UCAT

In 2023, I achieved one of the highest UCAT scores of the country and this is how I did it.

MAKE NOTES

Many students tend to think that it is impossible to revise for the UCAT, however that is not necessarily true. Taking notes can help you collect your thoughts and prevent you from making the same mistake twice. For example, for the Abstract Reasoning subtest, I wrote down any patterns I failed to identify during my practice sessions, such as prime numbers, overlapping shapes, directions of arrows, etc. Instead of memorising this list, I simply read through the list once or twice before each practice sessions, which helped me remember the patterns that I knew I often miss.

Making notes during practice sessions can also be useful, especially in the Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning subtests, as drawing diagrams and writing numbers will help you keep track of everything easier instead of trying to visualize everything in your head.

PRACTICE

It seems obvious, and it is, but many students tend to only do questions on subtests which they are already good at. Whilst this may make your practice sessions a lot more enjoyable, it will also make them less efficient. Instead you should track which subtests you find harder, such as by using Medify or MedEntry, and focus on improving those first. My weakest subtest was Verbal Reasoning, however from practising that skill over and over again, I managed to increase my average score from ~500 to ~750, which is still an excellent score.

KNOWLEDGE

As far as the UCAT goes, the knowledge required is fairly limited. You only need to be able to compute simple calculations and pay attention to the language they use, such as: and, or, neither, nor, if. You should also know the first few prime numbers and the number of sides of common shapes, which often come up in the Abstract Reasoning section. One trap in the Verbal Reasoning section is to use prior knowledge. DO NOT use your own knowledge. For example if the question asks if doves are a type of bird, and it is not mentioned in the text, then the correct answer would be CANNOT TELL, instead of TRUE. This is because, UCAT questions are meant to be on an even playing field, so no prior knowledge is required to answer any questions.

TIME MANAGEMENT

If you've done a full timed UCAT paper before, you'll know how difficult it is to finish the questions within the time limit. There are a total of 228 questions and only 115 minutes to complete them in, for an average of 30 seconds per question. This means you don't have long to think, so you need to be able to quickly decide if a question is worth completing or not. The hardest section to manage time for me, was Verbal Reasoning, so I would first only answer questions with shorter extracts, and flag questions which had longer extracts, then come back to them later, and I used a similar strategy for each of the other subtests too. When coming back to a question for the second time, your mind is more warmed up to the style of questions and you may gain some new perspective on the question, giving you a higher likelihood of being able to come up with an answer.

Another way of conserving precious seconds are by learning keyboard shortcuts, such as; ALT + N to move to the next question. ALT + F to flag, and ALT + C to open the calculator. You can also use the number pad on the right side of your keyboard by activating NUM LOCK, which will allow you to type much faster. Becoming accustomed to these keyboard shortcuts is not necessary, but will save you time.

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