UCAT: Verbal Reasoning

[N182]

hey guys! sorry if this has already been answered before... but if you're pressed for time and you're guessing a bunch of the true/false/can't tell questions. which would you pick? im torn between true and can't tell

quickly read the question, and if it is a strong statement like 'all A are B,' then put false. If it is a general statement put can't tell, and if it seems true put true.

 

[AJ]

hey guys! sorry if this has already been answered before... but if you're pressed for time and you're guessing a bunch of the true/false/can't tell questions. which would you pick? im torn between true and can't tell

I personally suggest that you do not guess True false can't tell questions (unless you obviously don't understand the question) I think it is best to attack these questions first. Just a train of thought...

 

[Achiever]

Hey guys, my test is in less than a week and I'm only really struggling with the UCAT official VR. Despite scoring 770/800 on my practice platform consistently, I have found that my same technique isn't working with the Official Mocks at all. Averaging around 50%. I'm becoming increasingly concerned about changing my strategy, given the VR on the day is most similar to the mocks. I've also scoured the internet and forums for any tips whatsoever in my practice. Currently, I employ a speed strategy - skipping passages diligently, answer pre-selection, and skimming/scanning the passage. Any advice would be incredibly useful and I will try and implement it as soon as possible into practice.

Cheers.

NB: I think my comprehension is suffering at the expense of this strategy! Perhaps, I should change to a more passage focused strategy?

 

[N182]

Hey guys, my test is in less than a week and I'm only really struggling with the UCAT official VR. Despite scoring 770/800 on my practice platform consistently, I have found that my same technique isn't working with the Official Mocks at all. Averaging around 50%. I'm becoming increasingly concerned about changing my strategy, given the VR on the day is most similar to the mocks. I've also scoured the internet and forums for any tips whatsoever in my practice. Currently, I employ a speed strategy - skipping passages diligently, answer pre-selection, and skimming/scanning the passage. Any advice would be incredibly useful and I will try and implement it as soon as possible into practice.

Cheers.

NB: I think my comprehension is suffering at the expense of this strategy! Perhaps, I should change to a more passage focused strategy?

If keyword/skim reading doesn't work, try speed reading. There is roughly 250-300 words which you have to read in approx 1 min, test your speed here Free Speed Reading Test by AceReader, if you can get to roughly 200-250wpm (and still remember a good chunk fo what you read) then switch to passage focus. If not then stay with keyword and practice that more.

 

[Achiever]

If keyword/skim reading doesn't work, try speed reading. There is roughly 250-300 words which you have to read in approx 1 min, test your speed here Free Speed Reading Test by AceReader, if you can get to roughly 200-250wpm (and still remember a good chunk fo what you read) then switch to passage focus. If not then stay with keyword and practice that more.

Good suggestion. The only issue I have with this is sometimes I have to resort to going back to read extracts of the passage again when answering the question. How do you tackle this?

 

[N182]

Good suggestion. The only issue I have with this is sometimes I have to resort to going back to read extracts of the passage again when answering the question. How do you tackle this?

I haven't done my ucat yet so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I feel for reading comprehension once you read it through once, you can immediately eliminate the 'obvious,' incorrect answer(s) and so most of the time im left contemplating between 2 answer options. Let's say it takes you around 20s to go back and confirm which answer is correct, in total it would take you roughly 2-2.5 mins per stem of reading comprehension vs skimming for 16 answer options per stem (even if each takes 10s each that would take more time overall). So I find it's ok to go back to confirm a certain answer is correct.

 

[Achiever]

I haven't done my ucat yet so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I feel for reading comprehension once you read it through once, you can immediately eliminate the 'obvious,' incorrect answer(s) and so most of the time im left contemplating between 2 answer options. Let's say it takes you around 20s to go back and confirm which answer is correct, in total it would take you roughly 2-2.5 mins per stem of reading comprehension vs skimming for 16 answer options per stem (even if each takes 10s each that would take more time overall). So I find it's ok to go back to confirm a certain answer is correct.

Yes, I think I'll do this as a hybrid. Such where I continue scanning for T/F/CT as they require little comprehension, but I'll gauge an understanding of the passage for reading comprehension questions. Hopefully this should secure me that 700+ VR with enough practice!

 

[Nardwuar]

Hey guys, my test is in less than a week and I'm only really struggling with the UCAT official VR. Despite scoring 770/800 on my practice platform consistently, I have found that my same technique isn't working with the Official Mocks at all. Averaging around 50%. I'm becoming increasingly concerned about changing my strategy, given the VR on the day is most similar to the mocks. I've also scoured the internet and forums for any tips whatsoever in my practice. Currently, I employ a speed strategy - skipping passages diligently, answer pre-selection, and skimming/scanning the passage. Any advice would be incredibly useful and I will try and implement it as soon as possible into practice.

Cheers.

NB: I think my comprehension is suffering at the expense of this strategy! Perhaps, I should change to a more passage focused strategy?

There are a variety of methods that can be used for VR and I think you should find which one works for you and stick to it. In 2019 I had the plan of scanning but panicked when I saw the questions in the actual exam and changed my strategy to reading the whole text first. Since I didn't practice for this my marks suffered. This year I told myself that I would stick to the strategy that I practiced with. Contrary to what some people said, I think that a fair amount of questions can be answered in the actual exam by scanning (this involves targeting key words in the question and trying to find them in the text). But of course some texts are more inference based and require you to understand the text as a whole. For these questions I learnt to answer them by absorbing information as I scanned. So even if I scanned for a keyword I would still be comprehending the passage and able to answer the inference type questions. Additionally, you need to spend 40sec max on question. If you still don't know the answer for sure after 40sec, pick an answer and move on. Another thing that I found helpful was to practice with longer texts. One prep company in particular had much longer texts which forced me to improve my comprehension ability. Another way to achieve this is to quickly read long articles online and try to recall as much as possible. In regards to having to go back to reread the text, that can mainly be fixed by improving your comprehension. You want to reduce the amount you reread as it wastes time so I would try and form a mental mind map of the information as you are reading and answering the questions so you are better equipped to answer the later questions in the set.

 

[missyallie]

would stick to the strategy that I practiced with. Contrary to what some people said, I think that a fair amount of questions can be answered in the actual exam by scanning

hello! any tips on how to differentiate an inference passage "requiring deeper understanding" versus a "suitable for scanning" passage? It's rare that the entire passage is inference, rather just 1 or 2 questions within that passage requires inference, IMO

Does anyone think it's a bad/good idea to do all True/False/Can't tell questions FIRST, BEFORE doing the reading comprehension type questions? I have tried it a few times, and I felt more confident (& hence saved some time) when I was finishing off the remaining more-difficult comprehension passages after.. with the clock ticking near to zero.

 

[N182]

Does anyone think it's a bad/good idea to do all True/False/Can't tell questions FIRST, BEFORE doing the reading comprehension type questions? I have tried it a few times, and I felt more confident (& hence saved some time) when I was finishing off the remaining more-difficult comprehension passages after.. with the clock ticking near to zero.

If it works for you do it, but personally I would advise going in order (of course skip questions that you can't figure out+complex passages) as I have a rough idea of how many questions are left and what time I have left. But if you feel confident doing T/F/CT first then do it

 

[Nardwuar]

hello! any tips on how to differentiate an inference passage "requiring deeper understanding" versus a "suitable for scanning" passage? It's rare that the entire passage is inference, rather just 1 or 2 questions within that passage requires inference, IMO

So its all about the question stem. If the stem has some keywords in it (doesn't have to be a date or name only), you can scan for that word. Questions that require deeper understanding are things like "what is the authors opinion?" where you cant scan for a keyword. Those require a greater understanding of the passage.

 

[threefivetwo]

Posting this up for reference for future UCAT takers:
---

• Verbal Reasoning tests your ability to read and comprehend a range of literature, locate appropriate information accurately and rapidly, and compare and evaluate it.
  • This is relevant in a clinical context when you read research, patient notes etc. and evaluate information quickly.
  • Understanding what the subtest wants from you helps you guide your preparation better.
  • Note the emphasis on rapidly.
• Key strategies
  • Check the question stem first to see if you have to do the work. It's usually the case that you'll have to skim the passage quickly before answering. But sometimes they'll ask you something that's fairly straightforward, instead of a "Which one of the four options is true?" type question, i.e. "threefivetwo was born in July 1928 in Sydney, Australia."
    
    The keyword here is 1928, as the place of birth will be located near this term in the passage. So all you need to do is skim the passage for "1928" here and verify that the stem is correct.
  • Speed reading and chunking. An important part of VR is being able to grasp what the text talks about, in addition to a sense of the tone of the passage quickly so that you don't lose time. So you need to read the text faster, but this cannot come at the expense of losing a decent understanding of the text.
    A fairly common problem with speed reading is that you read it out verbally in your head, which limits your speed. If you do this, suppress the urge to do so.
    Speed reading is basically reading the text faster, meaning that your eye will track across each line of the passage faster. A good way to keep your eye focused is to use your cursor to track across the sentence as you read it. The better way is to chunk sentences/the passage into groups. This link will give you a pretty good explanation of chunking. How to Read Groups of Words: Chunking | Speed Reading Lounge
  • Changing gears. In a passage, there's often information that wouldn't be particularly useful to the question (i.e. a long winded explanation of some concept). When you encounter this, change gears and speed up. When there is important information (i.e. birth dates, places, numbers, definitions), change gears and slow down. Know when to change your reading speed.
  • Locating information based on the type of passage. The location of information can often be inferred from the type of passage. For example, if the passage is a biography and the question asks for the birth date, that's going to be in the first paragraph. If it's a news article and the stem references a quotation, that'll most likely be in the middle or the end of the passage, as the beginning is usually devoted to explaining the topic of the article.
  • Timing. Look at your UCAT prep provider's LMS for tips on timing. Generally I like finishing with about 6-8 minutes left so I have time to go back for harder questions and anything else I flagged.
  • Passes. The same strategy for completing the subtest in passes that I talked about in QR applies here.
• Tips
  • Practice speed reading and chunking beyond your UCAT practice. Although the most useful type of practice is timed practice and mocks, practicing these techniques beyond the UCAT will help immensely in applying them. You can practice on news articles, the introduction of Wikipedia articles, sections of course notes, Moodle discussion posts, emails, etc. Once you finish reading it, ask yourself what the passage was about overall, what the key points in it were and where you'd find them, and the tone of the passage. I feel that it'd help!
  • Reflect on your mocks and target your practice. You know that VR is your weakest subtest, but do you know why it's your weakest subtest? I encourage you to reflect on your mocks and categorise each wrong question by mistake type (i.e. Missed a qualifier word, ran out of time, silly mistake). And once you do so, write down specific actions that you'll take before your next mock to work on these mistakes (i.e. Timed practice of 40 questions to improve timing, drills on x UCAT prep company to improve ___).

 

[threefivetwo]

It seems some people I've talked too are finding the VR passages longer than the ones found in mocks. I'm thinking this is probably due to most people being used to "standard" desktop resolutions when doing these practices while UCAT uses a lower resolution with higher text scaling. That's just my 2 c though.

I agree with this! In addition to the tips I popped above, when you practice VR resize your browser window to an aspect ratio of 5:4 (a square but a little bit longer) and zoom in a bit (around 125% is good).

 

[Achiever]

I agree with this! In addition to the tips I popped above, when you practice VR resize your browser window to an aspect ratio of 5:4 (a square but a little bit longer) and zoom in a bit (around 125% is good).

Do you know how to do this for MacBook? What tools do you use to achieve the 5:4 ratio?

 

[threefivetwo]

Do you know how to do this for MacBook? What tools do you use to achieve the 5:4 ratio?

I just resize the window manually and zoom Just eyeball it.

 

[Achiever]

Hey guys, how would you respond to this question?
Text: "Tax needs complete reform"
Question: "Indirect tax needs complete reform.

Personally I would answer "Can't tell" because indirect tax specifically isn't mentioned. However, if the text said "All tax needs complete reform" than I would answer "True".

Opinions would be greaty appreciated

 

[Nardwuar]

Hey guys, how would you respond to this question?
Text: "Tax needs complete reform"
Question: "Indirect tax needs complete reform.

Personally I would answer "Can't tell" because indirect tax specifically isn't mentioned. However, if the text said "All tax needs complete reform" than I would answer "True".

Opinions would be greaty appreciated

I would answer true as the statement you provided implies both indirect tax and all other types of tax would need complete reform

 

[threefivetwo]

Hey guys, how would you respond to this question?
Text: "Tax needs complete reform"
Question: "Indirect tax needs complete reform.

Personally I would answer "Can't tell" because indirect tax specifically isn't mentioned. However, if the text said "All tax needs complete reform" than I would answer "True".

Opinions would be greaty appreciated

Can't tell. The keyword 'indirect' is not mentioned.

 

[Jet]

If it says Book A was released in 1928 and Book B was released in 1934, would you say it is true that Book A was released 6 years before Book B, or cannot tell since Book A could be released on December 31st of 1928 and Book B on January 1st 1934 which would be 5 years and 12 days?

Spoiler: Answer

My prep company says true.

 

[hazell]

If it says Book A was released in 1928 and Book B was released in 1934, would you say it is true that Book A was released 6 years before Book B, or cannot tell since Book A could be released on December 31st of 1928 and Book B on January 1st 1934 which would be 5 years and 12 days?

Spoiler: Answer

My prep company says true.

I would’ve also selected can’t tell, since we can’t certainly state that it’s been 6 years.