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Post UCAT Discussion Thread 2021

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JeydinNewWon

Regular Member
Hey everyone! Not sure if anyone is here to listen to this but I finished my UCAT today online (Well, technically yesterday as I wrote this at 12-something the day after). I won’t be sharing my score as I feel too anxious and self-conscious (and partly because quite lower than what I scored in my mocks and was slightly disappointed in myself). But my score is definitely competitive enough for the unis I wanted to apply for anyway. But I thought I would write this up to share my experience for UCAT online.

Note to future UCAT ANZ applicants: Please try your best to avoid taking the online proctored exam. It’s really annoying honestly. I was interrupted by the proctor during DM because my face was ever so slightly off the screen when I tried to use my whiteboard. This got me really flustered and worked up! Lead me to being hesitant to use the whiteboard further which carried over into QR and dropped my mark when I generally performed well on it. And the fact that something/someone is recording you and watching you makes doing the exam feel really pressuring. Doing the exam online also meant that there was a delay between pressing “Next” on questions. It was like the quality of the official mocks. Super inefficient! This was super annoying because it just lagged and made the exam feel clunky...especially when you want to go back and review your mistakes. Minor detail but QR required me some times to click on the calculator screen to input numbers...which made QR a lot slower...
 
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naian616

Regular Member
Hey everyone! Not sure if anyone is here to listen to this but I finished my UCAT today online (Well, technically yesterday as I wrote this at 12-something the day after). I won’t be sharing my score as I feel too anxious and self-conscious (and partly because quite lower than what I scored in my mocks and was slightly disappointed in myself). But my score is definitely competitive enough for the unis I wanted to apply for anyway. But I thought I would write this up to share my experience for UCAT online.

Note to future UCAT ANZ applicants: Please try your best to avoid taking the online proctored exam. It’s really annoying honestly. I was interrupted by the proctor during DM because my face was ever so slightly off the screen when I tried to use my whiteboard. This got me really flustered and worked up! Lead me to being hesitant to use the whiteboard further which carried over into QR and dropped my mark when I generally performed well on it. And the fact that something/someone is recording you and watching you makes doing the exam feel really pressuring. Doing the exam online also meant that there was a delay between pressing “Next” on questions. It was like the quality of the official mocks. Super inefficient! This was super annoying because it just lagged and made the exam feel clunky...especially when you want to go back and review your mistakes. Minor detail but QR required me some times to click on the calculator screen to input numbers.
congratz! its been a long time but u have finally made it in ur ucat journey! i wish the best of luck to you!
 
Hello everyone. I just did the UCAT today and I was so sad because it was way way lower than what I expected (2520 ;-; ). I tried so hard for the test, and have prepared since July last year. Every mock tests I did before were around 2700 to 2800 lmao, idk why and how I did so bad for this one.

Could anyone suggest which pathway to med I should take in the future, either taking a gap year to resit the UCAT, or taking an undergrad degree (like Medical Science for example)? My estimated ATAR is around 97-99, not sure if that even matters since they placed more emphasis on UCAT. Also, what was the lowest 2021 UCAT cut-off, and it is going to be worth taking another undergrad degree and do GAMSAT to transfer? Are the chances going to be higher?

I have always wanted to do medicine and would not consider any other options besides med, if anyone can leave me a suggestion or comment, I would greatly appreciate the help!!! Thanks heaps!
 
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LJess94

Regular Member
So sorry to hear you didn’t get the score you were aiming for :’( …. Did you find the online/proctors format hindered your performance? I ask because I have a friend in the same boat
 

JeydinNewWon

Regular Member
So sorry to hear you didn’t get the score you were aiming for :’( …. Did you find the online/proctors format hindered your performance? I ask because I have a friend in the same boat
I agreed. The proctors and online experience was terrifying. Like you can barely move out of the webcam range to try and use the whiteboard. It just got me really flustered in general. Also heaps of pressure knowing that if you make this same mistake again your exam could be revoked. I think post exam my chest was aching because of my heart racing during the exam. I was fortunate to crack a competitive enough score however. Though I feel really sorry for those whose experience wasn’t as good as mine :(
 

SLP

Bond MD I
Hello everyone. I just did the UCAT today and I was so sad because it was way way lower than what I expected (2520 ;-; ). I tried so hard for the test, and have prepared since July last year. Every mock tests I did before, both (paid platform removed) and the Official ones, were around 2700 to 2800 lmao, idk why and how I did so bad for this one.

Could anyone suggest which pathway to med I should take in the future, either taking a gap year to resit the UCAT, or taking an undergrad degree (like Medical Science for example)? My estimated ATAR is around 97-99, not sure if that even matters since they placed more emphasis on UCAT. Also, what was the lowest 2021 UCAT cut-off, and it is going to be worth taking another undergrad degree and do GAMSAT to transfer? Are the chances going to be higher?

I have always wanted to do medicine and would not consider any other options besides med, if anyone can leave me a suggestion or comment, I would greatly appreciate the help!!! Thanks heaps!
JCU is an option if you have a strong written application. As they don't use UCAT, I'm not exactly sure how they use ATAR (from the top of my memory, they have a PAA; Predicted Academic Assessment or something like that, but someone else might be able to expand on how it works). Bond is also an option (although you'd want to consider the hefty fees and see if that's a viable option for you, as it generally isn't practical for many people). I think these are your 2 remaining options as far as I'm concerned, but again, there might be other med options I'm missing which someone else can add as well
 

dotwingz

Google Enthusiast
Moderator
I suggest reading the common pitfalls thread linked in my signature. It's not recommended to take a gap year unless your ATAR is in the 99.50+ at least range, simply because how brutally competitive entry is

It's not advantageous to do medical science as an undergrad, and in fact hindering as the degree is a very difficult rat race with poor prospects on the other side. You would be best getting cracking with a stellar JCU application and try to squeeze an extra 0.6 so you can get Griffith/USC... if those don't pan out you should be thinking of a degree you would be happy with if you never got med as an alternative (not saying you won't you just don't want to be in the position of wasting years of your life for nothing)

PS Fixed your emoji ahha quite an unfortunate correction oops
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
Hello everyone. I just did the UCAT today and I was so sad because it was way way lower than what I expected (2520 ;-; ). I tried so hard for the test, and have prepared since July last year. Every mock tests I did before were around 2700 to 2800 lmao, idk why and how I did so bad for this one.

Could anyone suggest which pathway to med I should take in the future, either taking a gap year to resit the UCAT, or taking an undergrad degree (like Medical Science for example)? My estimated ATAR is around 97-99, not sure if that even matters since they placed more emphasis on UCAT. Also, what was the lowest 2021 UCAT cut-off, and it is going to be worth taking another undergrad degree and do GAMSAT to transfer? Are the chances going to be higher?

I have always wanted to do medicine and would not consider any other options besides med, if anyone can leave me a suggestion or comment, I would greatly appreciate the help!!! Thanks heaps!
Firstly, I'm sorry to hear your result wasn't what you expected.

To follow up, though, the questions you've asked are very common ones here as you're not the only person to find yourself in this position. If you have a look around the site, you'll find heaps of threads on the topics you've raised.

Gap year is really only recommended if you have an ATAR of 99.6+ AND have something to do for the year that isn't just studying for UCAT, anything lower than this and the usual best course of action is to start a degree and apply as a non-standard, but there are whole threads dedicated to this so have a look around.

Not considering any options other than med is also not a particularly advisable course of action. The reality is that, given the number of applicants vs the number of places on offer, the statistics are that getting into medicine is the rarity, not the common outcome. It is highly advised that you look into alternative uni courses and careers. Setting your sights on a single, highly competitive pathway, to the exclusion of all others isn't a particularly healthy way to approach things. Again, there are heaps of threads on this. Have a look around and use the search bar.

As to whether Med Sci is a good option... it's an option... whether it's a good one is up for debate and, again, there's a multitude of threads on this, so have a search.

ETA: also, don't forget that you only sat UCAT today. You are more than allowed to be sad and disappointed, so give yourself time to come to terms with what has happened and then re-focus and set your sights on maximising your ATAR and investigating alternative uni pathways as they are things still in your control (as opposed to your UCAT, which is now set).
 

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Thank you so much for the great replies! I posted my documents via Express Post to JCU PO on 20th Sep, but the tracking link still said it's "in transit" and that it is "awaiting collection at Aitkenvale PO". I'm not sure if this is a good sign though. If my documents are not collected after 10 days, then they might have to send it back to my address. *intense praying*

Also, it is true that the online proctored exam was more difficult for me. I was told to show my desk twice during the exam because I was trying to write something on the whiteboard. It was extremely uncomfortable having someone watching you 24/7, and you have the fear of your exam being revoked any time!

But yeah, I heard many people tried out for nursing to transfer to med. Anyone has an opinion on this too?
 

blugirl18

Member
Hi everyone! My UCAT is online and in three days. Does anyone who has done the online exam have any tips for how to succeed? And just wondering if there is significant lag between each question after pressing the 'next' button?? Thank you!!!
 

JeydinNewWon

Regular Member
Hi everyone! My UCAT is online and in three days. Does anyone who has done the online exam have any tips for how to succeed? And just wondering if there is significant lag between each question after pressing the 'next' button?? Thank you!!!
It’s...quite laggy. Like the official mocks level of laggy haha. But I think it’ll be fine. Just don’t burn out before the exam and focus on getting good sleep. Don’t do anything stressful or major before the exam. All I did was chillax by watching League of Legends videos lol. (In moderation, you don’t want to strain your eyes). Just be careful about the webcam and online exam experience...it’s kinda bad since you can very rarely move out of the screen which imo defeats the purpose of the whiteboard. It’s also very very much terrifying knowing someone is watching you behind that camera and one wrong move means your exam being revoked.
 

Nonstandard983

UoN JMP II
MSOer of the Year 2021
It’s...quite laggy. Like the official mocks level of laggy haha. But I think it’ll be fine. Just don’t burn out before the exam and focus on getting good sleep. Don’t do anything stressful or major before the exam. All I did was chillax by watching League of Legends videos lol. (In moderation, you don’t want to strain your eyes). Just be careful about the webcam and online exam experience...it’s kinda bad since you can very rarely move out of the screen which imo defeats the purpose of the whiteboard. It’s also very very much terrifying knowing someone is watching you behind that camera and one wrong move means your exam being revoked.
The in person UCAT is just as laggy as the official mocks also, don't think that's a purely online thing unfortunately.
 

dotwingz

Google Enthusiast
Moderator
Has anyone here done both the online and the face-to-face one in like a previous testing cycle? Hard to know the difference
 

JeydinNewWon

Regular Member
Has anyone here done both the online and the face-to-face one in like a previous testing cycle? Hard to know the difference
Yeah, I did. One last year and one this year. Although I was super unprepared last year, (I literally did it blind), I didn't feel as anxious nor pressured about literally using my whiteboard which is core for DM and possibly QR. Plus...no one's watching you like a hawk and going to cancel your whole exam if you move a little bit out of view of a webcam.
 

dotwingz

Google Enthusiast
Moderator
Jesus seems harsh... What proctor software did they use? Was it ProctorU? I've used that before and def had different experiences
 

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ucatboy

final year eek
Valued Member
The in-person UCAT only has system latency, which is what you get when you use computers older than the test-takers themselves. From what I can tell, everything is loaded onto the system before you take the test, and so it's done without internet (which is just as well, I can't imagine how much it would suck if the internet cut out for everyone in the testing centre). The results are then uploaded etc.

For the at-home UCAT, not only do you have hardware lag but also network latency as the exam isn't stored locally on your device. I think anyone who's done a Moodle quiz in high school or uni can relate to pictures and text not loading for seconds at a time. I can only imagine both types of lag were made worse by the resource-intensive invigilation :(
 
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Nonstandard983

UoN JMP II
MSOer of the Year 2021
Yeah, I did. One last year and one this year. Although I was super unprepared last year, (I literally did it blind), I didn't feel as anxious nor pressured about literally using my whiteboard which is core for DM and possibly QR. Plus...no one's watching you like a hawk and going to cancel your whole exam if you move a little bit out of view of a webcam.
Yeah the whiteboard seems rough! online was always going to be harder so don't get down on yourself because of your score its competitive like you said and that's all that matters on the plus side too if everyone finds online more difficult percentiles could drop by 10-20 points
 

JeydinNewWon

Regular Member
Jesus seems harsh... What proctor software did they use? Was it ProctorU? I've used that before and def had different experiences
I have no idea tbh. I think it's literally just Pearson's in-built system for OnVUE. I couldn't understand what the proctor was saying when even setting up the exam which did generate some stress, but granted they came from an ethnic background so I don't blame them. Literally was the most stressful exam of my life and honestly thank god this traumatic stuff is over lol.
The in-person UCAT only has system latency, which is what you get when you use computers older than the test-takers themselves. From what I can tell, everything is loaded onto the system before you take the test, and so it's done without internet (which is just as well, I can't imagine how much it would suck if the internet cut out for everyone in the testing centre). The results are then uploaded etc.

For the at-home UCAT, not only do you have hardware lag (as the exam isn't stored locally on your device), but also network latency. I think anyone who's done a Moodle quiz in high school or uni can relate to pictures and text not loading for seconds at a time. I can only imagine both times of lag were made worse by the resource-intensive invigilation :(
Haha, I had to do my exam at my uncle's house as at my current house the exam wasn't safe to do and their internet wasn't the best because granted they never use it and are busy selling bread rolls. (I have personal issues at home I don't want to get into the details, had to spend the weekend before cleaning out my uncle's old room and practice on mocks during the week there to get used to it, haha). It's interesting to hear that the exam as hardware and software latency which is so dumb lol.
 
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