3rd October 2020
Does UCAT coaching work?
Psychometric tests such as UCAT have been in use in Australia for the last 25 years, but in the US numerous such tests have been in use for well over a century. Coaching organisations are therefore well established there. The officials at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) at Princeton say that they have no objection to the coaching because what is important is that students learn the ski ...
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3rd October 2020
Time management in UCAT
Timing is perhaps the most stress-inducing factor of the UCAT exam. If the UCAT were at take-home test, you would all score well. Managing time is the key. Most of your MedEntry UCAT practice will include timed sections, allowing you to become more familiar and comfortable with the pacing of the exam. The UCAT is not a test of intelligence. Although it is used as a predictor for success in ...
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3rd October 2020
UCAT Prep: Establish your personal scoring goals
Your main goal should be to maximise your potential on the actual UCAT test. Very few students get every question right. You have to be realistic. Strive to work within your own abilities. Students often ask: How does my practice test performance translate to how I will perform on the actual UCAT test? Questions are “graded” for difficulty throughout the MedEntry UCAT prep ...
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3rd October 2020
Why do universities need UCAT scores? Isn’t my ATAR enough?
Good university admissions officers will use your UCAT scores to help them assess your readiness to do tough medical school work. Although the UCAT does not assess broad subject knowledge, it provides a universal benchmark that your high school transcript can’t. It assesses skills that are essential to succeed in a competitive Australian medical school: problem solving, data interpreta ...
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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 to l ...
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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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