Pre-UMAT 2018 Discussion Thread

[DrDrLMG!]

〜A UMAT Extraordinaire〜
Hahaha nice. What year are the MedEntry ones?? I have been using ones from 2012 and have been going idk decent on them. I was feeling pretty good about that til you said that they could be easy lol rip.

I remember doing some from as far back as 2008 when I was prepping and still finding them pretty challenging. I was at the very start of my UMAT journey at the time, as opposed to Smelly Boy, who is more experienced, so that could be why I found them challenging, but who knows?

 

[giuliana]

LMG! do you mind me asking what you did the week before/what you think is the best way to tackle these last few days?

 

[frootloop]

LMG! do you mind me asking what you did the week before/what you think is the best way to tackle these last few days?

I'm not LMG, but I'm an insufferable know-it-all and did well enough in UMAT back in the day, so here's my 2c:

This test is designed to be super hard to prepare for (and there's very little evidence to suggest you can, beyond perhaps slight S3 improvements). In any event, even if you think 'prep' has significant merit, you're pretty unlikely to be able to significantly improve your skills within the last few days. So prepping like mad at this point is unlikely to be of much use - unless you need to do so to feel psychologically ready for the test.

Which brings me to what you *can* do in the days before the test: get into whatever head space will result in you performing at your best. If that means feeling like you've seen every possible question 800 times, then by all means, prep away. If it means reading a good book and thinking about what the characters are feeling at each point, go for it. If it means playing video games and trying not to think about UMAT at all, that's fine too.

 

[Smelly Boy]

〜A UMAT Extraordinaire〜
Hahaha nice. What year are the MedEntry ones?? I have been using ones from 2012 and have been going idk decent on them. I was feeling pretty good about that til you said that they could be easy lol rip.

2008 medentry ones and 2010 matrix ones

The 2010 matrix ones are too easy I think and the medentry ones feel kind of easy. I’ll do a medentry 2018 one today and see how my marks are and let you peeps know how the difficulty compares

 

[sarangiya]

2008 medentry ones and 2010 matrix ones

The 2010 matrix ones are too easy I think and the medentry ones feel kind of easy. I’ll do a medentry 2018 one today and see how my marks are and let you peeps know how the difficulty compares

Legend. I'm very curious.

I can't help agree with frootloop at the moment.
My scores are actually getting somewhat progressibely worse every exam I do. It's probably due to pressure. I'm now just hoping to improve on a few particular question types I weak with, and then focus on just really pumping it out on the day. I think that's what will make the difference.

 

[Nycryte]

This test is designed to be super hard to prepare for (and there's very little evidence to suggest you can, beyond perhaps slight S3 improvements).

I'd agree for S1 and S2 but I reckon you can improve a lot for S3. If I'd gone into the UMAT without prepping S3 at all I would've gotten about 20% of the questions right simply because there are 5 options and 1 of them has to be right.

 

[frootloop]

...I would've gotten about 20% of the questions right simply because there are 5 options and 1 of them has to be right.

That is how multiple choice questions with 5 options work. Can confirm

If familiarizing yourself with the types of question or how to unravel the most common puzzle types for S3 works for you, great. But from memory, the evidence in favour of prep for S3 points to a relatively small potential gain at a population level (although undoubtedly some individuals find it more useful than others). Notably, said small S3 gain was counter-weighted by the *decrease* in S2 performance found in those doing paid prep courses - there were no significant differences in total UMAT score.

The research I'm thinking of was carried out a good 5 years ago now, but it was methodologically very sound and I doubt very much that either UMAT or the prep material has changed enough to invalidate it.

 

[alexwilko]

Is there no worked solutions available for ACER practise test 4??
Got 93/134

 

[giuliana]

Legend. I'm very curious.

I can't help agree with frootloop at the moment.
My scores are actually getting somewhat progressibely worse every exam I do. It's probably due to pressure. I'm now just hoping to improve on a few particular question types I weak with, and then focus on just really pumping it out on the day. I think that's what will make the difference.

Good to know I'm not the only one with decreasing scores in practice exams!
I don't think preparation has helped me with much other than timing and being familiar with questions I can't do and shouldn't bother wasting time on. Hopefully that will help me in getting a better score than last time I did the UMAT

 

[frootloop]

Good to know I'm not the only one with decreasing scores in practice Hopefully that will help me in getting a better score than last time I did the UMAT

I'd put more money on a combination of 'less test anxiety because you know what to expect' and regression toward the mean.

Regardless, I hope y'all do as well as you're hoping to in UMAT this year. And if you don't, don't panic. I did get into medicine on the first try, but am only currently enjoying it so much thanks to the perspective gained during two years out. It's not a race, and there's an upside to every year out - voluntary or not.

 

[Smelly Boy]

First time i did umat I got 48%ile and didn’t prep for it.

I got s1: like 48?
S2: 41?
S3: 59

Then next year I prepped a lot and was averaging like 90/134 for medentry and got 72%ile

S1: 55
S2: 51
S3: 58

On this second attempt I was going well at the start and then I clearly remember halfway through doing s3 (the section I do first) I was finding it pretty difficult. I was getting really good scores on medentry and I really wanted to get a great score in the real thing so I (unintentionally) spent like 5-6 minutes on the really hard s3 questions by losing track of time. I had like 10 s3 question left at the 60 min mark (this is when I move on to the other sections) and instead of moving on I kept doing s3 and went over time by 15-20 mins loll. I had to guess like 15-20 questions in the end and the questions I could attempt, I did really rushed.

I’m 1 million percent sure that if I paced myself better I would have done really good (and that’s what I’m using prep for this year - just for getting my timing right).

So take it from an old timer and know that if a question is really difficult and u haven’t made any progress in about 50 seconds then cross off what you know is wrong and make an educated guess.

Tbh guessing from 2 or 3 options isn’t the end of the world. During prep, for s3 every time I make an educated guess I mark it so I can see how it affects my score and I found that i probably do that for about 9 questions out of 42 (these 9 I feel I can’t possibly get right unless I spend ages doing it). Out of the 9 I get about 4 right and I also save like 10 mins at the expense of 5 marks I wasn’t going to get anyway. For s3 you can always come back to the questions you made educated guesses on and have a go if u have time

 

[Smelly Boy]

^ second attempt and all that time spent on s3 and I still was a mark lower than umat 2016 haha

 

[frootloop]

<Regression towards the mean>

I'm willing to bet that UMAT is realistically only geared to work out who the top/bottom 10-15% of candidates are. Sort of 20th%ile to sort of 80th%ile are probably only a couple of correct questions apart, because most of the medical schools that use UMAT don't much care about anyone under ~90th%ile anyway, so the test probably isn't specifically geared to differentiate strongly at lower levels.

 

[entirety]

This time next week we'll be done. Umat has taken over my life for the past couple of weeks I JUST WANT IT TO BE DONE FFS

 

[toulouse]

This time next week we'll be done. Umat has taken over my life for the past couple of weeks I JUST WANT IT TO BE DONE FFS

Same I'm so over all this preparation. Just thinking of how free I'm gonna be after Wednesday. Lmao perks of a gap year student. Thats the only thing getting me sane and through this last week.

 

[entirety]

Same I'm so over all this preparation. Just thinking of how free I'm gonna be after Wednesday. Lmao perks of a gap year student. Thats the only thing getting me sane and through this last week.

I'm in year 12 and this whole week and next week has made me put my year 12 on hold. Can't wait for after Wednesday when I can actually get my shit together again. Like my ATAR (an entire year's worth of effort) is weighted equally in most med unis as this 3 hour exam.

Also my class is going on an excursion to the movies next Wednesday while I'll be in that cold centre doing the UMAT so yeah amazing : )

 

[AC711]

Hi everyone! Sorry if this is a bit of a silly question, but does anyone know if we are allowed to write answers onto an eraser during reading time? Clearly, there's no "writing, marking or folding of your test paper or answer sheet" - or the Admission Ticket, haha - during this period, but nothing that explicitly references any of your own stationery? If allowed, this could allow you to get a bit of a head start with some answers, perhaps?

 

[Smelly Boy]

Hi everyone! Sorry if this is a bit of a silly question, but does anyone know if we are allowed to write answers onto an eraser during reading time? Clearly, there's no "writing, marking or folding of your test paper or answer sheet" - or the Admission Ticket, haha - during this period, but nothing that explicitly references any of your own stationery? If allowed, this could allow you to get a bit of a head start with some answers, perhaps?

If u touch ur pencil during reading time u automatically disappear from the venue

 

[AC711]

If u touch ur pencil during reading time u automatically disappear from the venue

Haha, that clears things up then! Thanks.

 

[DrDrLMG!]

That is how multiple choice questions with 5 options work. Can confirm

If familiarizing yourself with the types of question or how to unravel the most common puzzle types for S3 works for you, great. But from memory, the evidence in favour of prep for S3 points to a relatively small potential gain at a population level (although undoubtedly some individuals find it more useful than others). Notably, said small S3 gain was counter-weighted by the *decrease* in S2 performance found in those doing paid prep courses - there were no significant differences in total UMAT score.

The research I'm thinking of was carried out a good 5 years ago now, but it was methodologically very sound and I doubt very much that either UMAT or the prep material has changed enough to invalidate it.

I disagree in general about there not being much evidence for S3 improvement. S3 largely mirrors a significant component of intellectual assessment in psychology, and there is a substantial body of research (and we all know, if you want research done right, you get a psych to do it ) to support practice effects in this to the point that IQ assessments re-administered within 12 months are generally frowned upon. Dedicating time to learning strategies and patterns is definitely beneficial.

The major methodological flaw with the small amount of (pretty poor) UMAT research I’ve seen has been a lack of pre and post prep intrasubject testing. Typically, the research has been looking at the Prep Population vs the Non Prep Population, and to some extent that’s irrelevant. I admit it would be hard to do (though definitely possible), but the best research would be to administer parallel forms of the UMAT to the same participant, first with no prep, and then following a period of prep, and comparing their results. You could also potentially determine the profiles of people (age, sex, years of education, other) that benefit, that don’t benefit, or that don’t need to prep, and compare the types of prep to see what is most useful/not useful at all.***

You can probably now start to see why ACER (an educational research body!) aren’t doing this research themselves — or, at least, aren’t making it public!

As I mentioned here earlier, I did an informal version of this on myself. I completed (the relatively ‘easy’) ACER 3 with zero UMAT knowledge in March 2016, and got 13/40-odd on S3, and < 50% of questions right overall. I had no idea how to manage timing or to approach most of the questions. Last year I got 98th%ile (inc. 64/100 on S3) on the more difficult ‘real’ UMAT. If I’d done the ‘real’ UMAT with no prep, I may as well have handed $250(?) to ACER and walked back out of the room!

*** if anyone is aware of this research please point it out to me, because I’m very interested in this topic.