Absolutely...I mistook it with additional normalization or something...my bad. early morning dizziness. Yes, some scaling has been applied but I could not guess the algorithm behind that calculation. It also beats me how a score from 1 to 4 is given for the SJT. I am not sure how this derivative of UKCAT into UCAT form going to work (S1, S2, S3 scores and the ripping off... S1 for JMP, S1+S2+0.1 S3 WUS, S2- UTAS) , I am at a loss to know why on earth we have UMAT with three sections, when some Universities do not even consider UMAT and many shred UMAT scores into pieces and take their pie only to consider...utter nonsense. It's high time this UMAT got ridden off and hope the UCAT is considered fully and a standardization of Medical admissions introduced across this continent. Human Biology is same and so is the treatment for diseases (Junior doctor level) and one governing body AMC and MBA for accreditation then why have disintegrated medical admissions processes for various states and differences within the states? We must produce equally capable doctors from all the states. I agree to go for allowances with remote area, EAS and other considerations but selecting a student for medicine just because he/she studied in Tas for 2 years on the basis of very low scores is hard to take in, but good luck to them. Someone suggested I may get Monash interview but the offer very difficult because of Interstater...Why? We need standardization in medicine admissions for God's sake for future students.
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Discussion: UMAT being replaced by UCAT
- Thread starter Kezia
- Start date
The UK unis are no different with UKCAT
> https://www.ukcat.ac.uk/ukcat-test/ukcat-results/how-universities-use-the-ukcat/
From the published stats the top ~25% of SJT get band 1, next ~65% band 2-3, bottom 10% band 4. Some unis disqualify band 4 applicants, other unis give band 1= 4pts, 2= 2pts, 3= 1pt and re-assign the sections to 4-9 pts each; so in effect weighing the SJT ~half as much as each section
> https://www.ukcat.ac.uk/media/1260/using-my-2018-ukcat-result-160818.pdf
Kat92
(Student BNurs WSU). Hopeful for JMP
I just had a look at some of the questions from UKCAT Preparation | UKCAT Consortium and the random ones I completed for Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Abstract Reasoning, and Situation Judgment weren't difficult and got all correct. Although a different story for the Quantitative reasoning ones as received a shocking mark for that part-Try out one of their free preparation materials and show off your skills
if universities use this section for admission 
Kat92
(Student BNurs WSU). Hopeful for JMP
Not really, as Medentry emailed all members explaining that they will add UCAT questions to their LMS
Uh, no. The point of states and universities within their states lowering marks for in-state applicants is a long-standing thing that has been done by Tasmania and WA for a very long time. The point of this is multifactorial however among the strongest considerations is that the state is looking to train doctors to supply its own community and therefore will be looking to have as many candidates as possible who will remain in state to provide a medical service to in-state patients, rather than people who will just do the degree and leave right after to go back home to wherever they came from.
Basically, this is not about you and it's not about fairness, it's about states planning their medical workforce for the future and the consequent provision of healthcare to people which honestly trumps fairness of medical student selection like nobody's business.
As an explanation (by the numbers) to why this is required:
Lets assume that in:
Tasmania with a population of 500,000 people and
NSW with a population of 7.5million and
Victoria with a population of 6.5+million and
QLD with a population of 4.5+million
that there are equal proportions of people with high ATARs and high UMATs.
This means that for every 1 person in Tasmania there are 15 people in NSW and 13(ish) people in Victoria and 9 people in QLD.
Assuming similar proportions for medical school applicants (i.e. for every 1 Tasmanian medical school applicant there are 15 NSW medical school applicants and 13 Victorian medical school applicants and 9 QLD applicants) and essentially identical scores, without the quotas for entry we'd end up with the cohort of Tasmania's medical school, assuming a cohort of 100 people for easy maths AND assuming that no one else from any other state or territory even bothered applying:
39 NSWelshpeople
34 Victorians
23 QLDers
3 (rounding up from 2.6!) Tasmanians
(and one poor student who gets chopped up for the purposes of rounding).
This is obviously unsustainable for the purposes of supplying Tasmania's healthcare workforce and illustrates how ridiculous it would be if Tasmania didn't impose quotas.
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unknownuser123
Member
There are plenty of UKCAT resources, but no1 knows if UCAT = UKCAT as of yet (if you do post below). Dont use medentry, they will just reshape their UMAT resources and brand it off as UCAT
L
Logic
Guest
"Please note, although new to Australia and New Zealand for 2019, the UCAT has been used for over 12 years in the UK under the test name UKCAT. The following preparation materials, although referred to as UKCAT represent the exact content of the UCAT ANZ test and may be used to familiarise yourself with the test format and to prepare for the test. These preparation materials will be re-published in December 2019 to reflect the new international test name of UCAT. "
Source: Preparation | UCAT Consortium
It appears that previous sample papers for the UKCAT are of the same content of UCAT, so I assume it would be very similar in terms of content.
Edit: I accidentally said past papers, when I meant sample papers.
Source: Preparation | UCAT Consortium
It appears that previous sample papers for the UKCAT are of the same content of UCAT, so I assume it would be very similar in terms of content.
Edit: I accidentally said past papers, when I meant sample papers.
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No one gets a place in medicine “on the basis of very low scores”. It’s frankly ridiculous to suggest that that is the case. People DO get place offers, despite sometimes having results somewhat lower (but still very high in the grand scheme of educational attainment and cognitive functioning) than other applicants, “on the basis of” a combination of their (still excellent) academic results and home town background, or socioeconomic status, or indigenous heritage. Reasons for this are well understood and largely supported.
As for UTAS specifically, requirements for local students are no lower than for rural applicants to JMP (for example); in fact, they are slightly higher. I think they are higher than for rural UQ, too (and that’s just two unis off the top of my head for comparison).
unknownuser123
Member
ahhh! so it looks like UCAT is the exact same test as UKCAT. Cheers, good find!
I also would recommend against medentry, at least for the mean time. If all they are doing is repackaging other materials,then the money you spend on medentry could be better spent on buying UKCAT prep and accessing already available materials. In this case it seems as though medentry is just a middle man. And personally I felt medentry was pretty useless as a Umat prep organisation.
D
Deleted member 4350
Guest
First of all, I would like to applaud the medical schools for adopting this new test. I think it was blatantly obvious that section 2 had no tangible effect in selecting capable doctors.
Secondly - I don't imagine that removing section 2 would result in significantly more successful male applicants, as we can essentially extrapolate the results of this test to the demographics of UK doctors - 45% of UK doctors are female. And this apparently varies by grade, so presumably that percentage would be higher for new graduates
Secondly - I don't imagine that removing section 2 would result in significantly more successful male applicants, as we can essentially extrapolate the results of this test to the demographics of UK doctors - 45% of UK doctors are female. And this apparently varies by grade, so presumably that percentage would be higher for new graduates
There’s a study on UKCAT specifically, and I do plan to look into it more, but... more generally speaking, greater than 50% of the UK population is female (similarly to Australian figures), but they’re only 45% of Doctors. There’s clearly a discrepancy coming from somewhere in their system.
ETA: just read a study (admittedly from about a decade ago) that seemed to suggest some were worried “most of all doctors” will be female by 2017* in the UK, and that using UKCAT scores as an admissions “factor or a threshold” may be a way of addressing this by increasing the number of male Med students (as it has been shown to do when used in this manner - note; like UMAT, UKCAT scores aren’t used consistently from Uni to Uni in the UK).
*I’m actually not even sure how to interpret that, tbh. Shall keep reading
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PimpOfRivia
Member
Precisely.
PROS:
1. More transparency. The participant can receive their raw marks right after completing the exam.
2. The wide availability of resources. There's a ton of textbooks, guides, practice papers that can be purchased for about no less than than 15 pounds.
3. Making overly priced prep courses redundant. There's literally no reason for students to attend to overpriced prep courses written by students.
CONS:
Online exam
unknownuser123
Member
yepp! UKCAT prep would be far more beneficial than medentry, seeing as the UCAT = UKCAT. Medentry will 100% try to sell off their UMAT resources as UCAT resources and lure people in (they keyword searched UMAMT and changed it to UCAT to lure people in, when in fact they are still just selling UMAT resources).
I agree, the Situational Judgement section looks more superior to section 2 of UMAT. It poses real ethical dilemmas as a pose to a test of 'who knows the most English vocabulary'. I think its a great step, there are heaps of pre-existing UKCAT resources out there for practice, and getting your marks back instantly is a huge bonus (it doesn't leave people in the loop).
PimpOfRivia
Member
Yes indeed. The only reason people purchased overly priced "profession prep" courses was because of the scarcity of UMAT resources.
This is honestly such a welcoming change.
I agree for the most part but: devil’s advocate...
Giving people their scores (I don’t believe they’re raw scores from what we heard earlier from someone who has done it before?) immediately doesn’t automatically improve transparency. How are those scores arrived at? That’s where the lack of transparency has been with UMAT. And it doesn’t seem (at this stage) UKCAT will provide the info (definitely happy to be corrected).
And there’s still the interview prep they can charge through the roof for
I can already imagine the increased marketing for the “importance” of this 
unknownuser123
Member
But you don't get that transparency with UMAT either. You get your 3 section results and your overall score.. Analogous to how you would in UKCAT, only you get it 5 minutes after for UKCAT but have to wait ages for UMAT in uncertainty... it gives students the freedom to know if they are able to apply to schools or not and perhaps look for alternative courses.
After doing some extensive research into Situational Judgement, I think it's just that much better than section 2.
SJ UKCAT: Moral and ethical dilemmas that one would actually face not just in a medical setting, but in any profession generally.
Sect2 UMAT: How goods your English Vocab? Can you identify the nuances between the words SYMPATHY and EMPATHY. and at times it was honestly a case of reading comprehension.
Being the same as UKCAT, the availability of OFFICIAL resources (vs student-made pseudo resources) is also a huge bonus, and at a fifth of the cost.
Honestly such a good change and I cant think of any CONS (besides PearsonVUE's reputability in conducting it)
I just did a sample SJT exam and it is far superior to UMAT S2. S2 was just an English comprehension test, but SJT of the UKCAT seems to actually test for what S2 of the UMAT purports to test for. You are not sitting there parsing words and definitions, you spend more time thinking about the actual situation.