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UCAT: Verbal Reasoning

Sorry if this has been asked a million times already…. I have found that VR is my weakest subsection (shock horror) and I intend on applying to UWS. I am ramping up my prep now (content removed).
When it comes to early days of prep for VR, should I focus on just being able to score 100% regardless of time taken? Or should I work on trying to stick within 2min per text (4 questions) and try different approaches that yield the best score? I have no problem scoring 100% when I take my time but end up spending 4min on a set if 4 questions….

Of course it’s very individual, but wondering in general what seems to work best.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Percy Abner said:
Sorry if this has been asked a million times already…. I have found that VR is my weakest subsection (shock horror) and I intend on applying to UWS. I am ramping up my prep now (content removed).
When it comes to early days of prep for VR, should I focus on just being able to score 100% regardless of time taken? Or should I work on trying to stick within 2min per text (4 questions) and try different approaches that yield the best score? I have no problem scoring 100% when I take my time but end up spending 4min on a set if 4 questions….

Of course it’s very individual, but wondering in general what seems to work best.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've read here that WSU weighs VR quite a bit, so it'd be in your best interest to work on that I reckon.

I'd say if you haven't already developed a strategy for how you want to approach the questions, you may want to spend some time doing that w/ the untimed sets or just get familiar with the Q types. You could also hold a stopwatch on your phone to track how you're progressing in the question sets. I reckon throwing timed would give you unnecessary stress at the start of VR prep, but I think it could also be beneficial intermingling it with untimed here and there.

I can't guarantee that'll work but just my 2 cents on it. I think a lot of it is experimental as you've said.
 
Set a soft time limit per question. If you're still stuck ; go with your gut answer and move on. Statistically you'll at least score some points by educated guess/chance than if you left lots of questions unfinished. There is no penalty for wrong answers.

You can often eliminate one or two of the answers without too much thinking which also increases the odds of 'guessing' a correct answer.

When attempting paper based MCQs (on computer based ones ; use scrap paper) write down the question numbers you're not sure about. So if you have spare time you can go back to them.
 
[MedStudentsOnline.com.au] UCAT: Verbal Reasoning
Looking at the size of the text and the questions, what strategies have you guys found to work for these type of questions. I mean all of the answer options seem to have a different topic, and the answers contain info that is spread out through the whole text. How would i go about doing this q in 30 seconds? Appreciate the any help from the VR gods.
 
Hi, I have come across some VR passages of 5-6 solid paragraphs that are severely longer than those published in the Official QBank, which are generally a few v short paragraphs that don't span more than half the screen. Expectedly, I find it difficult to quickly extract main ideas from the v long passages (partly due to freaking out at all the information!). What sort of text size is common in the real UCAT? And has anyone ever come across a super long passage? Appreciate the insights!
 
cs123 said:
Hi, I have come across some VR passages of 5-6 solid paragraphs that are severely longer than those published in the Official QBank, which are generally a few v short paragraphs that don't span more than half the screen. Expectedly, I find it difficult to quickly extract main ideas from the v long passages (partly due to freaking out at all the information!). What sort of text size is common in the real UCAT? And has anyone ever come across a super long passage? Appreciate the insights!
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Hi, I sat UCAT last year and found that almost all of my passages were significantly longer than what I used to practice.
I would recommend over preparing to be able to handle these as I can say that it does come up.
 
Lazy_Penguin said:
Hi, I sat UCAT last year and found that almost all of my passages were significantly longer than what I used to practice.
I would recommend over preparing to be able to handle these as I can say that it does come up.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the advice!
Will definitely practice with longer passages as well as short ones :)
Did you find that your strategy changed somewhat when there was more text to digest?
 
cs123 said:
Thank you for the advice!
Will definitely practice with longer passages as well as short ones :)
Did you find that your strategy changed somewhat when there was more text to digest?
Click to expand...
To be honest, when I saw it I freaked out on the day and definitely didn't do too well in VR.

Now that I have done a lot of practice (VR is still my worst section) I would say that my strategy stays the same even if it is longer.

For T/F CT questions I will read questions stem and scan for keywords for answer.

For 4 response questions simple ones I will key word scan and for authors intent and more complicated ones I will normally at the start of the unit try and classify the different paragraphs under different topics and get a general idea what is going on and then try and read quickly the area where the question is referring to for the answer.

I wouldn't say my strategy changes it just takes more time.
 
attention VR gods!!!! I have my ucat in about 3 wks and am getting 500s for VR...
I am rly struggling with long passages (3-5 paragraphs). I've heard people say just make a prediction, flag and move on but I'm seeing a lot of these chunky paragraphs and it feels like I'm just guessing the whole thing
 
Hi guys, could someone please give me a safe benchmark of the VR score i should aim for to get into WSU med? I am a GWS applicant. Also for those who scored above 700 in VR could you please give me tips on what i can do to improve, my ucat is in a few days and the highest ive gotten in my subtest mocks was 680!
 
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