Pre-UCAT Discussion 2021

[thetree]

The physical notepad you get is vital as well, not really for VR or SJT though.

• Use it to jot down figures in each step for QR in case you clear the calculator accidentally (happened to me plenty of times since I was trying to go quick) or have to clear it for another equation (don't rely on memory as it could be faulty in stressful situations).
• Important for DM to create tables, orders and figures/drawings to solve all the riddles as you CANNOT do it all in your head.
• Also useful for jotting down rules and observations for AR.

Basically try to simulate test conditions with a notepad and on-screen calculator.

Do we get a physical notepad or an online one?

 

[JL538]

Do we get a physical notepad or an online one?

Its moreso a board (like mini handheld whiteboard) and you get a marker than a notepad really

Edit: Yes its physical

 

[DrDrLMG!]

haha i remember this being discussed so much last year. Glad we clarified it

Really, I must have missed that

Good luck this year, everyone!!

 

[fm8]

Hey! this is my third time sitting UCAT

VR DM QR. AB. SJ
600. 600 620. 800. BAND 1
500. 650 670. 720 BAND 1

First year I was pregnant and exhausted so wasn't able to study much and baby brain took over
Second year was covid lockdown and I had 2 babies under 2 full time at home with me, so I basically only focused on DM and QR the little time I could revise.

This year is the first year I will have proper time to study.
VR is my weakest area, does anyone have any tips to improve this area?

 

[dande]

Hey! this is my third time sitting UCAT

VR DM QR. AB. SJ
600. 600 620. 800. BAND 1
500. 650 670. 720 BAND 1

First year I was pregnant and exhausted so wasn't able to study much and baby brain took over
Second year was covid lockdown and I had 2 babies under 2 full time at home with me, so I basically only focused on DM and QR the little time I could revise.

This year is the first year I will have proper time to study.
VR is my weakest area, does anyone have any tips to improve this area?

VR was also my weakest but my best Strat which I used was to know what types of passages and readings you are good at and which ones you aren't. for me, I skipped all the history based passages on my first round and immediately answered all the TFC questions and anything with a scientific basis which definelty helped improve my score. hope this helps

 

[Rei]

Hey! this is my third time sitting UCAT

VR DM QR. AB. SJ
600. 600 620. 800. BAND 1
500. 650 670. 720 BAND 1

First year I was pregnant and exhausted so wasn't able to study much and baby brain took over
Second year was covid lockdown and I had 2 babies under 2 full time at home with me, so I basically only focused on DM and QR the little time I could revise.

This year is the first year I will have proper time to study.
VR is my weakest area, does anyone have any tips to improve this area?

Heyyy! Firstly, CONGRATZ OMGGG!!!

Keep up the great work miss, I believe working more on VR under untimed manner at start would be a good strat. Then move to timed.

 

[2xq]

Hey! this is my third time sitting UCAT

VR DM QR. AB. SJ
600. 600 620. 800. BAND 1
500. 650 670. 720 BAND 1

First year I was pregnant and exhausted so wasn't able to study much and baby brain took over
Second year was covid lockdown and I had 2 babies under 2 full time at home with me, so I basically only focused on DM and QR the little time I could revise.

This year is the first year I will have proper time to study.
VR is my weakest area, does anyone have any tips to improve this area?

This would be my tip. Find a strategy that works for YOU. Don't force other people's strategies on yourself. You will do better if you find your own strategy than use someone else's.

 

[ucatking]

Hey! this is my third time sitting UCAT

VR DM QR. AB. SJ
600. 600 620. 800. BAND 1
500. 650 670. 720 BAND 1

First year I was pregnant and exhausted so wasn't able to study much and baby brain took over
Second year was covid lockdown and I had 2 babies under 2 full time at home with me, so I basically only focused on DM and QR the little time I could revise.

This year is the first year I will have proper time to study.
VR is my weakest area, does anyone have any tips to improve this area?

Well Done! Really impressed by what you could achieve considering your circumstances.

In terms of VR, this section is largely an assessment of your ability to read fast, but also memory retention and comprehension of the information in that short reading period. Understanding these fundamentals, the simplest and quickest way I've (and others) have improved their verbal reasoning is by engaging in brain conditioning. There are a couple of tricks that I used specifically:

1. Speed Reading
- By actively training your brain to consume information at a faster rate, naturally your verbal reasoning should improve. Start with manageable speeds, and slowly work your way up.

2. Memory Retention games
- I believe that this method helped me significantly. There are many different types of games you can find online - for example the game that I used a lot was one where I had to remember a sequence of numbers, which kept getting longer each time I progressed a level. This particularly helped my short-term memory, which is incredibly important in verbal reasoning.

3. Wiki Article reading
- This is a method that I devised myself, which helped me score above the 90th percentile in VR. Essentially, I would find a random article on Wikipedia, and I would read perhaps the first 3 paragraphs as fast as I could, ensuring I do not spend more than 30 seconds doing so. Afterwards, I would try and summarise as much as possible of what I had just read. I like Wikipedia as these types of non-fiction articles are usually found on the UCAT!

I do have many more tips for VR, and other sections too for the UCAT! Please don't hesitate to ask additional questions here in the thread, I would be more than happy to help

(last line edited by moderator to encourage use of threads to share information and tips)

 

[Scrivo_72]

Found this game that helps with your ability to retain verbal information. It tests your ability to keep words in short-term memory, which could be useful when scanning for key-words after reading a question.

Human Benchmark

humanbenchmark.com

Also, I found the game where the sequence of numbers increases each level as well (the one ucatking was talking about above) which is:

Human Benchmark

humanbenchmark.com

 

[mars_02]

Hi, it looks like there are at least 7 people (8 including me!) on MSO who are resitting the UCAT this year.

I would appreciate some help with AR.

Just completed an AR Mini-Mock and achieved 570. Before I sat this Mini-mock, I worked through 60 pages of AR tips and worked examples from a very famous UCAT Textbook (which of course won't be named), twice, (because I didn't retain anything the first time through), by spending 5 hours each day at the library for the past 4 days. (I am taking a gap year solely for the purpose of resitting the UCAT so I have a lot of time haha).

Is there something I could be doing wrong? The technique I learnt from their textbook was not using a mnemonic, but thinking about 1. Type 2. Features 3. Arrangement. (Which I feel works better for me than SCANS or the other mnemonics.)

Any other useful tips for AR? Do you think writing down every single pattern you come across into a Word document is helpful?

 

[dotwingz]

The difficulty in AR comes from the time frame. Doing worked examples out of a textbook doesn’t help you get faster under actual exam conditions. I would suggest starting doing timed questions from here on out.

 

[mars_02]

Also a random question, does anyone know why in Australia we need over 3k to be considered for an interview, whereas in the UK 2800-2900 seems enough to get you an interview? My understanding is that the exam is exactly the same. So the only interpretation I could come up with was that people in Australia are smarter (at least for the UCAT) than people in UK. (Surely cannot be supply/demand, because yes UK has more med schools but their population is 66 million compared to 24 million in Aus). Love to hear your thoughts, I always had this question in my mind LOL

 

[mars_02]

The difficulty in AR comes from the time frame. Doing worked examples out of a textbook doesn’t help you get faster under actual exam conditions. I would suggest starting doing timed questions from here on out.

Thank you for the suggestion. Definitely, I will do only timed practice from now on. Thanks a lot

 

[JL538]

Also a random question, does anyone know why in Australia we need over 3k to be considered for an interview, whereas in the UK 2800-2900 seems enough to get you an interview? My understanding is that the exam is exactly the same. So the only interpretation I could come up with was that people in Australia are smarter (at least for the UCAT) than people in UK. (Surely cannot be supply/demand, because yes UK has more med schools but their population is 66 million compared to 24 million in Aus). Love to hear your thoughts, I always had this question in my mind LOL

Well your score by itself doesn't really matter, its all about your score in relation to other candidates. So if their UCAT test (even though it has the same types of questions) is harder, then a 90th percentile or whatever it is to get into med is going to be lower. Definitely not because people in Aus are smarter

 

[ucatboy]

Also a random question, does anyone know why in Australia we need over 3k to be considered for an interview, whereas in the UK 2800-2900 seems enough to get you an interview? My understanding is that the exam is exactly the same. So the only interpretation I could come up with was that people in Australia are smarter (at least for the UCAT) than people in UK. (Surely cannot be supply/demand, because yes UK has more med schools but their population is 66 million compared to 24 million in Aus). Love to hear your thoughts, I always had this question in my mind LOL

There is no substantial evidence to suggest that "people in Australia are smarter [...] than people in UK" as average scores and standard deviations are very similar. From what I can tell universities in the UK place much less emphasis on the UCAT when it comes to selecting students for admission into medicine (whereas here it can 100% determine who gets an interview or not - look at JMP and WSU, for example) and more on the interview and written application/personal statement. I also hear that medicine is not as attractive/lucrative in the UK (something to do with working in the NHS) which could also impact general demand but I don't know enough to comment further.

 

[dande]

Also a random question, does anyone know why in Australia we need over 3k to be considered for an interview, whereas in the UK 2800-2900 seems enough to get you an interview? My understanding is that the exam is exactly the same. So the only interpretation I could come up with was that people in Australia are smarter (at least for the UCAT) than people in UK. (Surely cannot be supply/demand, because yes UK has more med schools but their population is 66 million compared to 24 million in Aus). Love to hear your thoughts, I always had this question in my mind LOL

I could be wrong but its also possible (I am not sure) that the UK has more medical school spots per the number of applicants and hence it may mean that it is not as competitive. having said that, im not saying its harder/easier whatsoever and I may be completely wrong so this is entirely speculation.

 

[dotwingz]

They have about the same amount of people graduating per head of population as Australia does. I assume the higher % of grad entry schools in Australia, the high weighting of the UCAT, and the more lucrative lifestyle the profession offers in Australia all plays into why higher scores are needed in Australia

 

[Katakuri22]

Any other useful tips for AR? Do you think writing down every single pattern you come across into a Word document is helpful?

Try to do as many AR questions as you can, take note of the patterns you get wrong/couldn't identify, and try not to make the same mistake again.

I encourage you to make a list, however, don't write every single pattern down because 1. it is time-consuming 2. reviewing a long list of patterns on Word might not be all that effective as reading the text will not help you identify patterns any quicker.

Alternatively, if you insist on making a list of all AR questions you come across, I suggest you take screenshots or use the snipping tool, and separate patterns into different tiers (i.e. easy, medium, hard) so you can spend more time on patterns in the harder tiers.

ps. take a look at the attachment, very useful tips! [MOD NOTE: attachment removed as per site rules]

 

[dande]

Hi, it looks like there are at least 7 people (8 including me!) on MSO who are resitting the UCAT this year.

I would appreciate some help with AR.

Just completed an AR Mini-Mock and achieved 570. Before I sat this Mini-mock, I worked through 60 pages of AR tips and worked examples from a very famous UCAT Textbook (which of course won't be named), twice, (because I didn't retain anything the first time through), by spending 5 hours each day at the library for the past 4 days. (I am taking a gap year solely for the purpose of resitting the UCAT so I have a lot of time haha).

Is there something I could be doing wrong? The technique I learnt from their textbook was not using a mnemonic, but thinking about 1. Type 2. Features 3. Arrangement. (Which I feel works better for me than SCANS or the other mnemonics.)

Any other useful tips for AR? Do you think writing down every single pattern you come across into a Word document is helpful?

taking a "birds eye view" first when approaching AR patterns is a great idea. I personally found that it helps ensure you dont miss anything obvious and it does help guide you into trying to figure out what the pattern is. good luck!

 

[A1]

Definitely not because people in Aus are smarter

People in Aus are not smarter but I have data to show the Aus top-end UCAT sitters are smarter.

2020 UK summary : mean 2511, 90%ile 2850 > https://www.ucat.ac.uk/media/1446/ucat-test-statistics-oct-2020-updated-281020.pdf
2020 Aus summary : mean 2527, 90%ile 2920 > https://www.ucat.edu.au/media/1373/summary-statistics-for-2020.pdf

Aus mean is 0.64% higher, moderating this differential in test difficulty we reduce Aus 90%ile by 0.64% to 2900 vs UK 2850 => Aus top-end UCAT are 50 marks smarter