UKCAT: Preparing For and Taking The Test

After last week's post offering very little in the way of actual insight, I thought I'd offer up some proper advice this week. Enjoy.

Preparing to Take The Test:

Firstly, there is no right way to prepare for the UKCAT. Some people can do very little, or even no preparation, but still score quite highly, while others need months of work to even come close.

 

Before you start preparing, you'll need some resources. At the end of this post there's a list of useful links to loads of question banks and the such, so check it out. Personally, I used the 600Q book, which is full of tips and practice questions (obviously), plus getintomedicine's massive question bank, and Medify's free questions. For mock exams I used the official ones, the one in the book and Kaplan's free mock, links to all of which are below. I personally think that this is enough for most people, but if you're able to, and/or want more questions, you can pay to access Medify, Ace Medicine or Kaplan's online question banks. Ace Medicine and Kaplan, plus some others also run UKCAT prep courses, but these are mega expensive, and I think that with some determination (and by reading my advice below ;)) you can do just as good a job.

 

Below is the technique that I used to prepare for the test. As already said, different things work for different people, this is just my advice based on what worked for me.

 

1. Start preparing about four weeks before your test date by trying some questions from each section without a time limit. This'll let you get a feel for answering the questions, and will let you start to develop techniques for each section.
2. Once you feel confident in answering questions untimed, you can add a time limit. Start at the normal time limit plus 50% or even 100%, and then gradually lower the time limit, until you can do questions well within the given time.
3. About two weeks before your test, evaluate where you are, by asking yourself how far you think you've come in the last two weeks, and how far you think you can go in the next two. If you think you'll need more time, then move your test back. There's no harm in doing it once (I did), just don't get to the point where you're moving your test back constantly, just because you can.
4. Also at the two week point, try a mock test. As most mocks don't score like the UKCAT will, you need to use the following equation to work out how well you did: (It's worth noting that this is not how the real exam is scored, so will only give an estimate).
   

   (Number of correct answers/total number of questions) x 600 + 300

    
5. The mocks will highlight areas for you to improve upon, so do some more questions, practice different techniques, and try another mock (you might have a few, so space them out so that you aren't taking loads at once).
6. By this point, you should be feeling pretty confident, and ready for your test. Good luck, but first, read on for advice on how to tackle each section.

The Sections:

Verbal Reasoning (VR) 
This is the section where you have to draw conclusions (True, False, Can't Tell) from a passage of text. It sounds quite straight forward, but the Devil's in the detail, so just make sure that you're definitely sure of your answer before you click next, and make full use of the "Flag for Review" button. Some more tips:

• Read the text first. Even if it's just a skim read, it'll give you valuable reference points when you get onto the questions, which should save you time
• Don't use your own knowledge to try and answer questions- you shouln't be familiar with the content (it's not A level stuff or anything), but if you are, then for the purposes of the exam, consider the text as fact. Doing this catches a lot of people out- don't be one of them.

Quantitative Reasoning (QR)
This is the maths section, and to give you an idea, the questions are about GCSE maths standard in terms of difficulty. There is an onscreen calculator for you to use (it's similar to the standard windows one) but if you sharpen your mental maths skills up first it'll save you valuable time in the exam. Also, if you use the 600Q book to prepare- don't worry- the questions are far, far easier than the book makes out.

Abstract Reasoning (AR)
This section has changed this year. There are now four different question types; when I sat the test there was only one. From what I've seen though, it seems that the same skills are being tested, so any old test material should still be usable to practice spotting patterns, just don't rely on it and then get caught out by the new style questions on the day. A useful anagram for spotting patterns is:

C olour
A ngles
T ype
S hape
P osition
E dges
N umber
I ntersections
S ymmetries

A large part of this section is spotting the pattern- once you've done that you can take just a few seconds per question, to judge where it belongs. Finally, if you're running out of time, just guess! You aren't negatively marked for a wrong answer, so you might be able to pick up a few extra marks- this goes for all sections.

Decision Analysis (DA)
This section gives you a table of codes, and you have to interpret "sentences" written in the code into English. This section has changed this year. But not massively. The only difference is the addition of trial confidence ratings. They won't affect your score for 2014 entry, but bear in mind that they are likely to be "live" from next year, so you may need to take them into account. Make sure that you use the whiteboard to its full extent in this section- I wrote out what the code literally meant, and then tried to infer the answer from there. Take your time- I always had loads left over- as there can sometimes only be the tiniest of differences between answers.

Situational Judgement (SJT)
This section is new for 2013, but was trialled last year, so I sat it. From what I remember though, it was quite straightforward- you are given a scenario, and have to rate how appropriate a given action would be. Timing seemed quite generous, and it'll be considered separately to the other sections, so just relax, and think logically about what you'd do in that situation.

Useful Links:

These are the sites that I used to prepare for the UKCAT, plus some others that you might find useful:

The Official Website You should already know about this site, but it's full of useful information on each of the sections, plus includes two full length official mock exams, plus a shorter one.

The 600Q Book While it doesn't include the new style AR questions, or any SJT, it's still good for VR, QR and DA, and has a good mock exam and some solid advice for all the sections. If you use just one UKCAT resource, make it this one.

Get into Medicine This site has hundreds of UKCAT questions, plus tips and tutorials and more advice on applications than you can shake a stick at. It's an excellent website, so get on it.

ukcathelp.org I don't think that this website existed last year so I didn't use it, but it's been getting very good reviews on TSR, and is definitely worth a look. A word of caution though: since originally writing this post, it has come to my attention that this website might not be 100% genuine. It still has the content, but DO NOT use a username/password combo that you use elsewhere, just to be on the safe side.

Medify This has some free UKCAT questions and tips, plus a paid for question bank that you can use if you're able to.

Kaplan Again, this is a paid for resource, but with some free areas. I used their mock test last year, so take a look. They also offer an intensive 10 day course, but I don't think anyone needs to spend £1,250 getting into medical school.

Ace Medicine Quite similar to Kaplan (above), but with no free questions to be had :(

The Student Room This link takes you to their wiki page on the UKCAT, which is full of advice and links to even more practice questions. While you're there have a look at the rest of the medicine wiki, and the medicine forum for yet more advice and info, plus this year's UKCAT thread, where if you're a member you can ask as many questions as you like.

Right- that's everything I have on the UKCAT- good luck preparing for and taking the test, and if you have any more questions, I'm "Ingenting" on both The Student Room and New Media Medicine forums, so feel free to PM me on either :)

One last thing for those who are wondering- I got 710 on the UKCAT last year, and 687.5 the year before.