learn than anything else. Don't kid yourself into thinking that you can't do well in VR but rather think about ways you too can improve your skim reading. I'd be the first to tell you that I didn't do that well in VR either, but I wouldn't blame it on a lack of natural ability.
 

woodstock

Member
Hey guys,
I was just wondering if anyone has any strategy for the questions in VR which say "based on the passage, which of the following is true...". At the moment I'm just reading all the options, picking one of them, and then going back to the text to check the statement. Does anyone have any tips of how to do these questions any quicker? Thanks
 

sophkat

Member
Hi all,
VR is definitely my worst section. Whenever I'm doing 4-question practise sessions (content removed) I usually get them all right and in less than the average time, but when doing a practise test I can barely get half of the 44 done. I'm pretty sure the stress of the time limit is what slows me down - how can i speed up under these conditions?
 
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DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
Hi all,
VR is definitely my worst section. Whenever I'm doing 4-question practise sessions I usually get them all right and in less than the average time, but when doing a practise test I can barely get half of the 44 done. I'm pretty sure the stress of the time limit is what slows me down - how can i speed up under these conditions?

If your biggest hurdle to speed is stress, then it's not necessarily going to be addressed by the usual means. I had a similar experience during UMAT where I was running out of the time I allocated myself for each section (timing for UMAT was a bit different to UCAT) and needed to speed up.

Stress under timed conditions can be caused by a couple of factors and it can be useful to figure out which is the key one for you.

It could be that you're getting distracted by the clock counting down and panicking about that (rather than the material itself).
It could be that you're wasting time on the questions due to stressing about your answers/second guessing yourself.
It could be something else entirely.

I identified my UMAT timing issue as being a consequence of constantly second guessing my S2 (the closest equivalent to UCAT's VR) answers. I had to literally train myself to pick an answer and stick with it. I had to accept that it wasn't going to feel great (initially at least) to not just 'have a quick double check'. I did whole practice sessions where I just allowed myself to get used to feeling uncertain and to accept that I didn't have time for over-analysing and that the over-analysing wasn't helping with either time or accuracy anyway.

This honestly helped my speed immeasurably across the entire UMAT but also improved my accuracy on the UMAT's VR equivalent to a point where I scored 73 (which was about 99th%ile, IIRC).

I highly recommend it as a method if you're having trouble with second-guessing/constantly doubting your answers/changing your answers.

Pick the one that seems right the first time, then move on. <-- and practice doing this! (In this case, it's not the material you need to practice, it's the ability to sit with the anxiety not double-checking your work provokes that you need to practice).

If you're clock watching, then more generalised stress-management strategies might be useful for you. Practicing some very brief mindfulness or grounding exercises a couple of times every day (I'm just talking something super fast: ~5 seconds-ish*) and getting really used to doing that, and then moving to incorporate your strategy into your practice exam scenario where, immediately prior to hitting start (or however each of the subsections is initiated), you use it to very quickly bring your fight or flight response back into line.

If neither of the above factors is something you've identified as the cause of your 'stress', then it's probably a useful exercise to have a bit of a reflect and see if you can figure out what it is. Once you do that, if you have more questions, feel free to let me know!

* I can suggest some if you're not sure of any
 
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Eliden

Year 4, B MedSci, MD @ UON
Although VR was my worst section in the exam (I got 640), I attribute my relatively low mark to my inability to concentrate during the first part of the exam (due to anxiety and occipital neuralgia that hadn't yet been diagnosed at the time). In mocks I scored significantly better. What I found really helpful was writing down key words while speed reading. Not writing them down with the intention of ever reading them again, just writing down words so my brain would retain more, and I'd be more likely to remember whereabouts I'd read something. These notes of mine were a mess/not legible but I still found it helpful.

I ended up getting 97th percentile and am studying med now, so unless you want to go to WSU, you may not need a super stellar VR.
 

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Melbmed44

Lurker
I've heard from friends who took the UCAT in previous years that VR is often the lowest scoring section. Is it coincidence that it's first in the exam, nerves are flying around, who knows?
plus I think with other sections you can use repetitive practice to get better, there are short cuts/acronyms to help you with patterns for example in AR. Whereas I think VR can't be as easily categorised into short cuts etc
 

TMG

Member
Hi all,
VR is definitely my worst section. Whenever I'm doing 4-question practise sessions in Medify I usually get them all right and in less than the average time, but when doing a practise test I can barely get half of the 44 done. I'm pretty sure the stress of the time limit is what slows me down - how can i speed up under these conditions?
Hey
sophkat,
Although I haven't taken the UCAT yet (am sitting it this year), I have found my VR scores to drastically increase over the past couple of months of practice. I don't believe there to be a specific tactic or so called 'strategy' but from what I've experienced, practicing reading long boring passages is the way to go.
These can be random history articles online or something from the newspaper, but getting into the habbit of reading these 'boring' articles quickly will give you an edge in the UCAT VR as most of the hard questions are those on history and and what not (what I personally find boring lol).
 

bigyikes

WSU MD II
Hi all,
VR is definitely my worst section. Whenever I'm doing 4-question practise sessions in Medify I usually get them all right and in less than the average time, but when doing a practise test I can barely get half of the 44 done. I'm pretty sure the stress of the time limit is what slows me down - how can i speed up under these conditions?
Practice is key. VR is unique in that you're bombarded with big chunks of information non-stop for the whole section, and its brand new info every 4 questions. I'd suggest try taking each set of questions one at a time - don't think about the next one, just focus on the one you're doing then and the amount of time you have left for that set. If you're anything like me, you'll get used to the process and even end up with a few seconds extra which you can use for the next set of questions. The way I prepped for VR was reading a lot of articles from the Guardian and Sydney Morning Herald (and I mean A LOT, mostly because I'm actually interested in the news) but I found this helped a lot, especially reading one article after another, I feel it sort of gets your brain used to processing and synthesising a lot of information, then dumping that as soon as you move onto the next piece of info. VR was my best section with a 790 for background (which isn't even that amazing lmao).
 

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