Post-UCAT Discussion 2020

[requiem]

The wait’s almost over everyone !

 

[Sokka]

Thanks so much…I know this is going to vary depending on the person but generally does anyone know what the scope for improvement is? I studied for 2-3 hours daily 2 weeks before and got in the 50s. I did a quite a few exams but didn’t spend enough time on actually improving my skills. Given this time spent studying and score does anyone think it’s possible for me to achieve in the 90s next year? How much work do people generally put in to get scores this high? Thank you.

I'll be honest, it's far more important to focus on skills than do exams. You need to meaningfully reflect on the questions you got wrong (and right) so you can prevent the same mistakes from happening (and ensure you keep doing the right thing).
I'd recommend that when you resume your prep for next year, you spend at least a month ensuring you know how to answer questions from all subtests (just practice questions). Once you understand your strategy I'd recommend doing practice exams so you can further refine your approach for test day rather than doing questions for the sake of it.
I began my prep in January but only started doing weekly(ish) exams from March onwards.
Hope this helps.

 

[A1]

It’s just that UAdel never explains clearly what the weightings are on interview and UCAT.

UAdel has published for several years place offers are based on ATAR/UCAT/Interview 40:20:40. The main reason a high ATAR+UCAT can easily miss out is UAdel's ratio of 800 interviewees to 140 places, roughly 1 in 6 or the top 17% only.

It doesn't quite work as follows but to illustrate in a simple way. Let's say you need 83+ marks out of 100 to be in the top 17%. ATAR 99.50 gives 36/40, UCAT 98%ile gives 19/20, to get overall 83/100 the interview still needs to score 28/40 which is not a given.

 

[Crow]

View attachment 3973
The wait’s almost over everyone !

Thanks for sharing, we’d better get the cavalry ready for action! Best of luck everyone

 

[bizwest76]

Thanks so much…I know this is going to vary depending on the person but generally does anyone know what the scope for improvement is? I studied for 2-3 hours daily 2 weeks before and got in the 50s. I did a quite a few exams but didn’t spend enough time on actually improving my skills. Given this time spent studying and score does anyone think it’s possible for me to achieve in the 90s next year? How much work do people generally put in to get scores this high? Thank you.

Yes. Most people I know who got in the 90s (myself included) became familiar with question types and started practice about 5-6 months out, ramped up their study significantly about 2 months out and tapered in the week leading up to the exam. I aimed for weekly exams but it was more like once a fortnight. Questions and subtests throughout the week. Stress will hinder you from developing meaningful skills if you begin your practice too late.

 

[vivi203]

I'll be honest, it's far more important to focus on skills than do exams. You need to meaningfully reflect on the questions you got wrong (and right) so you can prevent the same mistakes from happening (and ensure you keep doing the right thing).
I'd recommend that when you resume your prep for next year, you spend at least a month ensuring you know how to answer questions from all subtests (just practice questions). Once you understand your strategy I'd recommend doing practice exams so you can further refine your approach for test day rather than doing questions for the sake of it.
I began my prep in January but only started doing weekly(ish) exams from March onwards.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply, I will defs start prep earlier this time, it might just be the case of needing to do a bit more work than others to get there haha. And yeah I 100% understand what you mean, by the end of it I was just doing the exams for the sake of it because I panicked and didn't really feel like there was much else I could do in that little amount of time. Thanks for the tips

 

[vivi203]

Yes. Most people I know who got in the 90s (myself included) became familiar with question types and started practice about 5-6 months out, ramped up their study significantly about 2 months out and tapered in the week leading up to the exam. I aimed for weekly exams but it was more like once a fortnight. Questions and subtests throughout the week. Stress will hinder you from developing meaningful skills if you begin your practice too late.

Yeah I reckon it's probably a time thing as well, certain skills like speed-reading take months to develop. Stress defs hinders study quality too. Thanks for the reply

 

[hazell]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum but have been lurking for some time. I did pretty averagely on the UCAT this year and was wondering how likely it is to improve my score for next year and whether anyone has any tips? I can do all the questions when not under pressure but I always run out of time and find myself re-reading things to double check I'm 100% right (I'm a perfectionist). I don't really perform well in tests like this but I know I'm fully capable of getting all the questions right. Thanks

Hey! I made an improvement post here if you want to check it out:

I wasn't sure how to edit my previous post so I'm just posting again:

Date completed: 16/07/2020
Venue: Parkus Technologies Parramatta
Results:

	2019 results	2020 results
VR	600	700
DM	680	880
QR	710	830
AR	650	860
Total	2640	3270
SJ	722	733

VR:
-ngl I'm pretty disappointed with this score as I was scoring much higher on my mocks. I do an incredible amount of reading daily so this section was my strength and I was aiming to get the highest here. I found that I was overthinking most of the questions, and double-checking answers which made me run out of time and rush some questions at the end.
-the exam was similar to the official mocks (slightly longer passages but less inference type questions)
-my strategy was to read the passage first, then for the questions I knew where to refer back to in the passage when picking my answers. I would recommend picking an answer and sticking to it rather than overthinking and losing time
-also, I would recommend going onto the wikipedia page, pressing the random article button and trying to skim that article it gives you and extract as much information as you can- since the passages in VR are quite similar to random articles on wikipedia
DM:
-very similar to the official mocks, most questions were straightforward and simple except for one question which I had NO clue of how to approach and had to guess
-I also struggled with some inference questions as some statements were vague but overall pretty doable questions
-my strategy was to draw diagrams/venn diagrams/tables for problem solving questions, also I skipped long inference questions and came back to them at the end
QR:
-very surprised with my result. Simple maths understanding needed but speed with the calculator is crucial
-there was one table which I completely blanked out on and had NO IDEA what the questions attached were asking for and had to guess the questions attached to it
-my strategy was to skip questions which I knew I was bad at (no matter what I can't do timezone/time questions) so I knew which questions I was going to skip.
AR:
-the patterns were simple in my opinion (some even the same as the ones on the official mocks) except for one set which I just couldn't get
-if I can't spot the pattern in about 20 seconds I triage the whole set and move on, because there are easier marks ahead. Write down a list of all the patterns you come across and try applying those rules when you see new patterns, I always look out for even/odd, prime/composite, positioning of shapes, colour, angles, parallel lines, convex/concave.
-part of an effective strategy for AR is knowing when you will not be able to figure out the pattern in a timely manner, making your best guesses for that set, and instead focusing your time on other sets for which you are more likely to figure out the patterns.
SJ:
-some questions were very wordy and specific but nonetheless still pretty good, pleased with my result even though it doesn't really count
-went with my gut feeling and didn't overthink any questions coz that always trips me out and I end up changing my answer and getting it wrong

Random tips:
-Triaging is of utmost importance for the UCAT as you can earn more marks with easier questions rather than losing time on hard questions which you might get wrong after spending that much time on it.
-wearing earplugs makes such a big difference!! I put mine in before the exam and I took them out during SJ coz I got annoyed and realised my computer sounded like it was about to explode- it was making so much noise and was very distracting so I'm very glad I had earplugs in during the exam
-I had a nice cup of tea in the morning which I deeply regretted during SJ, make sure you go to the bathroom beforehand so you don't waste precious testing time. I quickly rushed through SJ in 10 mins and finished the exam early but going with my gut feeling really helped me get a good score- don't overthink for SJ just pick and go with it
-before I started my exam I spent about 2 mins writing out my strategy for each section and equations (e.g. for VR be at q22 at X mins)
-make the most of the instruction time. I used this time to take deep breaths, rest my eyes, and completely forget about the previous subtest

Improvement:
I improved by a score of 630- I did less prep than last year. The only thing that changed was my attitude and mindset- I CANNOT stress how important this is. I didn't do any UCAT prep for a week before my exam and used that time to wind-down and work on uni assignments. Last year I went into the exam super uptight and stressed, this year I went in with a smile on my face. I treated the exam like any other school/uni exam and went in super relaxed and tried to maintain this relaxed mindset for the duration of my exam. Feel free to ask me any questions
I wish all of you the very best, and as we always say "there's always next year "

 

[HappyDay]

UCAT is only 20% of the total weighting and thus only minor in the grand scheme of things. I can tell you that one of my friends with 99.70 ATAR (UES-adjusted 99.95 selection rank) and 99%ile UMAT never ended up getting a late round Adelaide offer, bonded or not, leading me to suspect that Adelaide may have some sort of minimum interview hurdle in place like UNSW i.e if you do too poorly in the interview, even a perfect ATAR and UCAT won't make up for it.

Thanks a lot for sharing the info and thoughts.. So we need to put in extra efforts preparing for the interview... thanks!!

 

[ucatboy]

Thanks a lot for sharing the info and thoughts.. So we need to put in extra efforts preparing for the interview... thanks!!

For sure! This holds true for every uni that has an interview as part of their selection criteria, but it is especially critical for unis that place a high weighting on it: examples include JMP (100%), WSU (75%), UQ (50%) and Adelaide (40%).

 

[Sokka]

For sure! This holds true for every uni that has an interview as part of their selection criteria, but it is especially critical for unis that place a high weighting on it: examples include JMP (100%), WSU (75%), UQ (50%) and Adelaide (40%).

Just to clarify, so for JMP is the ucat the only deciding factor if u get an interview (with the atar hurdle)? And for the interview everyone is on an even playing field right (where a 99th oercentile is treated the same is a 90th percentile)?

 

[Scorpion]

Just to clarify, so for JMP is the ucat the only deciding factor if u get an interview (with the atar hurdle)? And for the interview everyone is on an even playing field right (where a 99th oercentile is treated the same is a 90th percentile)?

Yes and yes.

 

[Dragonfly]

Wait how is it possible for the percentile calculator to be released this week if there are still people due to take UCAT between Sep 14 and 18?

View attachment 3973
The wait’s almost over everyone !

 

[whys]

Wait how is it possible for the percentile calculator to be released this week if there are still people due to take UCAT between Sep 14 and 18?

Those people are not included in the statistics, which will later be updated to reflect their results, which is unlikely to involve any major change in percentile cut-offs.

 

[HappyDay]

UAdel has published for several years place offers are based on ATAR/UCAT/Interview 40:20:40. The main reason a high ATAR+UCAT can easily miss out is UAdel's ratio of 800 interviewees to 140 places, roughly 1 in 6 or the top 17% only.

It doesn't quite work as follows but to illustrate in a simple way. Let's say you need 83+ marks out of 100 to be in the top 17%. ATAR 99.50 gives 36/40, UCAT 98%ile gives 19/20, to get overall 83/100 the interview still needs to score 28/40 which is not a given.

Understand...Thank you so much for your detailed explanation..

 

[kotoloper]

Percentiles are out!

 

[Scorpion]

Bring on the madness!

99th percentile is lower than we expected (3220 not 3240). Not sure if that is true for other percentiles but 90th is the same as on the deciles.

 

[Cal]

Just a reminder (since there are no moderinos around to enforce) that there should be no "what are my chances posts" on THIS Thread, only once the mods open the Ucat Results Discussion Thread (when they feel like it), will these questions be welcomed and answered

 

[Crow]

UCAT Results Discussion 2020 Go for it team.

 

[someday]

thoughts and prayers for the mods over the next few weeks .. you guys can do it!