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Pre-UCAT Discussion 2020

whys said:
I personally think it's good to move onto mocks once you're familiar/comfortable with all the subtests and associated question types. I also recommend doing mini-quizzes/mini-mocks if you have access to those. I agree with Smelly Boy above in that you should attempt to split it up evenly so that you can actually look over what went good/bad and improve. I guess with timed/untimed, just do untimed till you're comfortable to move onto timed. Ideally, most of your practice should be spent on timed practice because this is where the exam's main difficulty factor stems from.

EDIT: different people take different amounts of time to learn the techniques and apply them, so move on when you feel comfortable doing so, but make sure most of your time is spent practising questions in timed conditions.
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Oh okay I see. Thanks. Btw, do I recognise you from somewhere else lmao?
 
Smelly Boy said:
I did mocks once I felt that I knew what The test was about.

I spent some time (~2 weeks) doing questions with and without a timer and once I realised what was going on, I attempted full mocks. I would say give yourself 4-8 weeks before the exam date to complete mocks. Divide the mocks evenly so that you complete your last mock test about ONE WEEK before your exam e.g. if you have 8 mocks and 5 weeks before your exam then do 2 mocks per week (over 4 weeks) so that you have one week at the end to do some light practice to warm up before the big day.

Anything more than 2 mocks per week is kinda overkill. I doubt that the majority of people would be able to meaningfully reflect on the 3+ mocks they complete and figure out how to improve for the next time. It’ll be more like brute forcing yourself through mock exams and expecting a better mark to magically appear.
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That's really helpful thank you! Did you leave your official mocks towards the end or did you space out the official ones in between unofficial mocks?
 
rjexik97 said:
That's really helpful thank you! Did you leave your official mocks towards the end or did you space out the official ones in between unofficial mocks?
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No problemo!!

After sitting the UCAT, I found that the official mocks were good for all sections except QR (the QR sections were much more difficult in the official mocks). I found that the other papers I was doing were more representative of the difficulty you’d encounter in the real test. Considering this, I didn’t really treat the official mocks as anything special so I don’t really remember how I did them except for the fact that I offical mock 3 was the last mock exam I did before the real test.
 
Smelly Boy said:
No problemo!!

After sitting the UCAT, I found that the official mocks were good for all sections except QR (the QR sections were much more difficult in the official mocks). I found that the other papers I was doing were more representative of the difficulty you’d encounter in the real test. Considering this, I didn’t really treat the official mocks as anything special so I don’t really remember how I did them except for the fact that I offical mock 3 was the last mock exam I did before the real test.
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Did you take SJ into account because they mark 'incorrect' for everything that would be 'partially correct' on other platforms :(
 
Hey guys.
I was just wondering if doing the OFFICIAL mock tests (full mocks and subtest mocks) in the whole month of June is a good idea? I hear most people do them last but how far towards the end (my test is on 9th july) should I wait to start them?
 
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noodleboy123 said:
Hey guys.
I was just wondering if doing the OFFICIAL mock tests (full mocks and subtest mocks) in the whole month of June is a good idea? I hear most people do them last but how far towards the end (my test is on 9th july) should I wait to start them?
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I only did UCAT prep for 3 weeks, but I would say maybe 2 weeks before your test.
 
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noodleboy123 said:
Hey guys.
I was just wondering if doing the OFFICIAL mock tests (full mocks and subtest mocks) in the whole month of June is a good idea? I hear most people do them last but how far towards the end (my test is on 9th july) should I wait to start them?
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Not a bad strat, most people I know saved their official mocks until a couple weeks before their actual exams. I would suggest, however, doing one maybe slightly earlier (late May/early June) so you get a feel of what to expect and can adjust your practice accordingly. Maybe you find that you need to do more of x calculation in QR, or brush up on probability in DM. Whatever it is, it's better to find out now than do the official mocks one day before the real thing and realise it's too late to make changes to your practice or strategy.
 
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ucatboy said:
3, 4 and 5 were sat in February, 1, 2, 6-10 were sat once every week (Friday, was it?), basically spanning all of Term 2 (May to June). 11-15 were sat in the two-week Term 2 break, the end of which marked my UCAT.
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What did you do after each mock? How did you go about reviewing it to improve for the next one?
 
Hay guys,
I am new to MSO.
I am in year 10.
Want some advise regarding UCAT perp and the format.What is a good UCAT score to get entry into medicine ?I am in Perth so interested in UWA or Curtin .
 
yuzzy said:
What did you do after each mock? How did you go about reviewing it to improve for the next one?
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I mainly focused on AR because that was the section I saw the most potential to improve in. Any pattern I didn't get or rule I missed would go straight into my collection of hard patterns on OneNote. I reviewed this document quite regularly.

VR was generally me either misreading or misunderstanding a question stem/answer, hence facepalming as I reviewed the subtest. I can't say I did much about it except promise myself I wouldn't make the same stupid mistakes the next time round (spoiler: I did) as I was pretty happy with my score range (dunno what happened in the actual VR though lmao).

I honestly didn't bother with QR because the questions I didn't get correct were the insanely difficult UMAT Section 1 ones which I skipped. I hope the prep company in question has since modified their mocks and replaced those questions, because they don't serve much purpose other than to frustrate you, or even worse, make you panic if you don't realise that the actual QR is nothing like it.

I don't remember how I specifically reviewed DM but I do remember that the majority of my lost marks came from the 2-mark syllogisms and the evaluating arguments questions. And as for, SJ, I neglected that section pretty bad hahaha (I just wanted it to be done so I never spent more than 10 minutes) which could explain my relatively low SJ score in the real thing compared to many others on this forum.
 
prasha said:
Hay guys,
I am new to MSO.
I am in year 10.
Want some advise regarding UCAT perp and the format.What is a good UCAT score to get entry into medicine ?I am in Perth so interested in UWA or Curtin .
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Welcome to MSO!
I'm a relatively new member as well.

Here's a handy link to a table of contents made by LMG! which pretty much encompasses everything UCAT related on the MSO: UCAT FORUM: TABLE OF CONTENTS

And some of of the forums I find interesting and tend to spend a lot of time scouring through are:

2020 Entry Interview Invites - Collated (DATA ONLY) (for the scores which received an interview invite to Australian universities in 2019)
Pre-UCAT Discussion 2020 (for some insight into how the upcoming 2020 cohort are preparing for UCAT)
UCAT Results Discussion 2019 (a forum full of discussion about the 2019 cohort's UCAT experience)
Tips for UCAT Improvement (Tips for UCAT improvement - including a passage written by user FunTimes who scored highest in Australia in 2019)

Best of luck!

And, almost forget, the welcome guide: The welcome guide!
 
To anybody who has sat the UCAT before, were there any surprises you experienced in the exam? Just curious! Anything from exam contents to exam location.
 
Fili said:
For me it was definitely because of the nervousness. I never use earplugs so when I used them during the test I could literally hear my heart racing. The first half of VR was such a daze because of how nervous I was. I had to stop midway of VR and breathe in and out slowly to calm myself down. Afterwards is when I realized that I'm actually focusing rather than flying through VR and doing the questions poorly.
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Ok thanks, do you remember the type of earplugs they gave you?
 
dano said:
Ok thanks, do you remember the type of earplugs they gave you?
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What type of earplug will depend on the individual test center (some might not even have earplugs to give you). If you're concerned about this, remember that you're allowed to bring in and use your own earplugs.
 
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