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March 29, 2024, 06:56:05 am

Author Topic: Time management:  (Read 1690 times)  Share 

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lazaward

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Time management:
« on: February 05, 2018, 06:26:32 pm »
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Hello everyone,
School has started and I’ve found that I’m already prioritising my school work over studying for the UMAT. I just find it really difficult to find the time to put aside hours of preparation for a single test that’s worth the same amount as my entire schooling! I’ve bought medentry and only done a couple of drills for section 2 and read through a few guides. I’m not the type of person to slack off and I’ve been really up to date with my school work, staying ahead etc. but for some reason I can’t find time to put aside purely for UMAT.

I really want to be a doctor someday so it’s super important for me to do well. Does anyone have any advice on how to fit in UMAT prep? I was thinking spending my entire Saturday on it (5 or so hours), will this be enough if I do that each week from now on? The other thing is I think I’m delaying it because of nerves, I don’t want to do a full practice paper yet because I’m scared my percentile will be bad, how do I get over this fear? It’s like every time I sit down to study for it I freeze up I have no idea why. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

AngelWings

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Re: Time management:
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2018, 09:53:38 pm »
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Can't help so much with it, because I never wanted to do Med. However, maybe instead of doing whole exams, try doing each section instead or a couple of sections and then working up to whole exams when you're ready?
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Quantum44

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Re: Time management:
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2018, 10:18:18 pm »
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It’s ok if you’re finding it difficult to set aside time for the UMAT. While it is worth the same as your ATAR in most medical admissions processes, you get much more value out of studying for your VCE subjects as less people spend a great deal of time studying for the UMAT, and performance in the UMAT is much more correlated with intrinsic ability rather than work ethic.

That being said, if you want to give the UMAT a good shot, you should set aside some time to study for it. Rather than doing a big block each week, I’d recommend doing 15-20 mins each day of reading through guides and doing drills. There’s still a lot of time before the UMAT and it’s good to get a feel for the questions before you leap into practice exams. I think the term 1 holidays would be a good time to get a few exams out of the way and identify weaknesses so you can up the momentum in term 2.

Don’t be afraid of getting bad percentiles in medentry as they compare you to the medentry cohort rather than the actual UMAT cohort, which means you’ll do way better in the real thing. I got around 60th percentile in the medentry exams I did and got 89th in the real thing. Also you’ll find section 2 scores vary a lot depending on your mood. I was usually getting 50th percentile for section 2 but got ~97th on the day.
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MG226

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Re: Time management:
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2018, 02:13:15 am »
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I found it quite hard to fit in UMAT exams last year too, I think the easiest way for me was to choose weekends where I didn’t have save the coming week and actually told myself a week before that I will do a practivd exam then. Personally I’d say at this stage maybe do one or two but focus mostly on drills until you’re feeling more comfortable with the question types and timing because (if you’re using medentry) they can only be attempted once so I wouldn’t want to use them all now. Best off doing one or two to work out which sections and question types to focus more on. Don’t be too put off if you do get bad percentiles, I had one which was overall 55%ile but got mid 90s in the UMAT. Your results can be very different each time you do a practice exam so don’t get caught up on one mark, rather focus on common mistakes you make and how to avoid them so you can improve

Bell9565

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Re: Time management:
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2018, 10:22:50 pm »
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Hey, I'm in exactly the same boat as you! I am super duper busy (Sport 6/7 times a week, school, swim teaching, 3 instruments ect.) so I am also feeling rather swamped with trying to fit in umat. After doing the 2 day lecture with medentry I started on working through the LMS. I am going to aim to do a practice exam every 2nd weekend and drills interspersed throughout the fortnight. I did my first one last weekend have been since doing drills on my lowest percentile. I'm just going to do very targeted practice and gradually build it up to hopefully a decent umat score in July.  :) Also, since drills only take 20/30 mins they're easy to slot in so you can get a little done here and there which hopefully will end up helping!
I hope your practice goes well!
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pha0015

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Re: Time management:
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2018, 01:37:30 pm »
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I was having the same problem too at the beginning of the year. I find that it helps if you think of UMAT as being one of your subjects. That way, you'll be able to divide your time accordingly. Rather than dividing your UMAT resources evenly throughout the half year, I recommend starting strong at the beginning of the year, before the floodgate of SACs begin to pour in. It also gives you some slack time if you need to have a break.