UCAT Tips

[R4mya]

Hey guys! I'm currently a first-year med student at Monash, and I tutor UCAT at Tutesmart. I just wanted to start this thread to post UCAT tips every weekend! Feel free to add tips of your own, or other strategies for UCAT or medicine/dentistry entry in general. 

[R4mya]

Tip 1: Do lots of practice questions!
It's super important to do as many practice questions as possible, especially for abstract reasoning!
Having trouble finding free practice questions?
Try:
- https://www.ucat.edu.au/ucat-anz/practice-tests - these ones are official, try to do all of them
- https://au.themedicportal.com - you have to sign up, but it is free
- Search online for ukcat practice questions, heaps will pop up

[R4mya]

Tip 2: Timing
The UCAT is really tough for time, so its really good to do questions under timed conditions.
A good idea is to do questions under timed conditions, and then reattempt any questions you didn't get time for or didn't get right without the time pressure. This allows you to both get your timing right and develop the skills to be able to answer the questions.

[Rom_Dog]

Tip 3: Put yourself in the shoes of others!
The Situational Judgement component of the UCAT tests your ability to emphasise with others and your moral reasoning, the questions will present you with a variety of scenarios. In your everyday life, think about how you would feel if you were in the same circumstances as another person - this can help develop your understanding of how to respectfully and professionally treat others which is a key concept to understand if you plan to work with people from a diverse range of backgrounds in many different situations.

[R4mya]

Tip 4: Consistency!
From today, there are officially 2 months until the start of UCAT test period! Try to use this time as well as possible by spacing out your UCAT preparation. Treat UCAT like another VCE subject, and dedicate a set amount of time to it every week, aiming for at least 2 hours a week. You can also plan out exactly which section or sections you want to focus on during that time, making sure to spend more time on the sections you're struggling with.

[Krycek]

Tip 4: Consistency!
From today, there are officially 2 months until the start of UCAT test period! Try to use this time as well as possible by spacing out your UCAT preparation. Treat UCAT like another VCE subject, and dedicate a set amount of time to it every week, aiming for at least 2 hours a week. You can also plan out exactly which section or sections you want to focus on during that time, making sure to spend more time on the sections you're struggling with.

This. Make a timetable on allocating certain sub-tests on a certain day instead of doing all of them every day. I struggle at Abstract Reasoning so I spend 4/7 days on it for around 30 minutes (a normal vce student may have to spend doing less) and for SJT (which is the easiest for me)- I am doing it 2/7 days. There's no point spending the most on a subtest you're doing the best at- but don't neglect it at the same time.

[Krycek]

Tip 5 lads:

For most people doing the UCAT, Verbal Reasoning is one of the harder sub-tests. Initially, people are forced to read over the whole passage slowly and spend up to 2 minutes on just 1 set of questions. There are a couple of techniques that you can use for Verbal Reasoning that may help reduce your time to look for the correct answer.

1) Some people usually look at the question stem first and look for keywords that appear in the passage. This allows the reader to accurately pinpoint the location of the text that would give the correct answer. When you find the appropriate keyword, make sure to scan 2 lines above or below to look for absolutes (e.g. all, will, none etc.). I recommend this technique for very long passages that may take a while to actually scan over. True/False/Can't Tell question option is probably the best suited type for this technique in my opinion.

2) For smaller passages or passages with a good deal of paragraphs, I usually quickly summarize the individual paragraphs in my mind so that when I look at the question stem- I can- for the most part- disregard other paragraphs and focus on the specific paragraph that holds the specific issue mentioned in the question stem. This can work for passages with larger paragraphs (but a lower quantity) but isn't ideal as a paragraph may go through many aspects than just be focused on one aspect. This technique I believe suits for both T/F/CT and 4 option question type. Personally, i use this technique for recurring type of passages- such as those involved in history, or a specific disease - as you can allocate each paragraph to a point in the history of something or maybe an aspect of the disease (e.g. symptoms, diagnosis etc.)

I would highly recommend you answer any questions that involve any numerical data- numerical values are much more easier to find than just one keyword in a huge paragraph. With any passages that seem too much to you, just guess, flag and skip the unit and if you have enough time at the end of the sub-test you can go back to them (this is assuming you are fine with other questions because you should first focus on the flagged questions where you have made some process of elimination).

I hope what I said made any sense.

[R4mya]

Awesome tips Krycek! Keep them coming!

Tip 6: Study groups!
Study groups are super, super useful, not only for UCAT, but for your other subjects too.

Ensure that your study groups are people you work well with, not necessarily your closest friends. Having study groups with just your friends often turns out to be more distracting than productive.

Additionally, having a set time each week to meet up will force you to get consistent practice in. 

Specifically for UCAT, study groups can help you see different perspectives on the same question. For verbal reasoning questions, other people might have tips that allow you to find information faster, and answer questions quicker. For abstract reasoning, it can help to have other people try and find patterns so you can see what their process is. For SJT, other people's perspectives are extremely useful, as it will force you to think about other aspects of the issue and defend your own point of view.

[R4mya]

Tip 7: Question banks
Have a dedicated book, or word document for all of the UCAT questions you've gotten wrong. Make sure you go into detail as to why you got that question wrong, and have strategies on how to approach similar questions in future.

This allows you to be able to see patterns in which questions you are good at, and which you struggle with

Having a question bank also allows you to reattempt any questions you got wrong later down the track, which helps you to see which questions you've improved at, and which types of questions you're struggling with still.

[R4mya]

The UCAT is only two weeks away for some of you, so here's some advice on what to do with your last couple of weeks!
Practice exams!
Make sure to do at least 1 or 2 practice exams under fully timed conditions. This will get you used to the time pressure you'll feel on the day, and also get you used to focusing for 2 hours straight. There are three practice exams available on the UCAT website for free, and I would highly, highly recommend doing them in order to get the best idea of the actual exam is going to be like.
Question banks!
It is super useful in the last couple of weeks to go through any questions you've had difficulty with before and review them so you have a good grasp on answering the more difficult questions that pop up.