Hello everyone and welcome to the first UCAT blog post! My name is Rebecca and I’m a first-year medical student at the University of Glasgow. I am your new virtual UCAT instructor guiding you through the minefield that is UCAT! But for those of you enrolled onto summer school this year, I am also a UCAT Tutor, making sure that you get access to absolutely the best UCAT resources for your summer school (as I did when I was an applying student)!
Some of you may know me from when I was an applying student. I was a school ambassador with Medic Mentor and I attended the Medic Mentor Summer School, going on to receive 4 medical school offers last year. I am now a scholar based in Scotland and have been helping to organise the medical leadership programme meetings. I took my UCAT in September 2018 and achieved a score of 3230 which put me in the highest scoring 1% for that year.
I’m going to be writing posts about all things UCAT. The plan is to post updates on what is going on regarding the UCAT and COVID-19 as well as suggest some ideas of things you can be doing during lockdown to help you with your UCAT. I will also be breaking down the different sections of the test and giving you my own tips and advice which hopefully you can all add to as it gets nearer to the testing season. As and when testing season gets underway, the idea is to introduce some more interactive ways of preparing for the UCAT so we can all work together. My hope is to de-mystify the UCAT and hopefully reduce some of the dread you may feel surrounding it! I will also be signposting you to some useful resources to help you prepare for your UCAT exam this summer.
Those of you attending the Summer School, have a little less to worry about because you will also get invaluable comprehensive teaching on UCAT as well as access to the best UCAT question banks to revise from. You will also get ongoing mentoring support from your summer school mentors like myself to master your UCAT and achieve an amazing score. That’s me in the Summer School video below when I was an applying student!
But whether you are coming to the Summer School or not, I will be working really hard this summer to create some online blogs, a couple of sample questions that we can work through and keep you updated on the UCAT situation with COVID-19.
If at any point you have any suggestions or questions about things that you don’t fully understand, please post them in the comments section below. I will be keeping an eye on these and replying to them. Let’s all succeed together!
Wow Rebecca – this looks absolutely fantastic and I’m sure it’ll be extremely reassuring for yr 12’s at this time! That score is INCREDIBLE and I’m sure your advice is going to help so many students out! Thank you!
Well as a Summer School student yourself last year and also getting 4 offers, you have obviously done just as well as Rebecca Koby! What resources do you think she should be focussing on and what tips do you have regarding UCAT for year 12s this year? Dr Siva
Thank you Dr Siva!
Medify is an amazing resource that I’m sure most of us used as it has a great question bank as well as guided tutorials on how to approach the sections. Honestly I think the best piece of advice is just to practice practice practice but definitely space it out and start around 1-2 months before the time you’ve scheduled your exam. I know I scheduled my exam too soon as I wanted to initially do the August BMAT for Cambridge and Imperial but in the end I ended up doing the October BMAT instead so I didn’t score as highly in the UCAT as I think I could have with more time to practice.
I think it’d be good to carefully plan out when you want to sit both exams if you are thinking of doing both! Obviously there is a lot of confusion currently but nearer to the time, if you just spend an 1-2 hrs a day and be consistent as well as tackling all areas rather than covering one section at a time to get a feel for everything, I’m sure you guys will smash it!
Also, I know topics such as Abstract Reasoning with the shapes may seem daunting as that was DEFINITELY the case for me but many people actually say it’s one of the easiest topics with practice so don’t worry at all! Just be consistent, listen to Rebecca’s advice which I’m sure will be amazing and you guys will do fantastically!
In terms of ways Rebecca could structure it, maybe she could create some videos of her working through some UCAT questions on a website like Medify and explaining her thought process as well as giving some advice on how she goes about tackling each section as I’m sure that would have helped me! Maybe some time management tips as well as that was an issue for me for some sections especially Verbal Reasoning!
I agree with Koby – I think it would be a great idea to make videos to break down the questions! For me I would say the abstract reasoning is the section I am most worried about so I am looking toward getting advice about that.
Thank you Koby, but as Dr Siva said, you’ve done amazingly yourself! If you have any of your own tips and advice then please do share as everyone has different ways of approaching things and has had their own UCAT experience so I think it would be great to get a discussion going!
Wow well done on such an amazing score!!! I can’t wait to read the blog posts and take in all of your advice 🙂
Hi Ellen. Thanks for your comments and suggestions! I know I initially felt very daunted by Abstract Reasoning as well so I will be sure to share my tips on this section as well as the others.
This is amazing Rebecca, thank you so much for doing this!! Btw congratulations to you and Koby for all your successes so far, you so deserve it!
Hi, so I’m coming to the medic mentor summer school this year and I’m struggling between two possibilities with when to sit the UCAT. I know that we get some UCAT teaching at ss and I was planning on sitting it two weeks after i attend having completed the majority of my revision before (I went to the medic life ucat course last week and now feel very prepared to start revising). However, I understand that ss is very intense so I won’t have time for UCAT practice during the week and am slightly concerned that I will loose my ability. I understand that you revised and sat the ucat after ss in your year but I’d really like to get it done before I go back to school and have a bit of a break at the end of the summer holidays. Do you think that if I say revise for 5-6 weeks then do ss and then revise for another 1-2 weeks after before ucat it will decrease my potential score? Or would you recommend solely revising and sitting it 4-6 weeks after ss? Thanks so much
What an amazing score and achievement! I can’t wait for the blogs and the summer school!