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Post-UCAT Discussion 2025

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this is a nice summary, what time your exam was? any last minute changes or last minute cautioning points.

What was your scores in OQB mocks A B C D?
Look because the ucat is so skills oriented, last minute changes to strategy itself are probably seldom going to lead to improved results. I did completely flip my VR strategy a little under 2 weeks before the exam which I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but I wanted to trial a new approach because my vr results were below what I was hoping for. For reference, I moved from an approach where I would read the question/answer option of q1 first, then read through the text until i reached the info required to answer that question, then read q/a of q2 and continue to an approach where I would read the entire passage first in roughly 60-75 seconds and then answer the 4 questions in the remaining 45-60s. The one I used today isn't the most popular or necessarily recommended by most experts but a tutor who got 900 in vr last year said it helped him so i thought why not give it a go.

The biggest cautioning point that I believe will reduce a lot of people's scores who really should be getting higher is becoming too much of a perfectionist and not wanting to move on from any question before they are confident they are correct. This is often not much of a problem in mocks because you subconsciously know that skipping a question isnt the end of the world because its just a mock, but when you get into the real thing and you know that every mark may count, it can be very hard to flag and skip something hard and then come back at the end if time allows. I fell into this trap last year for DM and didn't finish the last 4 questions (which are probability questions and are generally pretty easy). Only two ways of overcoming this are either to focus on it in your ucat practice or to walk into the exam with the knowledge front of mind that you need to continue moving through the test.

Because I sat the ucat last year, I had already completed all the official mocks last year, so my results may not be completely valid. Nevertheless in April i got 29/44vr 28/35dm and 25/36qr on mock A (can't remember what happened with qr but this was considerably below my other avgs). in May i got 29vr 30dm 31 qr on mock b. In early June I saw considerably improvement on mock c 39vr, 31dm 26qr, then a week later on mock d i got 38vr 28dm 35qr. Funnily enough the 39 and 38 vr were both with the old strategy that i got rid of.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any more questions, I know how stressful ucat can be so I'm more than happy to help
 
hey mate compared to the mocks you did on platforms outside the official mocks how did the sections in your real ucat compare to the ones you did there i.e. did you score higher on your actual test than you did in your mocks and which specific sections do you think were easier on the actual thing? cheers
VR was quite a fair test, the passages were mostly short-medium to medium length compared to the avg length on official ucat mocks (the first 2 sets on mock a are a pretty good indication of what the length in the test was like for me). To be completely honest I probably underperformed considerably compared to how I would have gone if I had of been sitting that test as a mock, which I attribute mostly to stress and nerves. I found that I was taking far longer than normal to read the passage which left me with less time than I would have liked to answer the questions. Imo it would be very very possible for someone averaging mid 30s in their vr mocks to pull a 38-39 without it being a fluke. All just depends on how you handle the stress.

DM started off a bit rocky as I was still feeling the nerves quite a lot now with the added pressure of knowing that I left a lot of marks at the door in VR, so I wasn't moving through the syllogisms and interpreting information questions as easily as normal and found myself taking a decent bit longer than usual to come to some conclusions (also attribute this to stress), but the remainder of the test was quite smooth. I always skip logic puzzles until the end because I generally take quite a long time to work through them, and aside from one question I had never seen before (which wasn't too tricky) the logic puzzles were all relatively straight forward.

Last year I found QR significantly easier than any mock I had done previously (got 890) and this year was no different. The requirements of each question were generally pretty easy and as long as you properly took your time reading the question and what calculations each question requires, most capable applicants would be able to score very well. For reference, I had about 3 mins at the end to go back and check through answers.

Regarding performance vs non-official mocks I can't say much as MSO has rules regarding not promoting paid ucat services, but from my experience, official mocks are generally a tad easier, and the real one was quite on par with the official mocks

Hope this helps, sorry I had to be somewhat vague in areas pursuant to ucat rules about not sharing information about test content, so I could really only talk about my own experiences. Good luck!
 
ways of overcoming this are either to focus on it in your ucat practice or to walk into the exam with the knowledge front of mind that you need to continue moving through the test.

VR was quite a fair test, the passages were mostly short-medium to medium length compared to the avg length on official ucat mocks (the first 2 sets on mock a are a pretty good indication of what the length in the test was like for me). To be completely honest I probably underperformed considerably compared to how I would have gone if I had of been sitting that test as a mock, which I attribute mostly to stress and nerves. I found that I was taking far longer than normal to read the passage which left me with less time than I would have liked to answer the questions. Imo it would be very very possible for someone averaging mid 30s in their vr mocks to pull a 38-39 without it being a fluke. All just depends on how you handle the stress.

DM started off a bit rocky as I was still feeling the nerves quite a lot now with the added pressure of knowing that I left a lot of marks at the door in VR, so I wasn't moving through the syllogisms and interpreting information questions as easily as normal and found myself taking a decent bit longer than usual to come to some conclusions (also attribute this to stress), but the remainder of the test was quite smooth. I always skip logic puzzles until the end because I generally take quite a long time to work through them, and aside from one question I had never seen before (which wasn't too tricky) the logic puzzles were all relatively straight forward.

Last year I found QR significantly easier than any mock I had done previously (got 890) and this year was no different. The requirements of each question were generally pretty easy and as long as you properly took your time reading the question and what calculations each question requires, most capable applicants would be able to score very well. For reference, I had about 3 mins at the end to go back and check through answers.

Regarding performance vs non-official mocks I can't say much as MSO has rules regarding not promoting paid ucat services, but from my experience, official mocks are generally a tad easier, and the real one was quite on par with the official mocks

Hope this helps, sorry I had to be somewhat vague in areas pursuant to ucat rules about not sharing information about test content, so I could really only talk about my own experiences. Good luck!
thanks man, congrats on your amazing score all the best! :)))
 
anyone have an idea of what wsu weightings will be this year now that AR is gona, or else what cutoffs will be for nsw/non-gws/non-rural?
Disclaimer this is not only speculation but possibly unfounded speculation ;)

WSU weightings this year could be
- 0.5VR + 0.25DM + 0.25QR, in easier form (Total+VR)/4, or
- 0.6VR + 0.20DM + 0.20QR, in easier form (Total+2xVR)/5

Iirc WSU cutoff for NSW was 780. Your weighted by these formulas are 797 or 788 so you should get WSU interview if the above holds true.
 
Look because the ucat is so skills oriented, last minute changes to strategy itself are probably seldom going to lead to improved results. I did completely flip my VR strategy a little under 2 weeks before the exam which I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but I wanted to trial a new approach because my vr results were below what I was hoping for. For reference, I moved from an approach where I would read the question/answer option of q1 first, then read through the text until i reached the info required to answer that question, then read q/a of q2 and continue to an approach where I would read the entire passage first in roughly 60-75 seconds and then answer the 4 questions in the remaining 45-60s. The one I used today isn't the most popular or necessarily recommended by most experts but a tutor who got 900 in vr last year said it helped him so i thought why not give it a go.

The biggest cautioning point that I believe will reduce a lot of people's scores who really should be getting higher is becoming too much of a perfectionist and not wanting to move on from any question before they are confident they are correct. This is often not much of a problem in mocks because you subconsciously know that skipping a question isnt the end of the world because its just a mock, but when you get into the real thing and you know that every mark may count, it can be very hard to flag and skip something hard and then come back at the end if time allows. I fell into this trap last year for DM and didn't finish the last 4 questions (which are probability questions and are generally pretty easy). Only two ways of overcoming this are either to focus on it in your ucat practice or to walk into the exam with the knowledge front of mind that you need to continue moving through the test.

Because I sat the ucat last year, I had already completed all the official mocks last year, so my results may not be completely valid. Nevertheless in April i got 29/44vr 28/35dm and 25/36qr on mock A (can't remember what happened with qr but this was considerably below my other avgs). in May i got 29vr 30dm 31 qr on mock b. In early June I saw considerably improvement on mock c 39vr, 31dm 26qr, then a week later on mock d i got 38vr 28dm 35qr. Funnily enough the 39 and 38 vr were both with the old strategy that i got rid of.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any more questions, I know how stressful ucat can be so I'm more than happy to help
Thank you so much, just to confirm your VR strategy you have implemented in real UCAT test is, you read passage first fully and answered all 4 questions, did you do the same for T/F/C ones as well?
 
Thank you so much, just to confirm your VR strategy you have implemented in real UCAT test is, you read passage first fully and answered all 4 questions, did you do the same for T/F/C ones as well?
Not a problem. That was the strategy that I used for all questions except tfct. For tfct i stuck to an approach where I would read q1, read the passage until i found the necessary info, answer q1, read q2, continue reading passage etc.

All that said, vr has been my weakest subtest since I began studying for the ucat 3 years ago. I was able to get some pretty good results with that strat, but there are others with much more expertise in vr.
 
You currently year 12 or gap year or uni ? Sorry to ask. I am running bit low confidence at this stage
Gap year, last year I got 89th percentile and only did maybe 10 mocks. If you can replicate your performance in your mocks exams on the day, you’ll be beating most people who will be performing 100-200 below their actual ability due to stress and anxiety
 
Please note this is not scientific maths but magic maths.
Ignore if you don't believe in magics ☺️

- Last year the section 90%iles were : VR 720 - DM 760 - QR 830 - AR 880 (Sum = 3190)
- However Overall 90%ile was 3060 = 0.96 of the sum of individual sections.

If AR were excluded the Overall 90%ile would've been 2220 (i.e. 0.96 of VR+DM+QR).

95%ile last year was 3180 (120 higher than 90%ile).
Since AR already hit 880 at 90%ile I attribute all this +120 to the other three sections.
So, if AR were excluded the Overall 95%ile would've been 2220+120= 2340.

There my predictions for this year : 90%ile 2220 - 95%ile 2340.
I'm happy to take on friendly bets.
 
Please note this is not scientific maths but magic maths.
Ignore if you don't believe in magics ☺️

- Last year the section 90%iles were : VR 720 - DM 760 - QR 830 - AR 880 (Sum = 3190)
- However Overall 90%ile was 3060 = 0.96 of the sum of individual sections.

If AR were excluded the Overall 90%ile would've been 2220 (i.e. 0.96 of VR+DM+QR).

95%ile last year was 3180 (120 higher than 90%ile).
Since AR already hit 880 at 90%ile I attribute all this +120 to the other three sections.
So, if AR were excluded the Overall 95%ile would've been 2220+120= 2340.

There my predictions for this year : 90%ile 2220 - 95%ile 2340.
I'm happy to take on friendly bets.
Yes, 95%ile -->2350.
 
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Please note this is not scientific maths but magic maths.
Ignore if you don't believe in magics ☺️

- Last year the section 90%iles were : VR 720 - DM 760 - QR 830 - AR 880 (Sum = 3190)
- However Overall 90%ile was 3060 = 0.96 of the sum of individual sections.

If AR were excluded the Overall 90%ile would've been 2220 (i.e. 0.96 of VR+DM+QR).

95%ile last year was 3180 (120 higher than 90%ile).
Since AR already hit 880 at 90%ile I attribute all this +120 to the other three sections.
So, if AR were excluded the Overall 95%ile would've been 2220+120= 2340.

There my predictions for this year : 90%ile 2220 - 95%ile 2340.
I'm happy to take on friendly bets.
Hi A1,
Just finished my test and ended up with 2460 (790+790+880) plus a 639 SJT. What percentile approx using the magic maths please :) 🙏?
 
Hi there,

I'm currently a third-year university student. I took the UCAT today and scored 2330 overall, with 710 in Verbal Reasoning. I also got an ATAR of 94 and reside in the GWS area. Considering my academic and test performance, what are my chances of securing any interviews?

Thank you!
 
Hi there,
I'm currently a third-year university student. I took the UCAT today and scored 2330 overall, with 710 in Verbal Reasoning. I also got an ATAR of 94 and reside in the GWS area. Considering my academic and test performance, what are my chances of securing any interviews?
Based on WSU formula last year (3xVR +DM+QR+AR)/6

- If this year is (3xVR +DM+QR)/5 : your weighted is 750
- If it is (2xVR +DM+QR)/4 : your weighted is 760

This is borderline for last year's GWS cutoff. But I'm optimistic the cutoff this year will somewhat drop since everyone is losing the high-scoring AR. If so you're in with a good chance for a WSU interview.

Unfortunately 2330 doesn't look enough for JMP 96%ile, neither for UNSW due to your ATAR/GPA.
 
Hey y'all, long time no see but I'm posting my BROTHER'S scores for the UCAT for data collection! (He did SO well, gosh I am so proud!!!)

VR: 730
DM: 750
QR: 900
SJT: 602
Total Cognitive Score: 2380

As for me, I'm about to graduate with a Computer Science degree and will be working as a Software Engineer at a big tech firm next year :)). Thanks for everyone's help regardless, though!
 
Hey guys, what percentile would i be looking at with this score??
2320 (710+790+820) + 681 SJT
Thanks!

I reckon the way A1 worked it out a few posts above is the most valid prediction method, though as the scores in individual subtests seems to be on the rise over the last few years, I would guess that 2360 would be where 95th percentile will fall.

If that holds true this year you may be looking at 93-94th percentile, congratulations!
 
Just finished my ucat.

VR: 750
DM: 810
QR: 880
Total: 2440

For those that are yet to sit the exam, my primary advice would be to prioritise remaining calm and focused on the day rather than try to cram some last minute study. I sat 47 full mocks in the lead up to my exam (I finished high school last year and am taking a gap year so I had like 6 months to study purely for the ucat so that’s obviously not realistic for someone currently in school or uni) and my experience was that the actual ucat was quite similar in difficulty to the official mocks (slightly easier than A and B and slightly harder than C and D).

Last year I scored 3040 and the main difference this year was that I tried to remain calm at all times and stuck to what was working in my mocks rather than just wing it. Last year in both vr and dm I got stumped by a few hard questions and it threw me into a bit of a tail-spin where i ditched my processes and suffered as a result.

Sorry, this might be a bit long-winded but i just typed this without planning it too much. Lmk if anyone has any questions and ill do my best to answer.

Also anyone have an idea of what wsu weightings will be this year now that AR is gona, or else what cutoffs will be for nsw/non-gws/non-rural?
hi Harry can I ask if u have email or phone then I can ask some questions as my UCAT score is not that good this year or my number is 0470355070 if u don’t mind to contact me! Many many thanks
 
Please note this is not scientific maths but magic maths.
Ignore if you don't believe in magics ☺️

- Last year the section 90%iles were : VR 720 - DM 760 - QR 830 - AR 880 (Sum = 3190)
- However Overall 90%ile was 3060 = 0.96 of the sum of individual sections.

If AR were excluded the Overall 90%ile would've been 2220 (i.e. 0.96 of VR+DM+QR).

95%ile last year was 3180 (120 higher than 90%ile).
Since AR already hit 880 at 90%ile I attribute all this +120 to the other three sections.
So, if AR were excluded the Overall 95%ile would've been 2220+120= 2340.

There my predictions for this year : 90%ile 2220 - 95%ile 2340.
I'm happy to take on friendly bets.
how do you know last 95% = 3180? I am not sure where to look.
in this case what could be the percentile for 2390, is this enough to get call from JMP (UNE)?
 
I am wondering what was jump in UCAT score for JMP newcastle from 2024 to 2025 entry? i know 3240 in 2025 entry but not sure what was in 2024 entry?

Also do we know what cut off score as per formula for WSU ( for GWS, non-GWS and interstate)?
 
I am wondering what was jump in UCAT score for JMP newcastle from 2024 to 2025 entry? i know 3240 in 2025 entry but not sure what was in 2024 entry?

Also do we know what cut off score as per formula for WSU ( for GWS, non-GWS and interstate)?
I believe it was 3160 in 2024 and for 2025 GWS it was 760, then 780 for NSW and 800+++ for anywhere else lol
 
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