How I prepared for my UCAT test

The UCAT is a hard exam to prepare for and likely the first time you will of done anything like it. Here are some tips to get the best UCAT you can:

Medify

This is what I used when I did my UCAT and it was so helpful. It gives you practise questions to have a go at and mock tests. The abstract reasoning questions they give you I found were harder than those in the exam. It also shows you your progress on the different areas, so you can then practise your weakest areas more. It also compares you to the average scores. However, you do have to pay for this but I found it was a really good investment.

Practise, practise, practise

There is no prior learning you need for this so all you can do if familiarise yourself with the types of questions they could ask. I was doing a bit everyday about 1/2 month prior. It's not necessary to be revising for it months and months before.

Reading speed

For the verbal decision making you need to be able to read text very fast and scan read because you won’t have time to read it all. This was the hardest section for me as I am not a very fast reader and I think this is due to the fact I don't read many books. Practise with questions but also practise reading (anything) at speed and see what you can retain.

On screen calculator

For quantitive reasoning it’s really important you practise using the on screen calculator so you can be using it quickly in the exam and if anything brush up on your mental maths because the less you use the calculator the better. Using the calculator takes up a lot of time and the exam is time pressured as it is.

Flagging

You do not have time to waste on questions you don’t know the answers too! Pick an answer, flag it and move on. If you have time at the end come back to it

UCAT website

The UCAT website has some free mock questions and tests if you don’t want to spend money on medify. This will give you a really good idea of what the test is like.

GMC

For situational judgment familiarising yourself with some of the GMC rules and regulations may be helpful but you do not need to read the whole thing!

Timing

Timing will be your biggest struggle in the exam so the more questions and mock tests you practise under timed circumstances the better. This way you will be prepared for feeling rushed during the exam

Youtube

I watched some youtube videos people have made on UCAT tips and prep. I picked up some tips and tricks for them. Particularly for abstract reasoning, as they went through patterns to look out for and the quicker you can identify the pattern the quicker you can answer the questions and rack up more marks.

Topic	Questions	Time (minutes)	Per question (seconds)
Verbal reasoning	44	21	28
Decision making	29	31	64
Quantitive reasoning	36	25	41
Abstract reasoning	50	12	14
Situational judgement	69	26	22
Total	228	2 hours (inc. 5 x 1 min intro)	Average: 30

Good luck!!!