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Pre-UCAT Discussion 2020

Hey!

I went to this exact test centre for my UCAT last year and it was the best experience ever. The staff were incredibly nice and friendly, the whiteboard they give you is more than enough, nice room temp, comfortable chairs and screen display, the earplugs were gold you couldn't hear even a siren with them on. The only downside was that the marker didn't work for like a whole 10-20 secs so make sure that during the instructions page you prep your marker beforehand ;)
Thank you. I have been searching through the net for information on this particular test center. Nice to hear some positive feedback. 🤓
 
It depends quite alot on the personal scenarios at hand I guess, but one thing I would say is to not downplay the importance of the ucat test. That will essentially decide whether you get in or not. So I would try your best to improve that score to be as best as possible and go from there. So although uni/school results are important, as long as you have over a rank of 99 (keep in mind bonus points for higher level maths and a lote) you shouldn't worry about it too much. But if you give me your scenarios I can tailor some more useful info for you :)
How did you prepare for the UCAT?? I'm so stressed about it, not confident at all 😭
 
Hi guys,

What is your opinion given the current pandemic and the possibility of test cancellation. I assume there will definitely be a 2021 intake, however, as this is the first time sitting the UCAT I am unsure about the particulars. How many people are in a room at once that do the testing? Has any been proactive and emailed them asking if they have alternative options should the current climate progress? The reason I ask is because I studied hard for the last 6 months for the GAMSAT over 8 hours per day only to be disappointed with the cancellation. I would hate for the same to happen.

Let me know your thoughts.
 
Hi guys,

What is your opinion given the current pandemic and the possibility of test cancellation. I assume there will definitely be a 2021 intake, however, as this is the first time sitting the UCAT I am unsure about the particulars. How many people are in a room at once that do the testing? Has any been proactive and emailed them asking if they have alternative options should the current climate progress? The reason I ask is because I studied hard for the last 6 months for the GAMSAT over 8 hours per day only to be disappointed with the cancellation. I would hate for the same to happen.

Let me know your thoughts.

It can be cancelled but they can also just limit the amount of people in each test centre.

Honestly, you'll just have to wait until further notice since the pandemic status will continue to change. Until then, practice as if UCAT will still run.
 
I assume there will definitely be a 2021 intake
Obviously it’s far too early in the course of the pandemic to say anything definitive, but I actually wouldn’t be 100% sure on this point. If students are all pulled out of university (as we’ve observed already with many clinical medical students) there may be a freeze of progression in all year levels. Obviously the unis will do their very best to avoid this happening, but you have to consider that it may be a possibility. Who knows what’s to come?
 
I agree, the same sort of speculation has been mentioned for the graduate intake to. ACER are releasing alternative processes tomorrow (for the GAMSAT) so it will be interesting to see what they will propose and I guess on that note, we can assume something similar for the UCAT/ undergraduate entry.
 
I agree, the same sort of speculation has been mentioned for the graduate intake to. ACER are releasing alternative processes tomorrow (for the GAMSAT) so it will be interesting to see what they will propose and I guess on that note, we can assume something similar for the UCAT/ undergraduate entry.
I’d be surprised if the alternative is anything other than complete cancellation or postponement till a much later date, tbh.
 
Guys is it true that WSU does not take SJT into consideration at all?

Western Sydney Uni has always released very little information about how they considered the UCAT/UMAT scores. But based on interview invite data collected last year it appeared that SJT did not count

 
Guys is it true that WSU does not take SJT into consideration at all?
For what its worth pretty much all the undergraduate med unis do not use SJT at all so sleep well at night knowing you don't need to do too well in that area.
 
From my UMAT experience (disclaimer: I've never sat UCAT), it's definitely possible to burnout with practice. It's possible you're not engaging as fully with your practice sessions as you have previously, or have become a bit complacent and are making little mistakes (this is something I definitely noticed I would do). It's also possible you're reaching your max, in which case, improvements won't be anywhere near as steep as they might have been at the beginning, and it can be easy to become disheartened, so it's important to keep things in perspective, take a break, do something else, and then come back to it.

Another thing I did when addressing UMAT (I was needing to improve an already decent 92nd%ile to something much higher for UTAS non-standard entry) was to honestly evaluate my practices and figure out my weaknesses. There were some S1 questions that I knew I could spend a disproportionate amount of time on and still not be confident to have the right answer, and so I'd have to rationalise the time I was taking and instead make the decision to 'educated guess' and move on to the next question. Recognising your own strengths and weaknesses, doing a bit of an analysis of the tasks and how suited they are to your skill set, is invaluable, imo. I ended up getting 98%ile the second time round, and put this down to experience (the best experience for UMAT was UMAT, hand's down! I suspect it will be the same for UCAT!), and being smarter about my prep.
 
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so i was improving in most of the sections after a lot of drills on medify. currently i am going through a period whereby whatever drill i do i am not as sharp anymore therefore i am not achieving any higher than i did when i peaked and majority of the time even less. Is this normal and how do i combat this?
Agree with LMG! - take a break.
 
How do you get your results? (Not the percentile but the actual score out of 3600)
Is is straight after the test? A month after? or what
 
How do you get your results? (Not the percentile but the actual score out of 3600)
Is is straight after the test? A month after? or what

About 20 minutes after you get an email telling you to login to the website and see your results there
 
How do you get your results? (Not the percentile but the actual score out of 3600)
Is is straight after the test? A month after? or what
You'll generally get the email later than when the results are actually published on your account, so if you're extra eager you can log in beforehand and keep refreshing until you see the "view score reports" tab appear on your dashboard. ;)

I personally received my email way later than I should have (in comparison to other members of this forum), taking roughly an hour and a half after the exam to appear in my inbox. This got me worried and wondering whether something went wrong, but when I logged in my score report was already available. If you don't see the email after a certain period of time, just login to your account and it should already be there.
 
What was UWS cut off last year for ucat
There is no specific UCAT mark since each section is weighted differently. In 2019, WSU placed a high weighting on S1 to get you into the interview stage but WSU does not release the weightings so ideally the goal is to not get the bare minimum for a WSU interview but to just do your best in all the sections (since they can change up the weightings and S1 may or may not be emphasised as much this year). For approx. marks and weightings, refer to the 2020 interview collation link under WSU:

 
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