Post UCAT Discussion Thread 2021

[emperortamarin]

are the markers they provide thicc or thin? are they like those big whiteboard markers or thin like a pen?

The one that I used in my practice was the same one given in the actual exam
Staedtler Lumocolor Non-Permanent Fine Marker Black
The "fine" model in the above link

Out of the 3 I was given, I think all were "fine"

 

[Don Carlo]

There were a lot of questions that came down to a fifty fifty and maybe more questions that needed me to read the passage instead of just keyword scanning (which i normally did/do)

were the passages pretty long? or about the same length as the officals? also noice job lad

 

[kkkk]

are the markers they provide thicc or thin? are they like those big whiteboard markers or thin like a pen?

well i read that completely wrong the first time

 

[whimsicalhouse]

Date completed: 15 July 2021
Venue: Adelaide Test Centre
General thoughts on your results:
VR — 790
DM — 770
QR — 860
AR — 690
Total — 3110
SJT — 565

I did exceptionally better than I was expecting considering the fact that I only did 3 mocks and barely practiced at all in the months leading up to the test date. I found QR to be quite easy and VR/DM were the expected difficulty while I knew that AR was my weakest section by far and I had to completely guess 3 sets. Also, my SJT score is quite poor but I heard that many Australian universities don't take it into account — is this true?

General comments on your experience:
Overall, the computer and test worked well for me as expected, although there was one person doing the test with me and his computer crashed, which I felt really bad about.

 

[cocodreams]

Date completed: 15 July 2021
Venue: Adelaide Test Centre
General thoughts on your results:
VR — 790
DM — 770
QR — 860
AR — 690
Total — 3110
SJT — 565

I did exceptionally better than I was expecting considering the fact that I only did 3 mocks and barely practiced at all in the months leading up to the test date. I found QR to be quite easy and VR/DM were the expected difficulty while I knew that AR was my weakest section by far and I had to completely guess 3 sets. Also, my SJT score is quite poor but I heard that many Australian universities don't take it into account — is this true?

General comments on your experience:
Overall, the computer and test worked well for me as expected, although there was one person doing the test with me and his computer crashed, which I felt really bad about.

Great job on the score!! Did you find yourself skipping through DM or did you do it all in order/one go?
Regarding SJ: Generally Uni's don't take SJ into account. It's mostly used as a tiebreaker if 2 candidates end up with the same UCAT score

 

[whimsicalhouse]

Great job on the score!! Did you find yourself skipping through DM or did you do it all in order/one go?
Regarding SJ: Generally Uni's don't take SJ into account. It's mostly used as a tiebreaker if 2 candidates end up with the same UCAT score

I did DM in order but flagged some of the challenging logic puzzles in the middle and just put down a random answer to come back to later, even though I actually ended up running out of time to fully figure them out.

 

[lolmed]

Date completed: 15 July 2021
Venue: Adelaide Test Centre
General thoughts on your results:
VR — 790
DM — 770
QR — 860
AR — 690
Total — 3110
SJT — 565

I did exceptionally better than I was expecting considering the fact that I only did 3 mocks and barely practiced at all in the months leading up to the test date. I found QR to be quite easy and VR/DM were the expected difficulty while I knew that AR was my weakest section by far and I had to completely guess 3 sets. Also, my SJT score is quite poor but I heard that many Australian universities don't take it into account — is this true?

General comments on your experience:
Overall, the computer and test worked well for me as expected, although there was one person doing the test with me and his computer crashed, which I felt really bad about.

thats a fabulous score mate! well done. how did you find the VR in comparison to the official mocks and did you have any tips, such as skim reading vs reading the question first etc.?

 

[emperortamarin]

were the passages pretty long? or about the same length as the officals? also noice job lad

thanks
I thought the passages were a little bit longer but it might just be that the screen was a bit bigger than im used to.

 

[naian616]

Date completed: 16 July 2021
Venue: Griffith University
General thoughts on your results:
VR — 630
DM — 680
QR — 860
AR — 720
Total — 2890
SJT — 609

VR was nice considering how poor VR was during prep. DM was a tragedy given how much better i was during my prep. QR was satisfactory in reference to my prep. AR was nice given it was my worst section during prep.

(Content removed: what are my chances thread to be opened when percentiles are released)

 

[Don Carlo]

ayeeeee good job naian!

 

[ellw]

Normally wouldn't post this but just thought I would share my experience for any other people who like me were very intimidated by all of the scores on here!

Venue: Pearson Professional Sydney

VR: 700
DM: 790
QR: 880 (this was my worst subtest to start with but it was also the one which I improved most on)
AR: 690 (my weakest going into the exam so I was not surprised at this)
Total: 3060
SJ: 653

Thoughts on my venue: Pearson Sydney is really good - The computers all looked quite new, the resolution was not stretched or blurry or anything and keyboards looked quite new also! My test wasn't lagging and they gave me earplugs which was good.

In my practice exams I had gotten everywhere from 2600-2950, and so this was my highest score to date - I did 15 practice exams in total, as well as all of the official ones. The official mocks are pretty accurate in terms of DM, VR and AR, but I found that QR in the real thing was easier.
Overall, I am happy with my result - I practiced in small bits (20-30mins a day) for about 6 months and tapered in the week leading up to my exam, so only did SJ and AR, and didn't do anything that would give me percentiles and scare me such as subtest mocks or practice exams.

Hope this helps!

 

[wccc]

Hi everyone, I thought I would share my UCAT experience as I personally found the posts on here very useful!

Venue: Adelaide Test Centre
I arrived about 45 minutes before my exam was scheduled (2:00 pm) to ensure I had adequate time to register and mentally prepare myself. The overall signing-in process was very quick and was seated in the waiting room by 1:25 pm. The lady working actually asked if I wanted to start my exam earlier and so I managed to begin my exam at 1:30 pm.

Overall, the test was straightforward, however, I did find the keyboard mouse to be quite laggy. The venue was also a bit noisy due to construction nearby, but I found the earplugs (were provided) to be very effective! We also did not need to wear face masks as stated in the Pearson appointment confirmation email.

Official Exam Results
VR: 680
DM: 650
QR: 880
AR: 890
Total: 3100
SJT: 663

General Thoughts
I was quite surprised by my results - very happy to say the least! I revised for about 4 months leading up to the exam and made sure to do consistent practice each week (5-6 days/week). QR and AR were easier than I expected, but I did find DM to be quite different to practice questions I had encountered (wordier, less interpretation of graphs/statistics). VR passages were also relatively shorter.
In terms of mock exams, I managed to complete all 21 mock exams through a certain preparation company, scoring between 2750 - 3090 (mock exam 10 was an outlier - scored 3310 somehow?). I also completed all mini mocks scoring an average of 763, 775, 726, 780 for VR, DM, QR and AR, respectively. I'm happy to post all my practice exam data on the Predicting UCAT Scores from Mock Exams forum if it helps some people out!

Anyway, good luck to those who are yet to take the exam! Feel free to ask any questions

 

[Don Carlo]

Hi everyone, I thought I would share my UCAT experience as I personally found the posts on here very useful!

Venue: Adelaide Test Centre
I arrived about 45 minutes before my exam was scheduled (2:00 pm) to ensure I had adequate time to register and mentally prepare myself. The overall signing-in process was very quick and was seated in the waiting room by 1:25 pm. The lady working actually asked if I wanted to start my exam earlier and so I managed to begin my exam at 1:30 pm.

Overall, the test was straightforward, however, I did find the keyboard mouse to be quite laggy. The venue was also a bit noisy due to construction nearby, but I found the earplugs (were provided) to be very effective! We also did not need to wear face masks as stated in the Pearson appointment confirmation email.

Official Exam Results
VR: 680
DM: 650
QR: 880
AR: 890
Total: 3100
SJT: 663

General Thoughts
I was quite surprised by my results - very happy to say the least! I revised for about 4 months leading up to the exam and made sure to do consistent practice each week (5-6 days/week). QR and AR were easier than I expected, but I did find DM to be quite different to practice questions I had encountered (wordier, less interpretation of graphs/statistics). VR passages were also relatively shorter.
In terms of mock exams, I managed to complete all 21 mock exams through a certain preparation company, scoring between 2750 - 3090 (mock exam 10 was an outlier - scored 3310 somehow?). I also completed all mini mocks scoring an average of 763, 775, 726, 780 for VR, DM, QR and AR, respectively. I'm happy to post all my practice exam data on the Predicting UCAT Scores from Mock Exams forum if it helps some people out!

Anyway, good luck to those who are yet to take the exam! Feel free to ask any questions

ayeee good job mate! Yeah Mock 10 was def very different to the others ones lmao! But you came through! Excellent job!
Would you say your DM was similar to the "newer" mocks because I found those to be wordier...

And yes it would be rlly helpful if you could post your practice exam data ~~ legend

 

[overcaffeinated]

Hey congrats, which platform did you use to prepare. Also for abstract reasoning we’re the patterns easy to recognise. And for Quantitative Reasoning what types of questions did they ask (taxes etc)

Hey, just a heads up that discussing prep companies/ platforms isn't allowed on MSO. Also I'm not sure if other posters are allowed to discuss the specifics of questions (i.e. whether they were tax questions or not) because it potentially advantages those who sit the test later (and I am saying that as someone who is yet to sit the exam this year!)

 

[Anonymous987]

Hey, just a heads up that discussing prep companies/ platforms isn't allowed on MSO. Also I'm not sure if other posters are allowed to discuss the specifics of questions (i.e. whether they were tax questions or not) because it potentially advantages those who sit the test later (and I am saying that as someone who is yet to sit the exam this year!)

How was the test in General tho??

 

[wccc]

ayeee good job mate! Yeah Mock 10 was def very different to the others ones lmao! But you came through! Excellent job!
Would you say your DM was similar to the "newer" mocks because I found those to be wordier...

And yes it would be rlly helpful if you could post your practice exam data ~~ legend

Thank you Don Carlo
I guess they may have been similar? However, I did score quite well in the 'newer' mocks (800ish for DM) so it may have been possible that my brain wasn't with it on the day of my exam and I just struggled to follow along

Just posted the data - hope it helps!!

 

[Don Carlo]

Thank you Don Carlo
I guess they may have been similar? However, I did score quite well in the 'newer' mocks (800ish for DM) so it may have been possible that my brain wasn't with it on the day of my exam and I just struggled to follow along

Just posted the data - hope it helps!!

Thanks mate! Just saw ur mocks and wowie! Amazing my dude!!!

 

[wccc]

How was the test in General tho??

As a first-timer, I didn't have any particular expectations but I guess it was relatively similar to the practice exams and official mocks (particularly C and D in terms of difficulty).

I can't specify any particular QR questions (can't even remember anyway as it was a blur) but there was nothing out of the ordinary and most concepts I had encountered before. For AR I found that doing lots of practice and exposing myself to a variety of patterns helped me recognise patterns quickly. I definitely recommend doing lots of this practice closer to the day as it sticks in your head.

 

[kkkk]

As a first-timer, I didn't have any particular expectations but I guess it was relatively similar to the practice exams and official mocks (particularly C and D in terms of difficulty).

I can't specify any particular QR questions (can't even remember anyway as it was a blur) but there was nothing out of the ordinary and most concepts I had encountered before. For AR I found that doing lots of practice and exposing myself to a variety of patterns helped me recognise patterns quickly. I definitely recommend doing lots of this practice closer to the day as it sticks in your head.

Hey what did you do on the day of the exam and the days leading to the exam

 

[wccc]

Hey what did you do on the day of the exam and the days leading to the exam

Days Leading to Exam
A month before the exam, I made a timetable to follow to ensure I would complete all the mini mocks/mocks. I completed all the mini mocks first (maybe did 4-5 mocks in between to see where I was at), and then did the rest of the 21 mocks every day leading up to the exam. On each of these days, I would then allocate 1-2 hours to do timed general practice questions and sometimes focus on my weaker areas.

Throughout my general practice, I also made sure to take screenshots of questions I got wrong/found difficult and organised them into respective sections and topics (e.g. QR folder with time zones/percentages/speed etc.). In the last two weeks, I went through these screenshots and tried to understand the concepts and the reason for my wrong answers.

It is also important to emulate your exam and practice under exam conditions. Use a keyboard, mouse, notepad, pen and layout your desk how you would in the exam. I'm a bit extra and practiced with some earplugs as well (even a face mask in the last mock haha). It's never bad to be over-prepared!

Day of Exam
On the day of the exam, I tried not to overwhelm my brain and just did a bit of light practice on each section. In particular, I recommend fast reading some texts for VR and doing some timed AR questions just to get the brain working. Also took some time to review the screenshots (previously mentioned) of questions I got wrong.