Description: 11+ and UCAT tutor Anabelle shares her thoughts on how to prepare effectively to pass UCAT examinations.
What is the UCAT?
The UCAT is defined as a computer-based test that lasts for 2 hours and is used by medical and dental schools. This helps examine the important mental and logical abilities of an individual. Moreover, it would deem them suitable amongst other criteria for admission into medical school.
What does the UCAT consist of?
The UCAT consists of 5 individually timed sub-tests mainly in a multiple-choice format. These include:
- Verbal reasoning-which tests your critical evaluation
- Decision making- which tests your judgement skills
- Quantitative reasoning- which tests your evaluation of numerical data
- Abstract reasoning- which tests your ability to create relationships between different information
- Situational judgement-which tests your ability to appropriately deal with real-world scenarios
How can I prepare?
Many UCAT courses online such as Medify and Kaplan, will prepare you well for the UCAT exam. Of course, there are many books to use too. It is more advisable to use the online courses so that you can familiarise yourself with working on a computer as the real exam is done on a computer. The official UCAT website also has a variety of practice resources that can be used for practice. A UCAT tutor from Telios Tutors is also very advisable to help understand test-taking techniques within each subtest amongst other notable help.
Familiarise yourself with the content and format of the exam
It is important to understand the type of questions you will be given so that you are aware of how to approach them. The UCAT questions are very different to questions you will have seen in school and possibly in university. So through understanding the format of the questions you will feel more confident with knowing how to tackle them.
Learn techniques and strategies for answering each subtest
There are a huge variety of techniques you can learn which will help to optimise your UCAT score. For example, with abstract reasoning, you can use the SCANNED (s-shape, c-colour, a-angles, n-number, e-edges, d-dimension) acronym to find relationships and patterns within pictures, amongst other techniques.
Find your weaknesses and work on them
If you are not as confident on one subtest as you are on the other, try and adopt new strategies and techniques with your weaker subtest to improve your score. When a similar question arises you can apply your new knowledge to answer the question correctly. As your overall UCAT score is a combination of all of your subtest scores. You must aim to optimise all of your scores so that your overall score is not massively impacted by one subtest form.
Attempt full-length practice exams in timed conditions
This is the most effective preparation for UCAT as you will be more exposed to the pressure of the exam in real-time! Being able to concentrate for 2 hours straight can be challenging at first but with more and more practice it will become less difficult to do.
By Tutor Anabelle. Contact us