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UCAT: Verbal Reasoning

sophkat

Member
If your biggest hurdle to speed is stress, then it's not necessarily going to be addressed by the usual means. I had a similar experience during UMAT where I was running out of the time I allocated myself for each section (timing for UMAT was a bit different to UCAT) and needed to speed up.

Stress under timed conditions can be caused by a couple of factors and it can be useful to figure out which is the key one for you.

It could be that you're getting distracted by the clock counting down and panicking about that (rather than the material itself).
It could be that you're wasting time on the questions due to stressing about your answers/second guessing yourself.
It could be something else entirely.

I identified my UMAT timing issue as being a consequence of constantly second guessing my S2 (the closest equivalent to UCAT's VR) answers. I had to literally train myself to pick an answer and stick with it. I had to accept that it wasn't going to feel great (initially at least) to not just 'have a quick double check'. I did whole practice sessions where I just allowed myself to get used to feeling uncertain and to accept that I didn't have time for over-analysing and that the over-analysing wasn't helping with either time or accuracy anyway.

This honestly helped my speed immeasurably across the entire UMAT but also improved my accuracy on the UMAT's VR equivalent to a point where I scored 73 (which was about 99th%ile, IIRC).

I highly recommend it as a method if you're having trouble with second-guessing/constantly doubting your answers/changing your answers.

Pick the one that seems right the first time, then move on. <-- and practice doing this! (In this case, it's not the material you need to practice, it's the ability to sit with the anxiety not double-checking your work provokes that you need to practice).

If you're clock watching, then more generalised stress-management strategies might be useful for you. Practicing some very brief mindfulness or grounding exercises a couple of times every day (I'm just talking something super fast: ~5 seconds-ish*) and getting really used to doing that, and then moving to incorporate your strategy into your practice exam scenario where, immediately prior to hitting start (or however each of the subsections is initiated), you use it to very quickly bring your fight or flight response back into line.

If neither of the above factors is something you've identified as the cause of your 'stress', then it's probably a useful exercise to have a bit of a reflect and see if you can figure out what it is. Once you do that, if you have more questions, feel free to let me know!

* I can suggest some if you're not sure of any
Thank you for the detailed response! I definitely think my fallback is due to both the stress of flicking my eyes to the countdown and second guessing myself, so this is very helpful. I would love to know some of the mindfulness exercises - whatever can help me get into and stay in the exam mind frame.
 
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Sokka

Guest
Any advice with how to improve in VR? Been stagnant at the 30 range with minimal variation...
 

N182

Regular Member
How are you meant to tackle these types of questions(in 30s or less), where all the answer options seem somewhat correct. and you have to infer the correct answer?
 

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sophkat

Member
How are you meant to tackle these types of questions(in 30s or less), where all the answer options seem somewhat correct. and you have to infer the correct answer?
I think you're looking less for the absolute correct answer and more for the most correct answer. What I find helpful to do is to make mini summaries of each paragraph and try and grasp the general gist of the author's purpose in writing it. From there, you'll want to look for answers which you can rule out; look for options which may stray from the main point of the paragraph, bring up irrelevant information, or present opinions which are not backed by the text. It's also very important that the information in the answer you choose can be shown obviously in and extrapolated from the passage. Hope this helps!
 

N182

Regular Member
I think you're looking less for the absolute correct answer and more for the most correct answer. What I find helpful to do is to make mini summaries of each paragraph and try and grasp the general gist of the author's purpose in writing it. From there, you'll want to look for answers which you can rule out; look for options which may stray from the main point of the paragraph, bring up irrelevant information, or present opinions which are not backed by the text. It's also very important that the information in the answer you choose can be shown obviously in and extrapolated from the passage. Hope this helps!
It doesn't seem possible to me to do that in 2 mins or less (the time you have for each passage) any tips? I either just skim the passage, or look for keywords.
 

Some guy

Member
How are you meant to tackle these types of questions(in 30s or less), where all the answer options seem somewhat correct. and you have to infer the correct answer?
Agree you dont want to spend too long on any question, so the key is to narrow it down to 1 or 2 options. To do that, just look at each clause of the answers and you will be able to rule plenty out. For example in Q1.:

a) The article specifically mentions UNESCO recognition of the bird population, and it was also clearly plentiful in the past. So"ideal" seems reasonable (though be a bit wary of this word as its an absolute). Its obviously not hospitable for people - the passage mentions bad healthcare, infertile soils and a transient population that is dependent on the military base for their basic needs. Overall this seems like a good answer.

b) Nothing in the passage says there's oil on St Kilda, so this is wrong

c) Technically, it was the islanders (not the birds) who made the soil infertile, and that was 80 years ago so you'd be guessing in saying it was infertile now (note the answer uses "have" not "had"). So this answer is possible but there's more in the passage to support (a).

(d) It might be true that virtually no one goes there (clause one) but we don't know if "hardly anyone knows what it is like" (clause two) so this answer is wrong.

Even if you end up stuck between (a) and (c), in the 30 seconds or so that you want to allot to this question you should be able to at least rule out b and d,. That gives you pretty good odds in the test itself.
 

N182

Regular Member
Agree you dont want to spend too long on any question, so the key is to narrow it down to 1 or 2 options. To do that, just look at each clause of the answers and you will be able to rule plenty out. For example in Q1.:

a) The article specifically mentions UNESCO recognition of the bird population, and it was also clearly plentiful in the past. So"ideal" seems reasonable (though be a bit wary of this word as its an absolute). Its obviously not hospitable for people - the passage mentions bad healthcare, infertile soils and a transient population that is dependent on the military base for their basic needs. Overall this seems like a good answer.

b) Nothing in the passage says there's oil on St Kilda, so this is wrong

c) Technically, it was the islanders (not the birds) who made the soil infertile, and that was 80 years ago so you'd be guessing in saying it was infertile now (note the answer uses "have" not "had"). So this answer is possible but there's more in the passage to support (a).

(d) It might be true that virtually no one goes there (clause one) but we don't know if "hardly anyone knows what it is like" (clause two) so this answer is wrong.

Even if you end up stuck between (a) and (c), in the 30 seconds or so that you want to allot to this question you should be able to at least rule out b and d,. That gives you pretty good odds in the test itself.
Makes sense, do you suggest reading the text first, then narrow down to A and C (without looking back at text since B and D are obv incorrect) then looking back at text for confirmation that it's A, or scanning for each option seperately?
 

Some guy

Member
Suggest reading the suggested answers first then looking at the text to see if there's anything that instantly matches or is false.. You should be able to rule out the obviously wrong choices fairly fast, especially in the first couple of questions (see below) . If you have (say) two options left and time is short, pick either one and "flag" the question so you can come back at the end.

From memory the questions come in sets of five per passage? They also get harder as you go down the set, so the first 2-3 in each set will be easy enough to knock over in less than 30 secs each. That gives you a couple of minutes to do the last couple, which will be enough to re-read the passage, narrow it down to a couple of choices or come back at the end of the section for further review.

One statement of the obvious re reviewing - if you don't know, make sure you pick something and move on to stay on time for later questions. With about 1 minute to go at the end, if you haven't finished the section just go to every remaining question and fill in any answer - you have a small chance of being lucky and getting it right, compared with zero chance if you just run out of time and leave it blank.
 

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whys

Regular Member
Hey everyone, I'm a bit worried about VR as I'm dead set on a 37-38/44. No matter how I vary my approach to doing these questions, I can never break into the 40s range, and I've also heard that the exam was more difficult than the VR practice mini-mocks/mocks available online. From further evaluation, I've found that most of these are silly errors (i.e. misreading correct/true as incorrect/false in the question stem). Does anyone have any tips for minimising silly errors in this subtest? Not sure what to do about this because my results have plateaued for a while now and I can't seem to improve any further. :(
 

ucatboy

final year eek
Valued Member
Hey everyone, I'm a bit worried about VR as I'm dead set on a 37-38/44. No matter how I vary my approach to doing these questions, I can never break into the 40s range, and I've also heard that the exam was more difficult than the VR practice mini-mocks/mocks available online. From further evaluation, I've found that most of these are silly errors (i.e. misreading correct/true as incorrect/false in the question stem). Does anyone have any tips for minimising silly errors in this subtest? Not sure what to do about this because my results have plateaued for a while now and I can't seem to improve any further. :(
If you can consistently get 37-38/44 for every VR mock you do, that's very impressive and should net you somewhere between 750-850 on the day if everything goes well. As for making silly errors, everyone makes them, but maybe for the next few mock/practice sets you do you could try reading each question very deliberately, concentrating on every single word, watching out for qualifiers, details etc. If you're in a private area you could even try reading the question stem out loud. This should get you into the habit of not missing out on any details in the question, even if it takes some extra time to do so. Remember that the time between now and the actual exam time is a perfect opportunity for you to explore all kinds of strategies to figure out which one works best for you and you'll be taking into the exam room.
As for "plateauing", that's perfectly normal, you can't expect everyone to eventually reach 44/44 after enough practice otherwise it wouldn't be an aptitude test :p:p
 

N182

Regular Member
Isn't this false, since if water cooling payback period is 7 years, and the return on investment for photovoltaic is 30 years, then the payback period for water cooling is actually more than 4 times faster?
 

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Stefan357

Member
I got 830 in VR and I have to honestly tell you all to ditch any sort of genuine strategy with answering the questions until you hit your mocks (which should be june at the earliest) and focus on learning how to speed read and become accustomed to the historical/scientific jargon that is used within the passages. From what I found VR just felt like it was siphoned straight out of wikipedia. Read a lot of random wikipedia, read novels, read the paper. It is all about your explicit ability to genuinely read. Also I would say that the true/false/can't tell are just as difficult as the text heavy comprehension when it comes to the 'can't tell'.
Hi, so did you skim read the text before looking at questions? what paper did you read out of curiosity?
Thanks.
 
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Sokka

Guest
Hey everyone, I'm a bit worried about VR as I'm dead set on a 37-38/44. No matter how I vary my approach to doing these questions, I can never break into the 40s range, and I've also heard that the exam was more difficult than the VR practice mini-mocks/mocks available online. From further evaluation, I've found that most of these are silly errors (i.e. misreading correct/true as incorrect/false in the question stem). Does anyone have any tips for minimising silly errors in this subtest? Not sure what to do about this because my results have plateaued for a while now and I can't seem to improve any further. :(
37-38 is a great range. Do you get around to finish the whole subtest? What's your strategy?
 

whys

Regular Member
37-38 is a great range. Do you get around to finish the whole subtest? What's your strategy?
Thanks! :D
My strategy is really simple, nothing fancy: read the question --> find the answer in the passage, flag + skip long historical passages that aren't T/F/C and require more time-consuming comprehension. It really depends - for some people reading the passage first helps, but for me I find that I end up forgetting half the info once I get to the question anyway, so I prefer reading the question first. I get around to finishing the whole subtest, and sometimes with a few minutes to spare, which I use to go over any iffy answers that I wasn't too sure about. It's not a fancy strategy but the point is it works. I recommend experimenting a bit to work out a good strat since you have quite some time before the exam. Quite recently I was able to improve my score by paying more attention to the qualifying words in the question (i.e. true, false, cannot be inferred, isn't supported by the passage) and sacrificing a few seconds more turned out to be more beneficial for me. I guess just focusing on your own weaknesses (mine was misreading/silly mistakes) helps a lot because you can address them by modifying your own approach.
 
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Sokka

Guest
These were my (content removed) scores (Note: DM is marked correctly by (content removed) - 2 marks for the 5-marker questions, 1 marks for the rest. Although there are 29 questions, there are 38 marks):

VR ( /44)DM ( /38)QR ( /36)AR ( /55)SJ ( /69)
13630243953.5
23431274056
33332273849
43633224352.5
5-----
62632224647
73727243553
84126264053
93526273153
103025274751
114029263654
123631304358
134130224049.5
143835203951.5
153934295153.5
Average36 / 4430 / 3825 / 3641 / 5552 / 69

These were my (content removed) scores (I've counted partially correct as 0.5 marks for simplicity. Note, (content removed) is a bit more lenient about what it defines as a 'partial mark' i.e. answer options next to the correct one are marked correct):

VR ( /44)DM ( /29)QR ( /36)AR ( /55)SJ ( /69)
13916.5284354.5
24025292856.5
32917.5324160
43726.5284654.5
53923.5294855
63526.5274549
74122364951
83925.5254456.5
Average37 / 4423 / 2929 / 3643 / 5555 / 69

My actual UCAT score:

SubtestScore
VR890
DM840
QR900
AR900
Total Score3530
Situational Judgement664



No problem. I do want to make it abundantly clear however that I didn't do the official mock tests in a strict exam sense. What I mean by that is I did Mock 1 at the VERY beginning of my preparation, and then I redid it a week ago. Although it's been 7 months in between and I had forgotten a lot, some questions I ended up remembering so that boosted my results. Similarly, with Mock 2 and Mock 3, I had seen some of the questions and their solutions beforehand (through YouTube guides, forum discussions etc.) before I attempted them, meaning I remembered some of the answers (again, boosting my results artificially, particularly in VR and SJ). With that caveat, these were my official mock scores:

I've accidentally rubbed out the exact marks for Official Mock 1 from my whiteboard. Sorry. However, I remember that when I used the link below to convert marks to a score, I got a total of 3020 (excluding SJ).

VR ( /44)DM (/38)QR (/36)AR ( /55)SJ ( /69)
1-----
24229364758.5
33836335354
Average40 / 4433 / 3835 / 3650 / 5556 / 69

(content removed)



(content removed) Percentiles (these are the percentile they've given me):
1: 98
2: 98
3: 96
4: 99
5: - (There was a glitch with this one and my scores got wiped out)
6: 97
7: 95
8: 99
9: 98
10: 95
11: 98
12: 100
13: 92
14: 94
15: 100



These percentiles are from July 7th (or thereabouts).
Hey Funtimes, so I’ve noticed a trend where people tend to score lower on the actual VR compared to their practice. Do you have any tips to counteract this considering you did so well both in practice and on the actual test?
 

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Fili

Dentist 🦷
Moderator
Hey Funtimes, so I’ve noticed a trend where people tend to score lower on the actual VR compared to their practice. Do you have any tips to counteract this considering you did so well both in practice and on the actual test?

I'm not FunTimes but imho the main reason for this is because most people are nervous at the very beginning of the test and tend to not perform as well as they usually do until they get going through the test and calm down. Idk how someone can actually go "how can I stop being nervous about a big test" ... The more you try to not stress about it, the more you probably will.
 

dande

Regular Member
r
I'm not FunTimes but imho the main reason for this is because most people are nervous at the very beginning of the test and tend to not perform as well as they usually do until they get going through the test and calm down. Idk how someone can actually go "how can I stop being nervous about a big test" ... The more you try to not stress about it, the more you probably will.
Do you think this is the case or because passages were a lot longer last year?
 

Fili

Dentist 🦷
Moderator
r

Do you think this is the case or because passages were a lot longer last year?
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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