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Auckland OLY1 chat - archive

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[OFFTOPIC]
agentlucerne said:
[OFFTOPIC]
Haha, sort of the same thing here. When I was younger, my dad wanted me to do music. My mum has always wanted me to do business/commerce.
[MedStudentsOnline.com.au] Auckland OLY1 chat - archive
Dad's now pretty happy with whatever I choose to do, but mum still kind of wishes I had chosen something commerce-y.
[/OFFTOPIC]
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Yeah, my parents were pushing for the whole 'accountant' thing pretty hard. However, they respect what I want to do now, which is a definite improvement. (yy)[/OFFTOPIC]

[MENTION=7190]4everAlone[/MENTION] – Yeah, I was pretty good at English in high school. However, I think I’m more of a pictorially logical person (similar to the section 3 of UMAT)…but maybe it kind of follows from there? :lol:

It actually sounds like my kind of paper haha ^_^ Thanks for the thumbs up!
 
Just one little question here: How did you guys/ are you guys going to prepare for the UMAT?

Are there any websites or books for us to practise on? Or do we have to buy practice questions from ******** or stuff like that?

I would really appreciate it if someone can give me some suggestions :D
 
leiladian said:
Just one little question here: How did you guys/ are you guys going to prepare for the UMAT?

Are there any websites or books for us to practise on? Or do we have to buy practice questions from ******** or stuff like that?

I would really appreciate it if someone can give me some suggestions :D
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I'm actually not sitting UMAT again this year, I decided to stick with my score from last year, but last year I prepared by doing lots of past/parallel questions. I honestly couldn't tell you what company they were from, even if you asked, but I got hold of questions and worked my way through them. Personally I believe that doing well in UMAT is a skill that can be practiced for like any other. The more questions you do, the more your brain practices thinking in the way that is required for UMAT. I know it's a very controversial topic, and I don't know whether it's really worth paying hundreds of dollars on a prep course (cause I sure didn't), but I believe that UMAT is a skill that can be learnt and practiced for. Especially Sections 1 and 3, where methods for solving the problems are the most important skills you can have. Section 2, not so much though.

If I had gone into UMAT stone cold, without having done any preparation, I know that I wouldn't have done as well. You do hear stories of people going in with no prep and getting ridiculous scores, but these are a very small minority, and I believe that most people would benefit from doing a reasonable (but not excessive) amount of preparation.
 
I completely agree with camwells, you can definitely improve yourself with the help of practice papers. When it comes to section 2 i think the best method to prepare is to read a lot of books and understand why characters behave in certain manners and find out a solution to surrounding the issue of communication. This is definitely a long process but it should work. There's still some time until the test so i guess prep from now would be recommended (although not hardout so that it interferes with your studies, after all your grades are more important)

Also I have heard many cases of where people improve their umat scores from the previous year. I guess this could mean that by understanding the kind of atmosphere and the time pressure that exists in the examination room, you feel more competent on your second go. So if anyone reading this is yr 13, then i absolutely recommend doing umat this year. If you do well on your first go, then that's great. Less pressure during the year of OLY1. If you're not satisfied, then you've done the practise to potentially do better the following year.

When evaluating whether you need to resit or not, keep in mind that there's people in med who have really low umat scores. Also consider whether the time you use to prepare for umat could be used in a more productive way to increase your chance to get into medicine. So that could be more time to study, prepare for interview or even rest (personally think that rest is very important, don't want to burn out half way through the year ^_^)
 
[OFFTOPIC]
Hopefully said:
[OFFTOPIC]

Yeah, my parents were pushing for the whole 'accountant' thing pretty hard. However, they respect what I want to do now, which is a definite improvement. (yy)[/OFFTOPIC]
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Yeah, my parents accept and respect my decision now, even though they think I'm a little crazy :p. It feels nice to have their full support in whatever I choose to do. If I ever get an interview and they ask me about stress management or support systems, my parents are at the top of my list. :)
[/OFFTOPIC]
 
[OFFTOPIC]
agentlucerne said:
[OFFTOPIC]
Yeah, my parents accept and respect my decision now, even though they think I'm a little crazy :p. It feels nice to have their full support in whatever I choose to do. If I ever get an interview and they ask me about stress management or support systems, my parents are at the top of my list. :)
[/OFFTOPIC]
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Yes, let's work hard so that we can make our parents proud! (So cliche, I know, but it's what I wanna do as well :lol:)
And score that interview, of course! ^_^
[/OFFTOPIC]
 
[OFFTOPIC]
agentlucerne said:
[OFFTOPIC]
Yeah, my parents accept and respect my decision now, even though they think I'm a little crazy :p. It feels nice to have their full support in whatever I choose to do. If I ever get an interview and they ask me about stress management or support systems, my parents are at the top of my list. :)
[/OFFTOPIC]
Click to expand...

Haha yes, my parents are the same. My mother would much rather I have a career where there is as little stress in my life as possible. She suggested that I should be a flight attendant or become a nurse like my younger sister 0_o. [/OFFTOPIC]
 
plm8123 said:
Hi,

Can someone please tell me when the lab coats are going to be sold at the Chem G092 lab? How much do they cost?

Thanks!
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Hey, all the announcements I've read have said they're being sold in SciSpace G016 during Chemistry Orientation (Tuesday 21st Feb and Wednesday 22nd Feb) from ~11am. The SBS letter says they're around $35.00.
 
[MENTION=13230]plm8123[/MENTION] - In addition, Cecil has an announcement for CHEM 110 regarding this as well. For some strange and unfounded reason, some of the information given in that announcement seems to directly contradict agentlucerne's figures of the cost of the lab coat... :blink:

[MENTION=13281]agentlucerne[/MENTION] - Has what you read of the announcements included the one on Cecil? It says that the lab coats cost $40 from SciSpace around the time that you mentioned. I'm not quite sure which of the figures is the correct/latest updated one.

That is what I can glean from that announcement (under CHEM 110 > Announcements)
Since I am going to orientation tomorrow, I will clarify when I get back (if need be). ^_^
 
[MENTION=13281]agentlucerne[/MENTION] and [MENTION=13946]Hopefully[/MENTION], thank you for informing me of this!

I'm fine with the cost being either $35 or $40, it's still cheaper than buying it from UBS haha.

Last year they sold them at the G092 lab, so I thought they'd be selling them there again... you've helped me save some time :D

Cheers!!
 
starshifter said:
Hi, can someone give me an estimate as to how much Biomed (first year) text books cost all together?
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University Bookshop Ltd - New Zealand will give you the answer (and the answer depends on which books you plan on buying, if any)

Go a few pages back on this thread to see our advice on which you may need

Otherwise:
Biology (101) - $160
Chemistry (110) - $140
Anatomy and physiology (107)- $150
Population health (111) - $81

You can look up semester 2 textbooks yourself. But I do really suggest you find what has been said about the necessity of buying textbooks (I can't be bothered typing it all out again)
 
Hopefully said:
@plm8123 - In addition, Cecil has an announcement for CHEM 110 regarding this as well. For some strange and unfounded reason, some of the information given in that announcement seems to directly contradict agentlucerne's figures of the cost of the lab coat... :blink:

@agentlucerne - Has what you read of the announcements included the one on Cecil? It says that the lab coats cost $40 from SciSpace around the time that you mentioned. I'm not quite sure which of the figures is the correct/latest updated one.

That is what I can glean from that announcement (under CHEM 110 > Announcements)
Since I am going to orientation tomorrow, I will clarify when I get back (if need be). ^_^
Click to expand...

You're welcome, @plm8123! Yeah, I read the announcement. Turns out the Chem announcement was the right figure - I went and bought mine today (the one I already had was waaay too baggy). It cost $40, so I guess the cost mentioned by the SBS was just approximate. :) Cheaper than UBS for sure!
 
Do you think OLY students should really buy the CHEM 110 and POPLHLTH 111 book? Most of my friends hardly used those books last year.*:mellow:


4everAlone said:
University Bookshop Ltd - New Zealand will give you the answer (and the answer depends on which books you plan on buying, if any)

Go a few pages back on this thread to see our advice on which you may need

Otherwise:
Biology (101) - $160
Chemistry (110) - $140
Anatomy and physiology (107)- $150
Population health (111) - $81

You can look up semester 2 textbooks yourself. But I do really suggest you find what has been said about the necessity of buying textbooks (I can't be bothered typing it all out again)
Click to expand...
 
Tupac4life said:
Do you think OLY students should really buy the CHEM 110 and POPLHLTH 111 book? Most of my friends hardly used those books last year.*:mellow:
Click to expand...

I don't think they should buy anything other than tortora and physics...I just couldn't be bothered rewriting out my thoughts when they're already somewhere further back in this thread ;)
 
even tortora is a waste of money.

I'll repeat this again right now- you don't need the textbooks for the following papers:
- biosci 101, 106, 107
- chem 110
- medsci 142
the coursebooks, which you most definitely DO need, are more than sufficient.

I don't know about physics or pop health as I didn't take those papers.
 
I'm gonna take an extreme stance on this and say, if you're really confident in your academic abilities (time management, filtering out irrelevant info etc), you can do very well in OLY1 without any textbooks whatsoever, the exception being the MEDSCI lab readings, which you can get from short loan of course. But... if you can't be bothered dropping by short loan frequently for labs + those rare readings for you to help understand the sometimes-confusing course notes, get tortora.

I didn't use Urone physics at all for 160, and I managed to get an A+. I did do A2 in high school though.

P.S. Cya all on Friday at Grafton
 
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