Hello everyone! 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.
In this post I will be introducing the UCAT, updating you on the latest news regarding COVID-19 and making a few suggestions of things you can be doing during lockdown to help you with your UCAT.
So first of all, what is the UCAT? The UCAT is a two hour long, computerised test which “assesses a range of mental abilities identified by university medical and dental schools as important”.1 There are five sections to the UCAT: Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning and Situational Judgement. Verbal Reasoning is a little like reading comprehension you get at school, Decision Making is a variety of logical and lateral thinking puzzles, Quantitative Reasoning is made up of maths problems, Abstract Reasoning is recognising patterns in sets of shapes and finally, Situational Judgement consists of ethical and professional scenarios. Although the entire test takes two hours, each individual section is timed separately. This means that timing is very tight for each question and learning to answer questions quickly enough can be a struggle for students.
However, this isn’t a reason to despair! With practice and sufficient preparation, you can learn to not only answer the questions, but do so within the allocated time. I will be going over my tips for time management in a later blog post.
Usually the testing season for the UCAT is from the beginning of July to the beginning of October. However, this may change as a result of COVID-19. In a statement released on the UCAT official website they have said that they don’t want to make any firm decisions about testing this year until schools return to normal. They fully expect testing to go ahead this year, however testing will probably start later than usual so the testing window will most likely be shifted.2This is unfortunately, all I can tell you about testing this year currently, however I will continue to check the website and will post an update should the circumstances change. You can keep up to date on any news on Twitter and Facebook @UCATofficial and on Instagram @ucatofficial and of course, you can check the UCAT website itself.
I can appreciate that given everything that’s going on, you may feel at a bit of a loss regarding the UCAT. Although I was fortunate enough to take my UCAT under more normal circumstances, I am going to attempt to make some suggestions of things you could be doing now to prepare.
The first point I would like to make is that I can appreciate that it may be tempting, now that you have more time than usual, to start using resources such as the UCAT website and Medify to practise some questions. However, I would not recommend this. You can’t ‘revise’ for the UCAT in the same sense that you would revise for you school exams as there is no content to be learned. This means that starting to prepare too far in advance is unlikely to give you an advantage. In fact, as the best way to prepare for the UCAT is regular practise nearer to the date of your exam, starting too early may mean that you actually ‘peak’ too soon and are performing at you best well before you take your exam. From my own experience and based on information on the UCAT website, I would advise practising regularly, for around 1-2 hours a day, 4 to 6 weeks before your test date. This allows you to spend a few weeks familiarising yourself with the question styles and then a couple of weeks practising your timing and exam technique (more on this in later posts!).
What you can be doing now, however, is building skills which will help you when it comes to practising for your UCAT. As Verbal Reasoning relies on your ability to read passages quickly, reading texts such as newspaper articles could be a good way of improving your reading ability. Verbal Reasoning passages cover a wide range of subjects from ancient history to astronomy. Therefore, having some insight into these topics may help you feel more comfortable answering questions on them as the information itself will not seem so alien. Now I’m not suggesting that you all now need to go and read up on everything as that just isn’t possible! However, I would encourage you to read up on topics (even non-medical ones) that interest you. Anything you find fascinating whether that’s philosophy or archaeology. Ted talks, particularly TED-Ed talks on Youtube are good (I will leave links at the end of this article) as they are very short and cover a wide range of topics. Documentaries of any kind are a fantastic resource too as well as ‘Little Histories’ books which are available on Amazon.
To help you with decision making, you could look into trying some logical or lateral thinking puzzles. I will be posting some puzzles like this on the UCAT Blog over the coming weeks!
For Quantitative Reasoning the best thing is to be confident with fractions, percentages and ideally mental maths as well. Although you have an onscreen calculator in the exam, it’s a bit clunky and you will save time if you are confident with times-tables and adding and subtracting in your head. Going back over some questions from early secondary school might be a help or even just asking your family or friends to ask you to quickly add up, for example, 64+21+73 in your head!
Abstract Reasoning is actually surprisingly like the Non-Verbal Reasoning section of the 11+ which some of you may have taken. For those of you who may not know, the 11+ is an entry test taken by 11-year-olds in order to be accepted into many grammar schools in England. Although the level of the 11+ Non-Verbal Reasoning tests is below that of the UCAT, you could always have a go if it’s something you enjoy. I have linked a website I found with a free test below.
Finally, as Situational Judgment assesses professionalism and your moral thinking, I would recommend some of the articles published by the GMC, in particular Good Medical Practice and Outcomes for Graduates. The GMC have even created an interactive resource called ‘Good Medical Practice in Action’ where you can work through some scenarios based on the principles of Good Medical Practice.
These are just some suggestions of a few things which you could be doing during lockdown to get you in the right frame of mind for your UCAT practice. These suggestions are by no means compulsory and I think the most important thing is that you do things that you enjoy. It’s completely up to you if you take any of my suggestions and what I wish to stress is, the most important part of preparing for your UCAT is the 4-6 weeks of intense preparation beforehand.
To conclude, I have suggested these resources merely for you to look into if you are looking for something to do which will help you build skills which I believe are helpful for the UCAT. If you decide to try out any of my suggestions, please comment and let me know what you think and please also share if you have come across any other interesting resources! It would also be great to maybe start a discussion about some of the new things you have read or discovered!
So my parting comments are simply, it is too early to sign up to question banks like Medify, Kaplan, The Medic Portal etc and start practicing because you are going to ‘peak’ too early. You will need some UCAT practice for sure, but I will be doing a review on the best question banks out there, so that you are selecting the best UCAT question bank for your preparation. This includes the bank that helped me score in the top 1% of UCAT in the country!
If you have any questions about the content of this blog, or even the UCAT generally, please post a comment below and I will come back to you with some answers!
Resources:
- Ted Ed videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/TEDEducation/videos
- Non-verbal Reasoning 11+ test: https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/free-11-plus-practice-papers/cgp-11-plus-non-verbal-reasoning
- Good Medical Practice: https://www.gmc-uk.org/ethical-guidance/ethical-guidance-for-doctors/good-medical-practice
- Good Medical Practice in action: https://www.gmc-uk.org/gmpinaction/
- Outcomes for Graduates: https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and-curricula/standards-and-outcomes/outcomes-for-graduates
References:
- UCAT, UCAT Test Format, https://www.ucat.ac.uk/ucat/test-format/
- UCAT, COVID-19 (coronavirus) latest update, https://www.ucat.ac.uk/ucat/registration-booking/covid-19/
This is a really helpful blog! Thank you! I was really unsure before on how to prepare for UCAT without actually starting questions too early 🙂
Hi Yasmin! Thank you, I’m really glad to hear you found the post useful. Please comment how you find any of the resources if you choose to use them and feel free to suggest any more if you come across anything useful or interesting!
how do i subscribe to your blogs!?
Hi Mia. I’m afraid I’m not too sure but I’ll look into it to see if it’s possible and let you know.
Hi Mia. Just asked Dr Siva and she said as of next week, it will be possible to subscribe to blog posts. I’ll post an update once I know how this will work
When did you start preparing for the UCAT, as in when is it not too early to start?
Hi Isabella. I did a few questions when I could around 2 months to 1 month before my test. Then exactly 1 month before my test, I started doing 100 questions every day for 2 weeks and for the last 2 weeks I did a mock every day. I will go over my preparation tips in a later post but I think that consistency right before your test is really important. Hope this helps!
Thank you so much!
Do you recommend focusing more on particular areas when practising? And if so, which ones?
Hi Beata. Yes definitely! I would recommend giving all the sections a go to start with to help you identify which ones you find more difficult. Then prioritise these and do more of them than the ones you finder easier. However, it’s important to try and find a balance and not forget to carry on even with the sections you find easier.
Hi where did you find all the practice questions and MOCs ?
I personally used the UCAT official website and app which you can get on your phone. I also used Medify which you do have to pay for, but I personally found it very useful. However, there are lots of other questions banks out there.
great thanks
This has been very useful. As the UCAT is on a computer do you think there’s any point buying a book full of questions? How did you find using the online computer? Thank you
Hi Tabitha. I’m glad you found the post useful. I know people who have used books but personally didn’t use any. I only used online question banks. I feel like these are the best resource as, as you said, the test is on a computer so they give the most realistic idea of what the actual test will be like. You can also practise your timing on a computer which is much harder to do with a book. I found using the computer during the actual test ok as I had already done lots of practise using a computer at home. However, I would recommend getting used to the on-screen calculator for Quantitative Reasoning as it is very clunky and learning how to use it effectively will save you time.
Thank you very much for this advice has been tremendously helpful.
Hi, I just had a question. If we would like to do the early BMAT, in September. Would it be better to try and do the UCAT before, or do it after? I was just wondering as of course there will be multiple deadlines around this time UCAS, EPQ, in class tests etc etc, so was just wondering if you had any idea on possibly a good way of going about it? Many thanks
Hi Simon. Very good question. I think the timing of the test if different for everyone and of course, may be a little different this year due to COVID. However, if you are worried about juggling everything at school with admissions test, then I would suggest booking your UCAT for before you go back to school or just as you go back to school if possible. If you are considering taking the BMAT, you may have to think about how you are going to fit this around the UCAT. Either you could take the BMAT in the later slot in November or you could try and slot this either before or after your UCAT. I would suggest getting a calendar of some sort and blocking out all your deadlines and then trying to slot in you UCAT and BMAT around this, leaving time for adequate prep before each one.
Perfect thank you ever so much for your help
Hi Rebecca. Just wondering will we be given a couple of online question banks to use at the Summer School? If not are there any you would recommend? Thanks for setting this up!
Hi Tom. We are currently working on some UCAT questions which you will be using to practise at summer school. I’m not sure about question bankd… it’s probably best if you ask Dr Siva about this as I’m sure she’ll know
Hello Rebecca! First of all congratulations on all of your achievements so far and thank you for taking your time to help aspiring medical students like me and many others! I am in Year 11 at the moment so UCAT is far off for me. However, for the Year 12’s and me for next year, did you have some sort of structure or plan for tackling your UCAT exams? What was your method during that 4-6 week period before the Exams!? Thank you!
Hi Sarayu. I replied to Isabella’s question further up this feed which is quite similar if you’d like to take a look. I did the main bulk of my prep a month before my test. I did 100 questions a day for 2 weeks and a mock a day for 2 weeks. I think practising consistently every day is very important as it helps you build up your accuracy and speed in answering the questions
Thank you so much for your advice!
Hi Rebecca, thank you for the advice in the blog, it is really helpful! I was wondering, for the UCAT do you get a pen and paper to quickly write things down? (ie. numbers in the quantitative reasoning section)
Hi Will. Yes, you get a ‘whiteboard’ (I got a laminated sheet of white paper!) and pen. I would definitely recommend using this during both the Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning sections
Great thank you!
hi Rebecca. Do you think UCAT score is more important than grades when applying to universities or vice versa? OR is it kind of balanced
Hi Iordina. I would say that on the whole, they’re both just as important as each other. However, if you are worried about either your grades or UCAT score, it’s worth looking at the entrance criteria for different med schools on their websites as different med schools use the UCAT differently and require different grades in different subjects.
How many questions would you recommend to complete in a day at the start of june/july if your gonna do both the UCAT and BMAT?
and how many weeks is perfect to practcice for the UCAT and BMAT?
What are the recommended dates/months you pick to for the examination of both the BMAT and UCAT for someone who;
More determined for succeeding the BMAT universities, but still considering to apply to unis where the UCAT is required?
Hi Marcus. If you feel like you would like to prioritise the BMAT then I would recommend trying to do you BMAT test before your UCAT, so you could do you BMAT in September and then your UCAT later in September or early October. However, I would recommend leaving at least a month between the two tests if possible as you need a minimum of a month to prepare for the UCAT. I didn’t do the BMAT myself so unfortunately, I am unable to offer you advice on how to prepare for it. However, for the UCAT, I personally did 100 questions a day for two weeks and a mock a day for two weeks before my test (so a month of practising every day before my test). Hope this helps!
Hi,
What do you think was the most effective resource that you used, or is it important to have a combination? Also do you think we should get the big books with 1000 questions or stick to online resources?
Hi Fathimah. Personally, the resources I used were the UCAT official website and app on my phone as well as Medify (you do have to pay for Medify though). Personally I didn’t use any books as I found the online resources adequate and could practise my timing on them.
Hi Rebecca,
I’ve been doing some UCAT practice here and there for the past few weeks and I’ve found that I’m struggling to improve my SJT score in particular. I was wondering if it would be possible to have some paid one-on-one support with this section (e.g. discussing questions during a Skype call)? I understand if this isn’t possible – I’m sure you’re very busy!
Thank you 🙂
Hi Laura,
Rebecca has seen your comment but she’s unfortunately experiencing some technical issues and can’t respond to you at the moment. She’ll get back to you as soon as she can.