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Post UCAT Discussion Thread 2021

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Hey everyone! Been a longtime lurker and did my UCAT this morning so thought I would post results! I'm a second time test-taker and I am in 2nd year uni.

Location: Pearson Professional Centre Bridge St

Marks (last year in brackets)

VR: 640 (590)
DM: 690 (720)
QR: 870 (710)
AR: 770 (820)

Total: 2970 (2840)

SJ: 695 (529)

Notes:
Honestly, overall I'm happy with the mark however disappointed in myself as I think I could have done better. I was really unfocused for the first half of the exam and it really affected my score. The test centre was really good; ear plugs, individual cubicles, warm. I have all my fingers crossed that this mark will get me an interview for JMP - good luck to everyone yet to do their UCAT!
 
Hey guys did my UCAT today at Pearson Parramatta. I'll be uploading my mock test scores soon on the "Predicting UCAT scores from mock..." thread soon. The scores in brackets are my marks from last year.
VR: 760 (570)
DM: 790 (830)
QR: 900 (770)
AR: 870 (720).
General thoughts on each of the sections:
VR: The computers at Parra are kinda stupid. They stretch the words out quite a bit and it's quite disturbing at the start. But there's 5 minutes before the start of the VR section (2 minutes for the information about the test page, 2 minutes for the NDA agreement, 1 minute for VR instructions), and if you stare at the screen and read the NDA and the VR instruction, you get used to it pretty quickly. The VR passages were decent in length. My normal "technique" for VR is actually just reading the passage normally, and at the end 1 had about a minute remaining. Passages are quite easy to understand. I'll expand more when I post my mock scores on the "Predicting UCAT from mocks.." thread.

DM: The first few questions were quite tricky and disrupted my momentum from VR. I found the basic Y\N relatively hard compared to other UCAT companies I've done before. The venn diagram and logic puzzle were suprisingly calm. But the a few of the probability ones were dumb cooked. But I stuck to my strategy of going through the basic y\n syllos, best argument, venn diagram and probability first, then came back to the logic puzzles and narrative and interpreting data y\n questions.

QR: The QR questions were decent in terms of difficulty. There were no really easy questions, but there were no really hard questions as well. One thing to note was the keyboard was really slippery cos my palms were sweaty and also cos they'd been cleaned with sanitised tissues, so I ended up making quite a few mistakes on the calculator, but in the end it didn't make much of a difference. Just pay attention to what the question asks, because I know a few questions which I nearly got wrong because of not paying attention.

AR: Surprisingly easy. Very similar in difficulty to official mock D in terms of difficulty. Also I think I wasted quite a bit of time in one of the official mocks (mock b or c) because I didnt realise that not every pattern needs to have space for a "neither" pattern as well. A pattern can just define what is setA and what is set B.

Also want to say a massive thank you to all the posters on MSO. Been a long-time lurker of this forum and there's a lot of amazing advice here which helped IMMENSELY in my prep. GL to all the rest of you who are yet to take the exam. Check my post on the other thread in case there's some tips there that might be of use.

P.S. Before you go into the test, one of the previous posters said listen to music the whole day before your test, and I really suggest the same. Make sure not to look at screens before you sleep the day before your UCAT, and also don't look at screens on the day of your UCAT. Reading a few Wikipedia articles is ok, just make sure not to tire your eyes out before the exam.
 
TheSickladd said:
Hey guys did my UCAT today at Pearson Parramatta. I'll be uploading my mock test scores soon on the "Predicting UCAT scores from mock..." thread soon. The scores in brackets are my marks from last year.
VR: 760 (570)
DM: 790 (830)
QR: 900 (770)
AR: 870 (720).
General thoughts on each of the sections:
VR: The computers at Parra are kinda stupid. They stretch the words out quite a bit and it's quite disturbing at the start. But there's 5 minutes before the start of the VR section (2 minutes for the information about the test page, 2 minutes for the NDA agreement, 1 minute for VR instructions), and if you stare at the screen and read the NDA and the VR instruction, you get used to it pretty quickly. The VR passages were decent in length. My normal "technique" for VR is actually just reading the passage normally, and at the end 1 had about a minute remaining. Passages are quite easy to understand. I'll expand more when I post my mock scores on the "Predicting UCAT from mocks.." thread.

DM: The first few questions were quite tricky and disrupted my momentum from VR. I found the basic Y\N relatively hard compared to other UCAT companies I've done before. The venn diagram and logic puzzle were suprisingly calm. But the a few of the probability ones were dumb cooked. But I stuck to my strategy of going through the basic y\n syllos, best argument, venn diagram and probability first, then came back to the logic puzzles and narrative and interpreting data y\n questions.

QR: The QR questions were decent in terms of difficulty. There were no really easy questions, but there were no really hard questions as well. One thing to note was the keyboard was really slippery cos my palms were sweaty and also cos they'd been cleaned with sanitised tissues, so I ended up making quite a few mistakes on the calculator, but in the end it didn't make much of a difference. Just pay attention to what the question asks, because I know a few questions which I nearly got wrong because of not paying attention.

AR: Surprisingly easy. Very similar in difficulty to official mock D in terms of difficulty. Also I think I wasted quite a bit of time in one of the official mocks (mock b or c) because I didnt realise that not every pattern needs to have space for a "neither" pattern as well. A pattern can just define what is setA and what is set B.

Also want to say a massive thank you to all the posters on MSO. Been a long-time lurker of this forum and there's a lot of amazing advice here which helped IMMENSELY in my prep. GL to all the rest of you who are yet to take the exam. Check my post on the other thread in case there's some tips there that might be of use.

P.S. Before you go into the test, one of the previous posters said listen to music the whole day before your test, and I really suggest the same. Make sure not to look at screens before you sleep the day before your UCAT, and also don't look at screens on the day of your UCAT. Reading a few Wikipedia articles is ok, just make sure not to tire your eyes out before the exam.
Click to expand...
Woah, absolutely smashed it!! And a massive improvement from last year too! Did you take a gap year this year or did you do uni?
 
Hey guys! Just gonna talk about my experience here and I'll provide my marks from last year too. Did my test today at Parramatta Pearson aswell.
Scores:
VR: 720 (650)
DM: 660 (680)
QR: 800 (830)
AR: 800 (750)
Overall: 2980 (2910)

General thoughts on each of the sections:
VR - Honestly, that VR caught me by surprise cause I had to guess probably around 8 questions because I was slow at the beginning. Idk but my passages were longer than what people have said but overall, pree happy.
DM - Pree sad about this because I was averaging much higher in the mocks I did I felt like I did the non-syllogisms questions well but the syllogisms may have messed me up because I tend to overthink. I found DM pree hard thats why it sorta ruined my momentum for the next section.
QR - Due to how DM was, I am fairly sure I lost marks here because i started to very much second guess myself. 800 isnt a bad score but I got lower than last year and I was smashing it in the mocks so I am kinda disappointed.
AR - Yeah pree happy, not my best section so getting 800 is pree good but seeing how it was easy, I thought I may have gotten higher.

Overall Experience:
The test centre wasnt bad, I was offered the ear muffs which helped alot. Being in a cubicle and not a desk with other people definitely helped in reducing distractions. But overall, I am really sad that I did not get 3000+ cause i was averaging around that in mocks and just feeling a bit unsure of what is to come.
 
Scores:
VR: 760
DM: 800
QR: 880
AR: 600
Overall: 3040

General thoughts on each of the sections:
VR - VR was just about similar to the mocks for me, not a lot of hard to find answers but more of the inference type questions. Quite happy with the mark here
DM - 1 or 2 of the questions I completely guessed but the rest were quite straightforward, syllogisms were a lot wordier but were relatively easy to unpack. Mark aligned with what I was getting in practice.
QR - Can't complain, extremely happy with this and it was in line with my practice. None of the questions were hard but some of the wording for some of them were a bit confusing but were quite easy to see the answer after the question is unpacked.
AR - Gutted with this section, could've done a lot more and it was almost 150 points lower than my average practice mark. Just couldn't get the patterns across so had to do some (educated) guesses about 3 or 4 sets.

Overall Experience:
Test centre at parra was fine, computers were a bit noisy and the earplugs were horrendous so I just took them out. Happy with my score as It should hopefully get me an interview or two but could've done a bit more.
 
Hi all! I was wondering if anyone could please help me. I am a student in regional NSW outside of the current Sydney hotspots, and had scheduled my UCAT for August 18th in Canberra. However, Canberra has closed their border to my LGA due to COVID sewerage detection back in July. The only way I will be permitted to enter is by being granted an exemption to enter the ACT. Otherwise, I will have to move my test to Sydney and then self-isolate for 14 days (which is definitely not ideal given I am completing Y12 and this is a crucial time for finishing all our content in our courses.)

Has anyone had any experience being granted an exemption to enter the ACT? Or do you have any advice or recommendations for what I should do???

Thank you so much, I am really nervous that I won't be able to sit my UCAT as I have aimed to enter medical school for several years now and would hate all my hard work to be for nothing!!
 
I think the likelihood of getting an exemption to sit the UCAT is very low. Your best best would be having to go to sydney and then isolate when you get back :/

You could call Pearson VUE and ask them what they think is the best choice?
 
dotwingz said:
I think the likelihood of getting an exemption to sit the UCAT is very low. Your best best would be having to go to sydney and then isolate when you get back :/

You could call Pearson VUE and ask them what they think is the best choice?
Click to expand...
Yes...I have just rescheduled to the latest Syd date available at the moment (Aug 31) and am praying that the lockdown may be lifted by then???
 
Im praying the lockdown will be over by Christmas, best to direct that mental energy into planning what kind of snacks you're going to stack up with when you're isolating when you come home
 
blugirl18 said:
Hi all! I was wondering if anyone could please help me. I am a student in regional NSW outside of the current Sydney hotspots, and had scheduled my UCAT for August 18th in Canberra. However, Canberra has closed their border to my LGA due to COVID sewerage detection back in July. The only way I will be permitted to enter is by being granted an exemption to enter the ACT. Otherwise, I will have to move my test to Sydney and then self-isolate for 14 days (which is definitely not ideal given I am completing Y12 and this is a crucial time for finishing all our content in our courses.)

Has anyone had any experience being granted an exemption to enter the ACT? Or do you have any advice or recommendations for what I should do???

Thank you so much, I am really nervous that I won't be able to sit my UCAT as I have aimed to enter medical school for several years now and would hate all my hard work to be for nothing!!
Click to expand...
Help me understand this. You're from regional NSW studying in NSW and had scheduled your test for August the 18th in Canberra? Why didn't you book to do the test in Sydney or better still closer to where you are in regional NSW?
 
Believe it or not for some people in regional NSW its easier to get to Canberra than it is Sydney.

EDIT: Somewhere like Goulburn maybe
 
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