On this page, you will find some helpful hints, facts, opinions and ‘inside knowledge’ that you will find valuable in choosing an appropriate UMAT preparation course.

Click on the heading below to jump to that particular section:

• Quality of products
• Deceptive tactics
• RTOs
• Forums
• Message to Parents
  

Quality of products

• Your performance in the UMAT will only improve if you practice on questions which simulate the real UMAT. Practicing on questions which are unrelated to those in the UMAT or questions that have a different structure to those in the UMAT may adversely affect your performance. It is like preparing for a Physics exam but finding at the exam venue that in fact you are being examined on Biology.
  
  Numerous students have been misled by the purchase of practice tests which have little resemblance to the real UMAT, which resulted in them performing poorly. Please make sure you do not become one of these unfortunate students – you only get one chance per year. Further, do not make purchases or assumptions about the quality of products based on free sample questions. Numerous students have made purchases based on the fact that the sample questions ‘looked good’, only to find that questions provided were of extremely poor quality and did not simulate the UMAT.
  
  
• Be wary of practicing on "past UMAT practice materials/papers". Remember that the UMAT is continually evolving. Preparation materials that are a year or more old are usually out of date.
  
  
• In general, quality is inversely proportional to quantity. It is easy to put together and sell thousands of poor quality questions which have little resemblance to UMAT questions. However, preparing top quality questions which simulate the UMAT takes time, expertise, knowledge, skill and resources.

• A survey of medical students has shown that most students had the time and motivation to do about 500 questions (about 5 practice exams). This is due to factors like the pressures of school work, the pre-test preparation required, and the fact that the extent of improvement plateaus after completing a few tests. Having access to too many poor quality practice questions which you are unlikely to complete will only make you feel guilty. This is not the feeling you want to have on that crucial day.
  
  
• Numerous students, in the past, have been promised thousands of questions by some providers. Unfortunately, the students have been provided with only a few poor quality questions. Further, they have had access to them only at a very late stage.
  

• The format of UMAT is constantly changing and evolving (for example the introduction of BTF questions in Section 2 and Patterns and Sequences questions in Section 3). Amazingly, some materials are being sold in the old format since the sellers do not have and/or do not want to spend time and resources updating the materials.
  

• The UMAT does not have questions like those in LSAT (see http://www.lsac.org/index.asp). Some materials are being sold with LSAT type questions. Don’t end up wasting money and more importantly being misled. Further, knowing use of pirated material may mean prosecution. So please beware!

• Sections 1 and 2 of the UMAT have four possible options for each question. Beware of materials that are being sold with five options.
  

• Avoid the cheapest product. Remember, good services are seldom cheap and cheap services are seldom good.

Deceptive tactics

• Remember that anyone can publish anything on the internet. This is one of its greatest weaknesses for those seeking accurate, balanced, objective and reliable information. Some businesses, in order to gain a higher ranking on search results (to make the site appear popular), skew and manipulate the search results by creating multiple links, blogs, fake clicks, ‘google-bombing’, link-spamming, spamdexing, search engine spamming etc.  Another tactic is propagating the internet with numerous websites which make customers assume that they are all different providers (a bankrupt uses about ten websites). Other strategies include using ‘black-hat’ tactics from search engine optimizers to boost search result rankings.
  
  
• A UMAT provider posts misleading, false and erroneous information under the title ‘UMAT courses compared.’ Unfortunately, the problem with the internet is that anyone can post anything. This provider was bankrupt twice before and is bankrupt again (click here for more info). Therefore, you will not be provided with service or refunds, so beware.

• Be warned: the internet is a magnet and fertile ground for cheats, crooks, bankrupt businessmen, fraudsters and con artists; dodgy companies promising you all sorts of things and delivering very little; and worse, misleading you. The use of aggressive, unethical, misleading, deceptive and devious marketing strategies is their forte (eg. use of fictitious names for testimonials, non-existent/unapproved sponsors, showing numerous courses which do not actually run to make the provider appear popular, use of fake degrees/titles from degree mills etc). Their classic formula is superficially slick but fundamentally fraudulent, so beware. They hide behind a façade of anonymity. All this sounds unbelievable? Yes, but it is true! Hence our plea: Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware. Don’t become one of the many who have been fleeced and found to their regret later that there is very little they could do. More than 70 years ago, W.C. Fields said that a sucker is born every minute. With the internet, it’s every nanosecond.

• One particular provider (Gibson) places false, misleading, inaccurate, vindictive and laughable statements on his website. Following are few examples to illustrate this provider’s unethical and illegal behaviour:

1. He is illegally and shamelessly operating several websites, forums and businesses while bankrupt. Watch out for fraudsters and protect yourself from such online predators!
2. He claims to have numerous titles including a PhD. However, the so-called ‘PhD’ was awarded by an internet degree mill, where you can buy degrees for a few hundred dollars. His ‘degrees’ are not worth the paper they are written on.
3. He claims to have numerous offices in Australia and overseas. However, if you visit these locations you will find that they are either non-existent or are nothing but mail delivery centres.
4. He gives various telephone numbers in different cities in Australia and overseas to make his course look popular/international, but these telephone numbers are either disconnected, non-existent or are all call diverted to the same one phone.
5. He lures students into purchasing his products by operating numerous websites, deceiving people into thinking they are all different companies.
6. He lures you into his ‘net’ through his offers of ‘free’ questions and tests (of poor quality), to obtain your contact details and email address, which he misuses.
7. He is associated with unaccredited and sham ‘medical schools’.
8. He claims that his course is the only one endorsed by careers counsellors. In reality, his course is the only one which is NOT recommended by careers counsellors.

• Please take note of warnings issued by the Department of Fair Trading and numerous consumer organizations against internet service providers: do not rely on information or purchase from sites which do not give an authentic physical address, landline phone number and Australian Business Number (ABN). There is a good reason why they don’t give these details: because they have something to hide. You will be misled and will have no recourse.

• “The bottom line is to avoid a site that does not say who is behind it.” (Readers’ Digest, January 2005, p26). Hence our plea: do not buy from sites and do not rely on information from sites which are not authentic and hide behind a facade of anonymity. Andrew Keen, in the book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture wisely states that ‘if we are to save the Internet, we need to confront the curse of anonymity.’

• False claims are being made by a company that it is the only UMAT preparation centre that allows you to obtain individualised UMAT tutoring. MedEntry offers this service as part of the Diamond package.

• Beware of unscrupulous providers trying to pass themselves off as MedEntry by false advsertising. Please make sure you go to our correct and authentic website: www.MedEntry.edu.au

• Some companies try to lure you with ‘free’ online questions and tests, which are worse than useless because they mislead. These are designed to obtain your details, so that they can bombard you with unsolicited spam, marketing material, ‘phishing’ and various forms of online fraud.

• Insist on ‘seeing before buying’. Any genuine and authentic organization should offer to show all their materials before you spend a cent. Once purchases are made, you will have no recourse, and you will not receive a refund.

RTOs

• Beware of organisations which mislead by claiming that they are the only Registered Training Organisation in Australasia offering accredited UMAT training. MedEntry is a Registered Training Organisation (Australian national registration number is 21914) and its UMAT preparation course is nationally accredited by the government (Course Number 21818VIC).

Forums

• Avoid unauthentic online forums: they are not independent and are used as advertising and marketing tools which mislead and trap unsuspecting students/parents. Such forums are run anonymously and their purpose is to criticize and defame other providers whilst praising one provider lavishly. For example, numerous ‘made-up’ e-mail addresses are used to post on the forums to make the forum appear popular and compliment a provider’s products. These forums permit limited criticism of their own and limited praise of others’ services to be seen as unbiased. The bottom line is to only trust learning forums (such as MedEntry's) which you know are genuine because you know who the moderator is, who the contributors are and which organisation is behind it. Mark Twain said: “A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants” – this is particularly true with anonymous online forums.

• Any genuine and authentic on-line forum would make publicly available the verifiable name, address and contact details of the moderator and administrator, who are legally responsible for postings on the site. Please do not rely on information from sites which are not authentic and hide behind a ‘facade of anonymity’.

Message to Parents

• For more information and advice on preparing your son/daughter for the UMAT, please read our Message to Parents by clicking here.