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UCAT: Verbal Reasoning

FunTimes

Member
Hey Funtimes, so I’ve noticed a trend where people tend to score lower on the actual VR compared to their practice. Do you have any tips to counteract this considering you did so well both in practice and on the actual test?

I agree with Fili that a lot of it comes down to nervousness. A tip I saw on the internet back in the day can help with nervousness: Don't let the UCAT VR be the first bit of reading you do on the day. Read a short passage, Wikipedia article etc. to get you in the mood and get your cobwebs out, prior to the exam.
 

fray20

Member
Thanks! This has helped me a lot with prep! I just wanted to know how you evaluated VR questions after you’ve completed them to improve your score? Also, how did you structure your prep/study (i.e. what you did daily and weekly)? :)
 

dande

Regular Member
Got a quick question for people who sat the exam last year. I heard that VR was quite longer and a lot more inference based last year then it was on the commercial practice exams (let me know if this isn't true). On that note because it was so inference based did scanning for keywords as a sole strategy work last year or would you guys not recommend it and incorporate a level of skimming the passage first then answering the questions?
 

Smelly Boy

I can be ur angle 😇 or ur devil 😈
Valued Member
Thanks! This has helped me a lot with prep! I just wanted to know how you evaluated VR questions after you’ve completed them to improve your score? Also, how did you structure your prep/study (i.e. what you did daily and weekly)? :)
Thank u for the kind comment 🥺❤️❤️

I’d love to get the perspective on VR from someone who has scored higher but I’ll give my perspective anyway 🤠

Since the texts are so different, my focus when evaluating my VR was mainly on reflecting on how I felt while doing the test (e.g. time pressured/confident), how many I guessed and what my score was. This would inform if my general strategy For that VR section worked (since I’d try different VR strategies until I found “the one”).

then I’d go to each question and check why I got it correct/Incorrect. I’d also flag anyQs that I guess so that I’d be able to re attempt those afterwards. This would help highlight any silly mistakes i did/inform me of which texts I’m most comfortable with.

as for prep, it was kind of unstructured because I had a lot of stuff going on. What I know for sure is that before the real test (~5 weeks before the test), I was doing maybe 2 papers a week and then filling up my time mainly doing VR and AR questions.
 

Circles

Member
Hey guys I'm really struggling with VR (particularly the reading comprehension questions with the 4 options) and always get about 28-30/44 which I really want to improve. Does anyone have any tips for those types of questions? I figured that speed reading and skim reading would be the best but I often find myself not gathering any information when I do and I run out of time by the end :( any recommendations would be much appreciated :D
 

N182

Regular Member
No one method works for everyone, but I suggest reading all 4 answer options first, and simply assess them w/o reading the passage on which is more likely to be true (i.e. no assumptions/opinions, no strong words like ALL, EVERY etc.), usually two will be blatantly false. Then scan for the more likely ones first to confirm or deny if its true. If true move on don't worry about the rest, if false move onto the ones which you assumed were less likely. I found this greatly reduced my time as a) I didn't read a whole passage, and b) I didn't scan 4 answer options and only scanned 1-2 (most of the time).
 

whys

Regular Member
Hey guys I'm really struggling with VR (particularly the reading comprehension questions with the 4 options) and always get about 28-30/44 which I really want to improve. Does anyone have any tips for those types of questions? I figured that speed reading and skim reading would be the best but I often find myself not gathering any information when I do and I run out of time by the end :( any recommendations would be much appreciated :D
Heyo! I can give you a bunch of tips that I use and help me, but may not necessarily work for you (you can still try incorporate them and see if they work for you!). Any questions that ask about what the overall intention/message of the passage is you should be able to answer by reading the first and last few sentences, which usually sum up the entirety of the article. I then proceed to select an answer option that most closely matches what I already sum up the passage to be. If questions ask for more comprehension-type answers, such as 'which of the following is supported by the passage/false/unable to be deduced from the passage', then you could try reading the entire passage before reading the questions, or if you already do this, switch it up and read the questions before scanning for the answer. Usually, there are 1 or 2 answer options that you can 'eliminate' for the time being. I'll show you what I mean with an example:

Which of the following from the passage is true?
- Grizzly bears only eat salmon.
- Some polar bears live in the Arctic and hunt for food such as seals.
- L. R. Larkins was the first and only man to conduct a study investigating the effects of salmon populations on the health of grizzly bear cubs.
- The population of bears worldwide is currently estimated to be 750,000.

(Btw I made this question up). Basically, words such as ONLY and other high modality words are a big signal that they are probably false/can't tell. This is not always the case, but usually is, so the only answer options I'd check in the passage would be the second and last ones. If none of these ends up being true, then I'd search for the next most-plausible answer and continue. Usually eliminating answer options like this helps you save lots of time that you would have wasted searching for answer options that are likely to be false anyway.

For questions that involve asking 'what would the author agree with?' just search for the area in the passage where the specific information is and you should find your answer, considering the types of words the author uses around that specific concept/idea.

Again, this is the stuff I do - try adapt it to suit your own style of answering questions.

I see N182 has already answered your question in a much more succinct way. I'll just leave this here anyway in case it is helpful! :p
 

N182

Regular Member
Heyo! I can give you a bunch of tips that I use and help me, but may not necessarily work for you (you can still try incorporate them and see if they work for you!). Any questions that ask about what the overall intention/message of the passage is you should be able to answer by reading the first and last few sentences, which usually sum up the entirety of the article. I then proceed to select an answer option that most closely matches what I already sum up the passage to be. If questions ask for more comprehension-type answers, such as 'which of the following is supported by the passage/false/unable to be deduced from the passage', then you could try reading the entire passage before reading the questions, or if you already do this, switch it up and read the questions before scanning for the answer. Usually, there are 1 or 2 answer options that you can 'eliminate' for the time being. I'll show you what I mean with an example:

Which of the following from the passage is true?
- Grizzly bears only eat salmon.
- Some polar bears live in the Arctic and hunt for food such as seals.
- L. R. Larkins was the first and only man to conduct a study investigating the effects of salmon populations on the health of grizzly bear cubs.
- The population of bears worldwide is currently estimated to be 750,000.

(Btw I made this question up). Basically, words such as ONLY and other high modality words are a big signal that they are probably false/can't tell. This is not always the case, but usually is, so the only answer options I'd check in the passage would be the second and last ones. If none of these ends up being true, then I'd search for the next most-plausible answer and continue. Usually eliminating answer options like this helps you save lots of time that you would have wasted searching for answer options that are likely to be false anyway.

For questions that involve asking 'what would the author agree with?' just search for the area in the passage where the specific information is and you should find your answer, considering the types of words the author uses around that specific concept/idea.

Again, this is the stuff I do - try adapt it to suit your own style of answering questions.

I see N182 has already answered your question in a much more succinct way. I'll just leave this here anyway in case it is helpful! :p
Great Answer! Also one more thing to add, look for answer options with keywords/dates and numbers as these are easier to find. For example using whys example L.R. Larkins would be quite an unique word, as well as 750,000 which is a number. So using a mix of what you think is right, and what is easy to scan should save a lot of time.
 

Circles

Member
No one method works for everyone, but I suggest reading all 4 answer options first, and simply assess them w/o reading the passage on which is more likely to be true (i.e. no assumptions/opinions, no strong words like ALL, EVERY etc.), usually two will be blatantly false. Then scan for the more likely ones first to confirm or deny if its true. If true move on don't worry about the rest, if false move onto the ones which you assumed were less likely. I found this greatly reduced my time as a) I didn't read a whole passage, and b) I didn't scan 4 answer options and only scanned 1-2 (most of the time).
Heyo! I can give you a bunch of tips that I use and help me, but may not necessarily work for you (you can still try incorporate them and see if they work for you!). Any questions that ask about what the overall intention/message of the passage is you should be able to answer by reading the first and last few sentences, which usually sum up the entirety of the article. I then proceed to select an answer option that most closely matches what I already sum up the passage to be. If questions ask for more comprehension-type answers, such as 'which of the following is supported by the passage/false/unable to be deduced from the passage', then you could try reading the entire passage before reading the questions, or if you already do this, switch it up and read the questions before scanning for the answer. Usually, there are 1 or 2 answer options that you can 'eliminate' for the time being. I'll show you what I mean with an example:

Which of the following from the passage is true?
- Grizzly bears only eat salmon.
- Some polar bears live in the Arctic and hunt for food such as seals.
- L. R. Larkins was the first and only man to conduct a study investigating the effects of salmon populations on the health of grizzly bear cubs.
- The population of bears worldwide is currently estimated to be 750,000.

(Btw I made this question up). Basically, words such as ONLY and other high modality words are a big signal that they are probably false/can't tell. This is not always the case, but usually is, so the only answer options I'd check in the passage would be the second and last ones. If none of these ends up being true, then I'd search for the next most-plausible answer and continue. Usually eliminating answer options like this helps you save lots of time that you would have wasted searching for answer options that are likely to be false anyway.

For questions that involve asking 'what would the author agree with?' just search for the area in the passage where the specific information is and you should find your answer, considering the types of words the author uses around that specific concept/idea.

Again, this is the stuff I do - try adapt it to suit your own style of answering questions.

I see N182 has already answered your question in a much more succinct way. I'll just leave this here anyway in case it is helpful! :p

Thank you guys so much your comprehensive responses I really appreciate it! 😍 I will definitely try to do these techniques during my practice as I really need to improve my VR score!! Thank you so much again <3
 

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energeon

Member
Has anyone experimented with reading the questions first and then the text vs. reading the text first?

note from mod: Typing half the prep company name and replacing the rest with *** is still breaking the current rule. Please do NOT post prep company-based content as per rules you’ve already been informed of.
 
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ucatboy

final year eek
Valued Member
Has anyone experimented with reading the questions first and then the text vs. reading the text first?

note from mod: Typing half the prep company name and replacing the rest with *** is still breaking the current rule. Please do NOT post prep company-based content as per rules you’ve already been informed of.
Rather than asking others for their experience, why don't you experiment it yourself? The time between now and the test is a perfect time to try different strategies and approaches to see what works for you and what doesn't. Everyone approaches the questions differently, so it's important to remember that the strategies that work for others may not be necessarily work the best for you.
 

someday

Regular Member
Hey guys,
Just wondering, about what speed should we be aiming to be practicing VR at? I'm kinda stressing over if I'm gonna end up running out of time in the test :( . I know that 44 Qs in 21mins translates to approx just under 30 seconds per question, but I was wondering if we should be pushing ourselves while practicing to achieve 1 question in say 20 seconds to account for extra factors like stress in the real thing.
Did people who have already taken the exam once before find that they felt more time pressure than in practice?
Thanks so much!
 

N182

Regular Member
Hey guys,
Just wondering, about what speed should we be aiming to be practicing VR at? I'm kinda stressing over if I'm gonna end up running out of time in the test :( . I know that 44 Qs in 21mins translates to approx just under 30 seconds per question, but I was wondering if we should be pushing ourselves while practicing to achieve 1 question in say 20 seconds to account for extra factors like stress in the real thing.
Did people who have already taken the exam once before find that they felt more time pressure than in practice?
Thanks so much!
No way. 30s in itself is extremely difficult, 20s for EVERY question is impossible even for the most gifted readers. I would say aim to complete VR questions in a max of 40s, anything more just guess. You can take a little extra for some questions, since some questions you can answer really quickly in around 10-15s, thus evening it out. Having done the test last year and retaking, I found that the official VR felt almost identical to the actual test, and felt the same time pressure in official mock and actual.
 

someday

Regular Member
No way. 30s in itself is extremely difficult, 20s for EVERY question is impossible even for the most gifted readers. I would say aim to complete VR questions in a max of 40s, anything more just guess. You can take a little extra for some questions, since some questions you can answer really quickly in around 10-15s, thus evening it out. Having done the test last year and retaking, I found that the official VR felt almost identical to the actual test, and felt the same time pressure in official mock and actual.
Thanks for that! Puts me to ease really :)
 
N

nb

Guest
I have a question from the official mock.
Now, although the first sentence says that Horatio defended Rome against foreign invaders, it doesn't specify that this is the cause of why it became famous, so how we would be making an assumption if we selected "True". However, this is the correct answer... Why is this correct, and how can we possibly know this is true without assuming that this is indeed what made Horatio famous?
 

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ucatboy

final year eek
Valued Member
I have a question from the official mock.
Now, although the first sentence says that Horatio defended Rome against foreign invaders, it doesn't specify that this is the cause of why it became famous, so how we would be making an assumption if we selected "True". However, this is the correct answer... Why is this correct, and how can we possibly know this is true without assuming that this is indeed what made Horatio famous?
I guess the fact that this story has made it to the modern day + Horatio is a "hero" means that Horatio IS famous for defending Rome, but I agree it's a bit of an assumption to make.
 

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whys

Regular Member
Hey guys, this question is from official mock exam A. I chose D because I eliminated the other options, but isn't this an assumption since the melting point of ice is not actually given in the question stem? I was reluctant to choose this answer because even though everyone knows the melting point of ice, I thought we were not required to bring in previous knowledge that is not explicitly referenced in the passage.
 

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A1

Rookie Doc
Moderator
Hey guys, this question is from official mock exam A. I chose D because I eliminated the other options, but isn't this an assumption since the melting point of ice is not actually given in the question stem? I was reluctant to choose this answer because even though everyone knows the melting point of ice, I thought we were not required to bring in previous knowledge that is not explicitly referenced in the passage.

Three of the 4 answers involve previous knowledge
- Surface of Mercury is hot : This can be true since night-time -170oC is hotter than absolute Kelvin zero; you view that as wrong only based on your human experience pre-knowledge that -170oC is not hot
- Mercury day is longer than Mercury year : The passage doesn't define what makes a day or a year, only gives orbit & rotation times
- Melting point of ice.

So if we were to not use any pre-knowledge that question can't be answered at all.
 

ucatboy

final year eek
Valued Member
I'd like to add that option C requires prior knowledge that I doubt every test-taker will even have, as it involves immediately recognising that "Mercury orbits the sun every 88 days" = 88 earth days in a year and "its period of rotation about its axis is 59 days" = 59 earth days in a day.
 

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