THE UCAT MEGATHREAD
Who are we?
The Moderation team are Junior Doctors working in Australia and England. I created this sub reddit as I wanted to provide everyone with non-biased and clear advice on how to do well in the UCAT.
As Medical students, we have no desire to feed you false information to gain an advantage - we just want to provide you with a one stop shop for anything UCAT related. So if you see anything online you aren't sure of - please feel free to message here or on the discord and we will get back to you ASAP.
On that note, if we make mistakes, we are happy to fix them and admit it so please tell us if anything we have created is incorrect. We are busy medical students but will always do our best to keep everything updated!
Official YouTube Channel
The mod team have been working together to create a YouTube channel to help you all on your journey. We ourselves used YouTube extensively (shout out to Aliabdaal and Kharma medic) who were our go to during those days.
Our Channel will go through everything UCAT related as well as giving you a bit of insight to med school in Australia! Videos will role out each week so keep checking back here or subscribe.
The Channel is called Kerrod Kerr.
Our first video gives you a bit of an insight to my personal My Journey to Medical School
Current Videos
My Journey to Medical School
What is the UCAT - Everything you need to know
How to study for the UCAT
Top 5 Tips to Smash the UCAT
Verbal Reasoning - UCAT Intro Series
Decision Making - UCAT Intro Series
Quantitative Reasoning - UCAT Intro Series
Abstract Reasoning - UCAT Intro Series
Situational Judgement - UCAT Intro Series
How to Solve Verbal Reasoning Quickly - Deep Dive Series
How To Smash Decision Making - Deep Dive Series
!!!Giveaways!!!
We are going to be doing a number of helpful videos, giveaways and reviews of UCAT platforms.
We are investing our own money into this and hope as the subreddit and discord grows we can use any revenue we may get from subscribers and possible sponsorships to give away more stuff.
Keep a look out for announcements and future giveaways to some online platforms including MedEntry and Medify.
Discord
If you haven't already - join the official UCAT discord. It is a general discussion place and is busy with people working together to improve their UCAT skills with multiple Pomodoro sessions happening each night!
What is the UCAT
Our Video:What is the UCAT - Everything you need to know
UCAT stands for University Clinical Aptitude Test. UCAT is one of three main criteria used by most universities in Australia and New Zealand and United Kingdom to select students into high demand health related careers such as medicine and dentistry (the other two criteria being performance in final high school exams/GPA and interviews)
The UCAT is a two hour, computer-based test which assesses a range of mental abilities identified by universities as important to practicing in the fields of medicine and dentistry. It consists of five separately timed subtests which each contain a number of questions in a multiple-choice format.
I Want to Get into Medicine but I have no idea what is the UCAT
Don't worry - everyone starts somewhere. The mod team is making a introduction to the UCAT series which covers everything you need to know to get your started.
But essentially - this 2 hour test is comprised of 5 subsections which aim to test a range of mental abilities which are recognized as important to becoming a Doctor.
How to study for the UCAT
The first step in studying for UCAT is to understand the types of questions that you will face. UCAT is not a test of knowledge, it is a test of your generic skills. Therefore, the questions in UCAT will be very different to anything you have been exposed to at school and university.
This is very important → Do not start studying for the UCAT by doing a practice exam. Take the time to learn how study and learn the question styles which are present in the exam.
How to study for the UCAT
Is "x" months of preparation enough?
This is a hard question to answer - People say you can comfortable cram for the UCAT in a few weeks while others prefer the consistent approach over the course of the year. Generally, the more time and effort you put into your preparation the better you will do → it's impossible to prepare too much!
You should prep until you feel comfortable → At the end of the day, if you get to the exam and you feel calm, ready and can smash the exam because it’s just like muscle memory then you have done enough study - whether that’s 6 months or 1 week, however long it takes you to get to this point is the right amount of study for you
6 months might seem excessive to some people, but for a super competitive exam (even more so in Australia) that you only get to attempt once year, I would rather be go into it feeling I had done so much study that I was over it, then to get stuck on a single question which could mean the difference between me getting an interview or not.
What resources should I be using?
There are a number of free resources → MedEntry free trial, official practice papers, Medify free trial
Gold Standard: MedEntry, Medify,
Silver: Medic Mind , Kaplan, 6med
A waste of money: UCAT SECRETS
YouTube Resources:
What Preparation Company or Practice Test is Most like the real exam
The preparation companies all exist for a reason → to create content similar to the exam. For that reason they are all pretty similar to the actual exam. Whilst Medify was the leader for the last few years, Medentry has really done a lot of work to make changes and make themselves very competitive and innovative so much so I would even look at recommending them first. At time of writing this (Feb 2023) they are currently cheaper then Medify and with the REDDIT_AU & REDDIT_UK codes at checkout, you can knock a further 10% off that price.
They have also have an iPhone and Android app (we've checked it out, it's not just a shitty browser port, it's a native app).
The official practice exams, whilst free and give you a good idea of the content and style of the exam, vary greatly in difficulty to the real thing.
Top Tips for Preparing for the UCAT
There is no 1 trick for doing well - you need to practice. But there are definitely things you can do to help you prepare effectively. Our top 5 Tips Video
- Learn how to solve the questions first before you start doing timed tests
- Use your preparation resource and YouTube videos to teach you how to solve questions → their way just might be faster then your own
- Skim reading, Scanning and Speed Reading will help with your time management
- Learn the keyboard and calculator shortcuts
What is a good UCAT score → to get an interview
This is a hard one - as some universities place weighting on different criteria in the UCAT. However as a general rule without considering any factors including rural, ATSI, bonuses:
Australia - Above 90th percentile (approx. 2900-3100)
England - Above 60th percentile (approx. 2600-2700)
For Australian and New Zealand students you can check out our video in the coming month which goes into more detail regarding the scores required by each university and any bonus's you can qualify for!
How do I Prepare for interviews
Use the Discord
- Smile and be positive and confident with your answer
- Don't be afraid to break the mold with your answer → be remembered
- First impressions count
We will be posting some sample interview questions & tips and tricks once the UCAT testing period is over - stay tuned!
Why are Australian Scores so much higher?
They aren't that much higher → but Australia is just much more competitive with students generally beginning preparing earlier.
Keep in mind, the scores you will see posted in the Mega-threads and online are from students who did well → you are unlikely to see people posting their lower scores (in the same way you only ever hear about your friends who won big on the pokies or that race → they never boast about their loses)
Don't be disheartened if you are an Australian student seeing this. Although you need a higher UCAT score generally for an interview (>90th%) as Australian universities only take very small number of applicants for interviews, you have a much much higher chance of getting in once you get to that point compared to the UK (who often take 3-5x the number of applicants to the interview stage)
How do I Study for Verbal Reasoning
- Our Intro to VR video
- Our Deep dive into VR problem solving
- Kharma Medic VR
- Learn the different approaches → e.g. Skim reading, Scanning and Speed Reading and refine it
- Learn how to key word search effectively
- Learn how to approach different question types → e.g authors comments should involve you looking directly as the last paragraph when searching for answers to save time
How do I Study for Decision Making
How do I Study for Quantitative Reasoning
- Our Intro to QR video
- Our deep dive into QR problem solving
- Kharma Medic QR
- Revise basic arithmetic and conversions → especially percentages
- Practice using the calculator → you need to do this blind and get quick with it
How do I Study for Abstract Reasoning
- Our Intro to AR video
- Our deep dive into AR problem solving
- Kharma Medic AR
- Start by watching some Intro videos → learn how others approach it and get your head around what the heck is happening in this section
- Practice questions over and over untimed until you know it → REPEAT
How do I Study for Situational Judgement
- Our Intro to SJ video
- Our deep dive into SJ problem solving
- Kharma Medic SJ
- Read GMC - Good medical practice
- Learn the hierarchy → i.e. patient wellbeing is always more important than anything else when making decisions.
- Don't worry about this too much in Australia as currently no universities I am aware of are using this → but aim to be band 1 or band 2 anyway!
Something missing?
Is there anything you want us to cover in this wiki or do a video on? Please let us know below or on the UCAT discord. This subreddit is made for you!
Happy Studying and good luck future doctors!
/r/UCAT mod team.
