3rd October 2020
Doesn’t the UCAT do a poor job of predicting medical school grades?
UCAT-bashers have long liked to claim that the UCAT isn’t valuable to universities because it doesn’t predict university grades very well. They miss two important points: first, smart university admissions officers don’t want it to predict grades, and second, it correlates very well with something more important than grades—real success in academic fields like medicin ...
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3rd October 2020
Doesn’t the UCAT just measure “test-taking skills”?
Unfortunately, some UCAT prep courses try to convince students that taking the UCAT has nothing to do with real academic skills. They prefer you to believe that it’s all about their test-taking “secrets.” This is great marketing for them, but little help for you. Although there are a few basic test-taking skills that you should know about—process of eliminat ...
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3rd October 2020
Speed Reading in UCAT
UCAT is not just a test of speed reading: it is more than that. It tests your higher order thinking skills as illustrated by Bloom’s taxonomy. However, improving your reading speed will certainly be of help in UCAT. Speed reading is a collection of reading methods which attempt to increase rates of reading without greatly compromising comprehension or ability to recall and analyse. ...
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3rd October 2020
Why is so much weight placed on just one test, the UCAT?
It may seem unfair that a two hour test is so important. Remember, though, that the UCAT is not a one-shot, all-or-nothing affair. Your standardised test scores account for about a third of your medical school entry, depending on which university you apply. The other essential components include your ATAR score and medical entrance interviews. Further, if you score poorly in the UCAT (due ...
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3rd October 2020
How to Guess in UCAT
When You Need to Guess in UCAT, Beware of Your Hunches You know that whenever you can make a quick guess on a question to avoid leaving it blank, you should take the shot. The key word here is quick; you can always afford to guess, but you can never afford to waste time. So, how should you guess? Let’s be clear about something: guessing does not mean selecting a choice at random. ...
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3rd October 2020
In UCAT, Do Not “Read into” Things!
Warning, Warning, Warning! Do Not “Read into” Things in UCAT One of the most dangerous traps smart students fall into while reading the UCAT passages is ‘reading into’ things. You should re-read in the context of what you’ve learned about the reading passage—you do not want to interpret what a passage says, or make any subtle assumptions. Restraining yo ...
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3rd October 2020
UCAT Preparation: Getting into the Right Frame of Mind
At the end of a season and leading up to the championship, athletes go through a “tapering phase” to make sure they perform at their peak when it counts. In a sense you’ve been a mental athlete, and you want to make sure that you perform at your peak when it counts: on the actual UCAT. For you, tapering consists of scaling back gradually the amount of preparation you&rsq ...
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3rd October 2020
The Day before the UCAT Test
The day before the UCAT If you haven’t already, make sure you know the location of your test centre. If you don’t know how to get to the centre, print out directions from Google Maps. If you haven’t taken a test before at your test centre, ask around among the seniors you know or go and check it out before, to see whether there’s anything you need to know ab ...
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3rd October 2020
The Night before the UCAT Test
The Night before the UCAT Test It’s fine if you want to see a movie or hang out with your friends until the early evening, but then get home. Before you get too tired, lay out everything you’re going to need tomorrow morning: a photo ID, your watch, ear plugs and water bottle. You will not be allowed to use scrap paper during the exam, so you won’t need to bring tha ...
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3rd October 2020
UCAT : The day of the UCAT test
Waking Up on the UCAT Test Morning When you wake up, consider taking a shower or doing some brief calisthenics or other exercise to get the blood flowing—especially to your groggy brain! If someone is taking you to the test site, make sure he or she is up, too. Eat a normal breakfast, but not too much or you’ll be groggy. If you’re used to consuming some form of caffe ...
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