Post-UMAT 2018 Debrief Thread

[nts]

Did anyone else find themselves shading in option A a lot?

 

[pha0015]

Did anyone else find themselves shading in option A a lot?

no idea. I had a hard time enough trying to remember the fact that D wasn't the last circle to shade.

also keep in mind that the questions would've been scrambled up for everyone, so it might've been harder for them to recognise a pattern i.e. not a lot of option As close to each other

 

[RandoSuddo]

The teacher appeared foolish. That’s the only one I can remember for that question

Do you remember what the other options were? IIRC, the question was worded like "What does the teacher feel?" or something we emphasis on the perspective of the teacher.

 

[maniacfish]

ranting about pet peeves from yesterday, to distract myself.

answer sheet preferred 2B pencil over HB, but instructions said to bring HB or no.2 pencils
also said to bring pencils and erasers. brought sharpener anyway but then thought better of it and put it in my bag, then attendees said you could have a sharpener. had to wade through other people's bags to get it... kudos to people who brought mechanical pencils or sharpened both sides of their pencils.

did you see how answer sheet said copyright acer 2017? are we not worthy of 2018 sheets?

random question. how many pencils and erasers did you bring? 3 and 2 respectively
and how early did you arrive? I arrived an hour early, but I know some who were here 2 hours beforehand.

yeah must admit the 2b vs hb pencil thing was a but unusual. i feel like as small a thing as it is they really should be on top of stuff like that, its exactly the sort of thing that people who are already stressed might get unnecessarily worked up over.

 

[Chrismm]

Do you remember what the other options were? IIRC, the question was worded like "What does the teacher feel?" or something we emphasis on the perspective of the teacher.

Nope. UMAT questions are rapidly diffusing out of my brain

 

[zocdae]

Wait so if we used HB we’re still fine right?? Nek minut 0/0/0

 

[pha0015]

yup. most people would've had hb anyway

 

[SACHIK]

Did anyone else find themselves shading in option A a lot?

No but I picked D about 7 times in a row at one point

 

[H20]

I feel super upset about my performance during the exam, like I felt like I worked really hard beforehand in order to do well, but I feel like I screwed it all up yesterday. I know that thinking like this now isn't going to change anything.....but it just feels super disheartening when you put your all into something and end up feeling like you did shit. Like I feel like I took my future and just screwed it up with my own two hands

 

[SACHIK]

I feel super upset about my performance during the exam, like I felt like I worked really hard beforehand in order to do well, but I feel like I screwed it all up yesterday. I know that thinking like this now isn't going to change anything.....but it just feels super disheartening when you put your all into something and end up feeling like you did shit. Like I feel like I took my future and just screwed it up with my own two hands

I relate so much. I feel like I worked really hard and then in the last moment, when it really counted, it all came crashing down. All my friends keep asking "are you relieved its over?!" and like I am, but I basically have really low expectations now.

 

[Lear]

Guys guys, the results haven't even come out yet. Please do not feel disheartened. Many many people come out of the exam feeling like they absolutely blew it but end up actually getting some very decent scores. There are a countless number of similar stories to this. This may be because we tend to remember the question we weren't sure about and forget about the ones we understood.
I understand it is a high stakes test and means a lot to people as a significant amount of resources such as money and time are used in preparation. I too feel this definitely. The best we can do now is to wait for September and hope for the best. If not, there is always graduate medicine to look forward to.

I sincerely hope you all get the scores you want

 

[tleb]

OOM first section 1 question has me so confused, and i’m stressing because i’m already behind and then I spend like 5 minutes on it. Go to the next section 1 question BOOM another confusing one

This was actual me last year, I panicked so much with S1 as I left it till the end. It is crazy how panic can make S1 questions seem impossible. But you did very well to battle through the panic as you only guessed 10 S1 questions. Very good effort.

 

[jiaxing]

That makes the three of us man :/. This is my second time sitting the exam (just missed the cut-off last year). I put in about 6 hours (+~$1k) everyday for the 30 days leading to the exam (uni break right before UMAT thankfully) and my practice scores were looking good and I was feeling good and ready to smash it out. Then I sit the exam and section 3 is horrible, section 2 goes alright but I went 5 minutes over but I was still feeling ok, then BOOM first section 1 question has me so confused, and i’m stressing because i’m already behind and then I spend like 5 minutes on it. Go to the next section 1 question BOOM another confusing one. I think like halfway through s1 questions I was way overtime and I literally was thinking to myself there’s no way i’m gonna be able to catch up and felt like giving up and going home and getting drunk and crying but I kept going (sluggishly though) and ended up guessing about 10 s1 questions in the end.

I realised when I got home that I was being a dramatic idiot and everyone else was having difficulty with s1 so I should’ve stayed calm knowing my percentile could still be ok, but my freaking out probably cost me those 10 questions. I’m probably 40/60 at this point on whether I think I can get the mark, it’s really disappointing.

Were these completely blind guesses or "educated guesses"?

 

[Lear]

Yea they were complete blind guesses, but i’m hopeful that one of the question sets that I guessed was a possible trial question and another one seems like some people found decently hard anyway.

I realised I shouldn’t have been freaking out so much and i’m cool now, just praying for the best. And if the best doesn’t happen, then i’ll keep trying, whether that means a 3rd UMAT exam or postgrad. I will become a doctor.

That last sentence. I like that.

 

[pha0015]

That last sentence. I like that.

If I say it enough times, it'll come true.

 

[Kang]

I thought the exam was OK?
I felt it was easier than the UMAT I sat a few years ago, and easier than the GAMSAT.

To be honest I am glad they are moving away from things that 3rd party UMAT companies prep students for.

Anyway I'm going to take it easy a week and then start studying for the September GAMSAT

Good luck peeps!

 

[jiaxing]

Yea they were complete blind guesses, but i’m hopeful that one of the question sets that I guessed was a possible trial question and another one seems like some people found decently hard anyway.

I realised I shouldn’t have been freaking out so much and i’m cool now, just praying for the best. And if the best doesn’t happen, then i’ll keep trying, whether that means a 3rd UMAT exam or postgrad. I will become a doctor.

Admire your passion!

 

[Smelly Boy]

I read a post here earlier today about people who sat the exam before and how they felt so I’ll answer

This is my third time doing the exam

First go I got 48%ile (44/41/59? Something like that) then second time I prepped for like 6 months and ended up with 72%ile. On my second attempt I felt so ready. My plan was 60 min doing s3 first then 2hrs for s1+s2 (doing sequentially). I was a gun at s3 during prac so I wanted to smash the exam in s3 and I read how the real umat is easier than ME (a bit) so when I couldn’t get the first 3 questions easily I panicked and then I began spending a lot of time on single questions because I thought i HAD to perfect s3 since I was so good at it during prac. I went overtime by like 15 mins on s3 because I took my eye off the clock. When it was s1+s2 time, I already thought it was over and I fucked up so I worked through it with no real effort. Marks ended up being 55/51/57 (something like that) and I actually did worse on my second sitting in s3 even though my first time I had no prac.

For my third sitting (yesterday) I thought to myself that the real problem for me was just my timing. This was the main problem.

My second (lesser) problem was jumping into solutions for s3 instead of giving it a good look first. A pick the middle question sometimes can’t just be mapped because sometimes a few elements are only there for 1 option and disappear for the other 4. Those elements which stay usually are in a pentagon (a pentagon has 5 sides) and mapping it just shows each side having one option (5 sides and 5 options ABCDE so mapping doesn’t help). Sometimes eyeballing s3 questions actually gets u the answer in less than 40 seconds. My method is quite weird to explain but if it did work and I got a good s3 score I guess I cna try explaining what the hell this is all about. I’m not sure if it’s a new thing but it’s somethjgn I haven’t seen. In my prep this method help a lot. It helps with those few (about 5) questions that mapping doesn’t help with.

My third problem was thinking some s1 questions are just flat out impossible. It can feel like that when you are in a time limit. I think to do well in this section you have to first break down the thought that the questions are impossible to do. I did this by sitting down with 10 s1 questions and giving myself unlimited time to solve them and I started seeing that actually these questions were solvable. I thenbegan enforcing loose time limits and moved up to being able to do them really quickly. I think it’s so important to do this because s1 doesn’t seem like a big bad boss after that. It doesn’t feel like you won’t get the answer. It just seems like you EVENTUALLY get the answer if you have enough time. It’s a matter of when not if.

For this sitting I practiced for about 1 month only (I’m saying only because all the smart cookies here prac well in advance and smash the exam so I feel like I can say ‘only’ for a month) in advance and did about 5 old exams and 1 free matrix one, 1 ME new one off my friends account and Acer exam 4. I also had old papers and did just the s3 part and practiced getting used to a variety of questions. I looked through s3 solutions and saw where I was wrong.

So basically I did 2 things in a month:
- get rid of the idea that s1 is impossible
- see a big variety of s3 questions and not try and jump to solving and mapping immediately without giving the question a good look

Also an extra thing:
I think ME now tries to put a lot of questions that they think will show up in the umat in their course and that really does narrow the range of questions you get. This is so damaging when it comes to s3. Without ME I felt like I was MUCH more open minded. ESPEICALLLLLLY FOR MATRIX QUESTIONS IN S3. ME IS THE SAME ~5 THINGS ALMOST ALL THE TIME. Last year when I did ME I smashed the ME stuff but in the exam I kept trying to map everything the conventional way and that hurt my entire exam as I explained earlier.

How I felt after the exams:
1st sitting I didn’t know wtf I just did and my marks accurately reflected that BUT I got a nice s3 score of 59

2nd sitting I had to guess 15-20 at the end and I was kind of happy (not THAT confident) with my s1 answers but s2 and s3 I didn’t feel so good. My marks reflected that

3rd time (yesterday) I walked out like I smashed it and I rememebr texting my family that I feel like this is the last one I’m going to do because I really ripped the umat a new one (if you know what I mean). I felt like s3 I only guessed 1 or 2 blindly and educated guessed like 4. And the rest I feel like I got. S1 I feel like I could have even got like a 40/48 (or more!)I feel so good for this section. S2 I feel like I did pretty good but I can never gauge my performance in this section. After reading discussion on this forum I think I did pretty good.

I might end up getting a shit score or a score not as good as I think I have but this will be useful for people next year if they think they smashed it but in actual fact they didn’t. Hope y’all appreciate these honest thoughts and not see it as like getting ahead of myself or bragging or anything because I know that I would love to read somethign like this before my umat, especially knowing how someone would feel post-exam.

Hopefully I get an amazing s1 and s3 score and a decent s2 score. Also hope that if I do well then I can give hope to people who got not so good scores on their first tries.

Anyone else who did the umat before wanna share their thoughts or anyone who did it for the first time wanna share? Having your thoughts after the exam is so interesting for people looking to sit the umat the next year to read. Cheers for reading folks.

 

[jiaxing]

I read a post here earlier today about people who sat the exam before and how they felt so I’ll answer

This is my third time doing the exam

First go I got 48%ile (44/41/59? Something like that) then second time I prepped for like 6 months and ended up with 72%ile. On my second attempt I felt so ready. My plan was 60 min doing s3 first then 2hrs for s1+s2 (doing sequentially). I was a gun at s3 during prac so I wanted to smash the exam in s3 and I read how the real umat is easier than ME (a bit) so when I couldn’t get the first 3 questions easily I panicked and then I began spending a lot of time on single questions because I thought i HAD to perfect s3 since I was so good at it during prac. I went overtime by like 15 mins on s3 because I took my eye off the clock. When it was s1+s2 time, I already thought it was over and I fucked up so I worked through it with no real effort. Marks ended up being 55/51/57 (something like that) and I actually did worse on my second sitting in s3 even though my first time I had no prac.

For my third sitting (yesterday) I thought to myself that the real problem for me was just my timing. This was the main problem.

My second (lesser) problem was jumping into solutions for s3 instead of giving it a good look first. A pick the middle question sometimes can’t just be mapped because sometimes a few elements are only there for 1 option and disappear for the other 4. Those elements which stay usually are in a pentagon (a pentagon has 5 sides) and mapping it just shows each side having one option (5 sides and 5 options ABCDE so mapping doesn’t help). Sometimes eyeballing s3 questions actually gets u the answer in less than 40 seconds. My method is quite weird to explain but if it did work and I got a good s3 score I guess I cna try explaining what the hell this is all about. I’m not sure if it’s a new thing but it’s somethjgn I haven’t seen. In my prep this method help a lot. It helps with those few (about 5) questions that mapping doesn’t help with.

My third problem was thinking some s1 questions are just flat out impossible. It can feel like that when you are in a time limit. I think to do well in this section you have to first break down the thought that the questions are impossible to do. I did this by sitting down with 10 s1 questions and giving myself unlimited time to solve them and I started seeing that actually these questions were solvable. I thenbegan enforcing loose time limits and moved up to being able to do them really quickly. I think it’s so important to do this because s1 doesn’t seem like a big bad boss after that. It doesn’t feel like you won’t get the answer. It just seems like you EVENTUALLY get the answer if you have enough time. It’s a matter of when not if.

For this sitting I practiced for about 1 month only (I’m saying only because all the smart cookies here prac well in advance and smash the exam so I feel like I can say ‘only’ for a month) in advance and did about 5 old exams and 1 free matrix one, 1 ME new one off my friends account and Acer exam 4. I also had old papers and did just the s3 part and practiced getting used to a variety of questions. I looked through s3 solutions and saw where I was wrong.

So basically I did 2 things in a month:
- get rid of the idea that s1 is impossible
- see a big variety of s3 questions and not try and jump to solving and mapping immediately without giving the question a good look

Also an extra thing:
I think ME now tries to put a lot of questions that they think will show up in the umat in their course and that really does narrow the range of questions you get. This is so damaging when it comes to s3. Without ME I felt like I was MUCH more open minded. ESPEICALLLLLLY FOR MATRIX QUESTIONS IN S3. ME IS THE SAME ~5 THINGS ALMOST ALL THE TIME. Last year when I did ME I smashed the ME stuff but in the exam I kept trying to map everything the conventional way and that hurt my entire exam as I explained earlier.

How I felt after the exams:
1st sitting I didn’t know wtf I just did and my marks accurately reflected that BUT I got a nice s3 score of 59

2nd sitting I had to guess 15-20 at the end and I was kind of happy (not THAT confident) with my s1 answers but s2 and s3 I didn’t feel so good. My marks reflected that

3rd time (yesterday) I walked out like I smashed it and I rememebr texting my family that I feel like this is the last one I’m going to do because I really ripped the umat a new one (if you know what I mean). I felt like s3 I only guessed 1 or 2 blindly and educated guessed like 4. And the rest I feel like I got. S1 I feel like I could have even got like a 40/48 (or more!)I feel so good for this section. S2 I feel like I did pretty good but I can never gauge my performance in this section. After reading discussion on this forum I think I did pretty good.

I might end up getting a shit score or a score not as good as I think I have but this will be useful for people next year if they think they smashed it but in actual fact they didn’t. Hope y’all appreciate these honest thoughts and not see it as like getting ahead of myself or bragging or anything because I know that I would love to read somethign like this before my umat, especially knowing how someone would feel post-exam.

Hopefully I get an amazing s1 and s3 score and a decent s2 score. Also hope that if I do well then I can give hope to people who got not so good scores on their first tries.

Anyone else who did the umat before wanna share their thoughts or anyone who did it for the first time wanna share? Having your thoughts after the exam is so interesting for people looking to sit the umat the next year to read. Cheers for reading folks.

Very well said

 

[tleb]

Anyone else who did the umat before wanna share their thoughts or anyone who did it for the first time wanna share?

Second time doing UMAT and I felt kinda similar to how you felt the second time you did it hahah. Defintely with the S3, I was smashing prep and was used to getting nearly all s3 and maybe educationally guessing 5 s3 questions. Yesterday I felt I didn't do too well in S3, I educationally guessed around 10 s3 questions at the end. Those pick the middles really pissed me off and I didn't have the concentration I had in my practice exams maybe due to focusing so hard on S1 questions. If my accuracy was good for the others it should not be too bad.

I remember last year leaving s1 till the end with 50 minutes to go (I am not exaggerating) and I remember solving approximately 10 S1 questions with certainty and literally educationally guessing the other 40 odd s1 questions in the last 30 minutes, still managed to get 50 percentile in this section lol (eg people who bombed S1 please have hope). Compared to last year, I definitely did much better with S1 but I did not smash it I had to guess some things but I definitely did solve a lot of questions. Last year I also felt S1 was impossible but this year doing the exam in sequential order (eg not leaving s1 last) really allowed me to have a crack at most S1 questions.

S2 was much easier and less ambiguous, made one or two dumb interpretations under pressure but I agreed with a lot of ppl on here, hopefully we aren't wrong

If I had to do umat again I would probably just allocate the first 90 minutes to just s1 questions, doing them when I'm most fresh and relaxed.