Otago HSFY chat - archive

[Ben]

Using GG's formula and the past two years' approximate and speculated cutoff of 79 ranking score (this is from meory - please correct me if I'm wrong), you'll need a (calculated and speculative) HSFY average of 87.7% over the 7 papers, which should be reasonably straightforward. I don't think there's a burning need to sit it again, with your section scores, so if you don't want to sit it again, I personally don't see any problem with that.

I love how some people are so... confident.

 

[greenglacier]

Good advice cathay. Slight correction though - as far as I'm aware, the best approximation of the magic number of the last two years is 77.5, not 79. Not a bad idea to use 79 though (or even 80) so as to allow for any change that may occur.

pineapple - your UMAT is very good (your strong S1 helps a LOT), so it's not going to hold you back. If you're happy to spend the $250 for registration then no harm in trying to improve it, but it's quite understandable if you don't want to spend that money! I did it again having gotten 96th percentile in year 13 (I just put the registration on my course related costs) and got 99th percentile. In the end it didn't matter, but it was a good confidence boost going into S2 exams with the knowledge that I'd have to really, really badly screw up to miss out on med. Whether it was worth that money is another matter though...

 

[Pineapple]

its not really the money, i just dont want to put more pressure on myself. and i dont really think i would improve that much, what preparation did you do on your second crack at it?

 

[greenglacier]

I only did minimal preparation for UMAT both times - working through both practice tests under timed conditions and reflecting on how I could improve. I did one of the tests in one go, the other I broke up into 3-5 question blocks. I don't believe I would have done any better had I done any more.

There's nothing wrong with going into UMAT for a second time with next-to-no prep (you're not meant to be able to prepare for it anyway) and no pressure to do well (that's the point of doing it in year 13).

If it's an issue of value for money then that's a very good reason not to do it. If it's an issue of pressure - well, with UMAT, you only put as much pressure on yourself as you want to.

 

[frootloop]

I still have no idea how much (and what) I should do in terms of UMAT prep, I hear so many different things from different people, and now I'm kinda wishing I'd done it last year... Anyone got any advice?
Oh and [MENTION=5161]greenglacier[/MENTION], I do a substantial amount more work at uni than I ever did at high school, so I wouldn't read too much into the massive differences between my NCEA and HSFY (to date) scores
[OFFTOPIC]Oh, and is anyone else from Christchurch amazed at the damage? The roads are like rally tracks [/OFFTOPIC]

 

[Cathay]

I still have no idea how much (and what) I should do in terms of UMAT prep, I hear so many different things from different people

I'd say that would be because UMAT doesn't exactly measure how much or how effectively you have prepared for it. I've done essentially what GG did, which is very little compared to what some other people did (elaborate, expensive courses which we shall not even mention here), but in the end, there are people who did very little and got very good results (*ahem* GG), there are people who did a lot but didn't get that far. Likewise, there would be people who did a lot of preparation and got good results, and there are people who "bombed out" (which may or may not have been due to the preparation or lack thereof).

 

[frootloop]

My theory is that so long as you're reasonably familiar with the question styles (ie, have done the official prep books, and a few others (there seems to be plenty of free resources online)), it mostly just comes down to confidence on the day. Although, that said, I've never sat it, so my theory counts for next to nothing.

 

[Cathay]

My theory is that so long as you're reasonably familiar with the question styles (ie, have done the official prep books, and a few others (there seems to be plenty of free resources online)), it mostly just comes down to confidence on the day. Although, that said, I've never sat it, so my theory counts for next to nothing.

You may be surprised to hear that from my experience of sitting UMAT once, that's just about all there is to it.
Do try to do the official practice tests in the allotted time though - and don't do it like NCEA (where you can do it in any order and do anything at any time), instead have strict times for each section, and no turning back to previous sections (in case you get into the habit of going back later, which is not allowed in the actual test.)

 

[Deleted member 4350]

I can tell you guys that confidence is very important, but its DEFINITELY not what it 'mostly comes down to'. Ultimately, what it mostly comes down to is whether certain skills have been cultivated in you from a young age or not. If you have a very extensive vocabulary, can read quickly, are able to comprehend bulk amounts of text and have developed critical thinking skills, then you are well on your way to succeeding in the UMAT. If not then, well, guess you're just not fit to be a doctor (unless your GPA is ridiculously high or you're dedicated enough to try through post-grad which still isn't a guarantee since the UMAT has to be sat again albeit bears far less weighting than in first year).

But then again, what do I know? I've failed it twice already so I'm probably not the best person to get advice from on this matter.

On a positive note: I do know of some people who failed to score highly in their first three attempts (without practice), then on their fourth attempt put in a ridiculous amount of effort into preparation and scored in the high 90s. I guess a contributing factor may have been the fact that it was their fourth time.

meh

 

[Kikii]

Would it be good to start preparing for UMAT from now?

 

[frootloop]

I don't believe that UMAT really has anything to do with 'being a good doctor', it is more just a way for Australian medical schools to cut down their applicant numbers, and unfortunately they impose it on the poor NZ students as well... It certainly seems to test particular skills (in that, from what I have heard, it appears to largely be a 'you either have it or you don't' type test), but whether or not the skills it is testing are applicable in medicine is another story. For example, I can't imagine anyone asking their doctor to pick which picture comes next in the series (section 3)...

 

[Cathay]

Ultimately, what it mostly comes down to is whether certain skills have been cultivated in you from a young age or not.

This is very true, but often unmentioned - it isn't as helpful for the purpose of preparation (not that preparation in general would be very helpful for UMAT), and isn't very reassuring (it'd be like saying "So, how'd you go in that test-where-you-have-to-have-been-raised-a-certain-way-to-do-well?"). Also I'd hazard a guess that people who do get good marks prefer not to attribute it to the thing they did growing up, to avoid sounding arrogant, if nothing else.

Although I guess there are two very important messages in there for health sci's:
1. UMAT is not something we can prepare for, not now, anyway, so don't stress too much about it.
2. UMAT is essentially not under our control (yes this sounds bad for confidence, knowing it's not under control, but still), but HSFY results, a far more important factor in determining admission to med, are under our control, so it's much more important to focus on doing well in HSFY than to worry about UMAT.


EDITed to include the content below:

Whether or not the skills it is testing are applicable in medicine is another story. For example, I can't imagine anyone asking their doctor to pick which picture comes next in the series (section 3)...

Actually, that's why Section 3 is only worth 10% in Otago's book. Section 1, where we deduce something based on information we've just been given (not unlike diagnostics as far as I'm aware), and Section 2, where we work with the messy business of human emotion, seem to be at least on the right track towards being relevant (whether it actually predicts these qualities in doctors AFTER they've been trained, though, is another matter.)

 

[greenglacier]

HSFY results, a far more important factor in determining admission to med, are under our control, so it's much more important to focus on doing well in HSFY than to worry about UMAT.

YES, and the important thing here is to remember is not to let your UMAT result (when you get it in September put you off). So many people get a UMAT of 50th percentile and think that it has ruled them out of med - IT HASN'T. I've even seen someone say "my UMAT was only 70th percentile, so I'm not getting into med". What then happens is they give up on HSFY - and that definitely can rule you out of med.

I've never seen a single person miss out on med solely because of UMAT. I've only ever seen people miss out because of (relatively!) poor HSFY marks, or a combination of poor/mediocre UMAT + (relatively!) mediocre HSFY marks. There's a lesson in that about where your priorities should lie.

 

[Deleted member 4350]

Would it be good to start preparing for UMAT from now?

Yes - the earlier the better. I recommend going through the ACER booklets under timed conditions and then analyzing where you went wrong and why you got those questions wrong (e.g. I didn't read the question properly, I missed out an important sentence from the text, I mis-interpreted the graph, I mis-understood some of the emotions). I would also recommend reading widely - read short stories/novels, research articles, fanfiction.net. Do whatever you can to improve your reading comprehension (not just speed, but also comprehension). Vocab is supposedly very important for S2 (I feel that it has been my downfall for the past 2 attempts because mine is very limited and I find it difficult to decipher extreme emotions from subtle ones). What I'm doing differently this year is I've obtained a massive list of adjectives from a friend and I'm going through each individual word on google dictionary and understanding the meaning as well as how to use it in context (they give you several examples of usage in sentences). The best part about it is you can 'star' each word such that you'll have a definitive list of all the words you've 'starred' and can therefore review them every so often. I'm also doing drills and practice exams from various pr3p courses (just in case). The best practice for section 3 is a specific course that I can't mention on here (starts with an 'm' and ends in a 'y'). It got me in the 98th percentile for that section (which proved useless for undergrad entry but certainly helped anyway).

I don't believe that UMAT really has anything to do with 'being a good doctor', it is more just a way for Australian medical schools to cut down their applicant numbers, and unfortunately they impose it on the poor NZ students as well... It certainly seems to test particular skills (in that, from what I have heard, it appears to largely be a 'you either have it or you don't' type test), but whether or not the skills it is testing are applicable in medicine is another story. For example, I can't imagine anyone asking their doctor to pick which picture comes next in the series (section 3)...

There has been a study recently published with results that suggest that high UMAT scores does not correlate with success in Medical school. Apparently UQ is considered scratching it from its entry criteria.

I can't wait until I never have to use that dreaded word ever again for the rest of my life (hopefully from the 22nd of December this year, fingers crossed).

 

[Cathay]

There has been a study recently published with results that suggest that high UMAT scores does not correlate with success in Medical school. Apparently UQ is considered scratching it from its entry criteria.

If this is the one seen on MSO homepage, this following bit may be of interest: "Professor Wilkinson noted “we have only reported an overall GPA, and have not explored correlation between UMAT scores and individual components of assessment such as knowledge, clinical skills or professionalism.”"

In other words, this study found that UMAT didn't predict overall marks - which is logical because there's no point in bothering with UMAT if all it did was to predict our GPA (which, by the way, is probably something HSFY does better). If UMAT does indeed test the skills they say they test, then I would personally expect that those with high S1 marks have above-average diagnostics skills, and that those with high S2 marks have above-average "customer service", rather than there being an overall correlation with grades. But then again this is just my interpretation of the study, which, by the way, does happen to be the subject of much debate already, in the comments section of the homepage post.

 

[greenglacier]

The UQ study was rubbish. Most of the marks they correlated UMAT with were BSc marks, not med marks. Otago + Auckland have a similar study due out soon - that's the one I'll be interested to read.

 

[Cathay]

Most of the marks they correlated UMAT with were BSc marks, not med marks.

Seriously? Isn't that a bit like predicting HSFY marks using UMAT?

Oh dear, if that was the case, then the UQ study deserves more facepalm than it is presently given...

 

[govpop]

Would it be good to start preparing for UMAT from now?

No! Not for aucklanders. UMAT counts for little in auckland admission, your time is better spent trying to get those A+'s, which are much more important. Wait until the holidays to start UMAT.

 

[greenglacier]

Seriously? Isn't that a bit like predicting HSFY marks using UMAT?

Pretty much... probably even worse! They didn't even distinguish med marks from BSc marks, just mixed them together in one ugly mix called "university GPA".

 

[frootloop]

Sounds like a fairly slanted study to me. And, to be honest, I'd say that if UMAT showed direct correlation to GPA, then it would almost certainly be failing in it's intended charge of measuring qualities that GPA doesn't measure.
[OFFTOPIC]501 posts already, I can see this thread matching the monster one by the end of the year [/OFFTOPIC]
Oh, and because everyone seems to be in a UMAT mood here: I went to my GP's today to get that immunology thing (or whatever it is ) done, and she told me that at her last conference they all did one of the practice UMAT tests for funsies, and barely any of them got more than half of the questions right. So most current doctors wouldn't have even been accepted to med school if they'd had to sit UMAT.... Draw conclusions from that as you will, but I personally think it shows that there are definitely better acceptance methods.