UCAT Advice Abstract Reasoning
Why You Should Sit The UCAT Practice Paper
Why is it important to try the UCAT Masterclass Practice Paper?
If you are determined to get into medicine, regardless of receiving a stellar ATAR score over 99+, you will need to do well in the UCAT before universities may consider you for an interview for entry.
It is important to test yourself and get some real UCAT exam experience before the actual exam.
The best way to start is to try a practice exam that mimics the actual exam conditions. This will help you familiarise yourself with UCAT-style questions.
The UCAT is a 2-hour computer-based exam that contains 233 multiple choice questions across 5 subtests:
- Verbal Reasoning: Interpret and evaluate written information.
- Decision Making: Apply logic to reach a conclusion, evaluate arguments and analyse data.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Use numerical skills to solve problems.
- Abstract Reasoning: Infer relationships from abstract information.
- Situational Judgement: Understand real-world situations and act appropriately.
The first four subtests test your cognitive ability and the last subtest, Situational Judgement, assesses your ability to make moral and ethical decisions.
By doing practice exams, you are attempting the exam under real exam conditions and becoming more accustomed to and familiar with these conditions. You do not want to leave the exam to chance and any exposure to relevant practice papers beforehand will help along with the process.
The more comfortable you are with the styles of UCAT questions, the better you can prepare your UCAT strategy.
Sitting a practice exam is the most effective way to get experience of the UCAT exam, the format of the exam itself, and the time constraints that you will be placed under. Remember, it is important that you get used to concentrating for the 2-hour duration as speed and timing is one of the biggest challenges in the UCAT exam.
The UCAT Masterclass Practice Paper
The UCAT Masterclass practice paper gives you:
- A real UCAT-like simulation of the exam with all the timing constraints, features and interface as the real exam
- Detailed answer explanations so you can understand the questions better
- Feedback on you performance to identify weaknesses.
Because of the large number of people that have sat this test it also gives you a:
- A scaled UCAT score
- A percentile rank.
Using these, you can compare your performance against others.
Now, let’s go through these things one at a time.
Sit a simulated exam
Using the practice exam, you will be able to familiarise with the different question types and formats of the UCAT (drag and drop, multiple choice, Yes/No questions) as it is not your standard multiple-choice exam.
You will also be able to use the on-screen calculator, and familiarise yourself with the keyboard shortcuts, just like the real UCAT.
It’s important to practise using these to save time.
The more familiar you are with the tools (like keyboard shortcuts) and platform, the better you will be prepared for the real thing! The practice exam will give you a good indication of what to expect.
The online practice paper simulation will give you an idea of your timing for each question, and your strengths and weaknesses for different scenarios.
The practice paper will allow you to be more familiar on how to strategise your time, as there is a timer on the top right of the exam screen, and each section is different in duration and length. This will give you an indication of where to best allocate your time.
Be sure to pace yourself and avoid spending too long on any one question as this will compromise the time you have for later questions that you may miss out on.
Learn from your mistakes!
Once you complete the exam, you can review the solution in the practice paper. This is essential as it will show you where you went wrong and which areas you need to improve in.
In the review screen, shown below, you can click on a question to see the answer and a detailed explanation. This will help you understand the nature of the UCAT questions.
After receiving your detailed reporting, you will:
- Understand your weaknesses
- Identify the question that you may struggle with the most in
- Know which subtests you need to improve in.
UCAT Masterclass Scoring & Reporting
As each of the five subtests tests different skills and contains a different number of questions, a scaled score is given rather than a raw mark.
Each subtest is scored between 300 to 900.
The first four subtests are cognitive subtests. They measure your aptitude in skills such as reading comprehension, logical thinking, performing calculations and recognising patterns in shapes. Hence, these scores are combined to give you a total score for these four subtests.
Just like the other subtests, Situational Judgement will be scored between 300 to 900. Situational Judgement, measures your ability to correctly identify appropriate behaviour and important considerations in scenarios involving moral and ethical issues.
The UCAT Masterclass practice paper has been completed by a large number of people. This is important as it means you can understand your performance in comparison to a large cohort of your peers. This means your scores are calculated in a similar manner to the real UCAT.
The UCAT Masterclass practice paper provides you an opportunity to practice the UCAT under realistic conditions, test yourself, identify areas for improvement and compare your performance to other UCAT candidates.
These detailed insights allow you to focus on your strengths, address your weaknesses, and work on your time management to ACE your UCAT!
