In the game of UMAT practice, consistency beats brilliance. It is important that we not wait until we have lots of motivation before we start practicing. Good UMAT skills come about in the context of practicing in a more routine and ordinary manner, rather than sporadic bursts of insight. The goal should be gaining meaningful and valuable UMAT skills every time you practice. Expecting anything more may create too much pressure and lead to debilitating blocks and limitations. To be successful at the UMAT, you need to develop UMAT practice as a practice or discipline. UMAT = Meditation? In this...

Medical interviews Congratulations to those who got a medical interview. It is a good idea to prepare for the interview. You may need to have examples of role models during the interviews. If you need some some inspiration for finding your role model, we have found some inspiring doctors below. These short biographies of their notable work will be great for medical interviews.  Remember, MedEntry offers great medical interview training packages  and medical interview guide .  Frank Macfarlane Burnet An Australian virologist best known for his contributions to immunology . He won the Nobel Prize in 1960 for predicting acquired immune...

To be mentally tough is to resist the urge to give up in the face of failure, to maintain focus and determination in pursuit of your UMAT goals, and to emerge from adversity even stronger than before. Everyone can benefit from strengthening their resilience skills.  Mental toughness comes from thinking like an optimist. People who don’t give up have a habit of interpreting setbacks as temporary, local and changeable. When in the face of adversity, try to say to yourself, “It’s going away quickly; it’s just this one situation, and I can do something about it.” Analyze your beliefs and...

Stereotype threat can affect the way students perform in the UMAT.  Some students are vulnerable to “stereotype threat.” This is being aware the group they belong to is often stereotyped as intellectually inferior. The fear of confirming the stereotype by doing poorly on a test actually creates an anxiety. It is this anxiety that poorly affects their performance on a test, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Consider this study conducted at Stanford:  A group of undergraduates — some athletes and some not — was given a test made up of questions from the Graduate Record Examination (G.R.E.), the admissions test for...

Are you having a hard time motivating yourself to study for the UMAT? The tools we often reach for when we need to get ourselves moving are carrots (rewarding ourselves once a tough job is done) or sticks (depriving ourselves of something we want if we fail to do it). These are "extrinsic rewards". But such  extrinsic  rewards and punishments are not as effective as  intrinsic  ones. Intrinsic rewards come from your own person - you believe that if you do a certain thing, it will make you a better, more knowledgable person.  Here, six ways to find the intrinsic...

Learning is not just about sitting in front of a text book and hoping the content will diffuse into your mind through osmosis. In order to learn effectively, you must learn actively, not passively. Active learning will allow you to engage with what you are learning and absorb it faster. New study strategies will also be introduced in this article so you can in-corporate them into your UMAT study. This will give your UMAT study sessions a direction and allow you to set goals.  What is active learning? Active learning is all about engaging with what you are learning and...

-           For the few weeks before the test, if not longer, you've been preoccupied with the UMAT. Maybe you've let a few things slide: homework, co-curricular activities, your friends, fun. Now it's time to catch up on anything that's fallen behind and to return to your normal routine after the UMAT.    We know you may be feeling a little anti-climactic after getting all geared up for the UMAT that's now over, but don't forget other tests that may be looming on the horizon. You've worked hard preparing for the UMAT and it's natural to want to relax a bit. But please, please don't blow off your Year 12 exams; they are just...

Your UMAT scores depend on how much you know, but they also depend on  how well you can apply what you know.  If you are nervous, distracted, or in a bad mood during the UMAT, you may have a hard time concentrating and harnessing your knowledge. Here are some basic tips to help you control your nerves on the day of the UMAT.  Think Positively.  This tip cannot be emphasized enough. Getting down on yourself during the test does more than make you feel bad during the UMAT! In fact, it is taking away your body's support system. If you...

Below are a few useful tips as to how to stay in control during the UMAT.  Distractions: One of the things you'll probably have to deal with during the UMAT is distractions. This may be someone sniffling, or coughing, or tapping a pencil. In fact there have even been stories of distractions ranging from pile drivers at a nearby construction site to the school's symphonic band practicing outside!  The most important thing is to not let these distractions get to you, use them as a reminder to get back to the UMAT in front of you.  Keep moving while the...

You have rehearsed for this day for the past few months, so here are a few final tips that you have no doubt heard before. Here at MedEntry, we want to make sure that you have as smooth a UMAT experience as possible.  Please share this article with your friends or family if you think they need some final tips as well.  1. Read and Think carefully.  Consider all the choices in each question on the UMAT. Don't lose points on easy UMAT questions through careless mistakes. 2. Use your UMAT test booklet.  Your UMAT answer sheet must be kept...

Here are some useful tips MedEntry has for you the morning of the UMAT:  When you wake up on the day of the UMAT, consider taking a shower or doing some brief exercise to get the blood flowing.  If your parent, guardian, friend or relative is taking you to the UMAT, make sure they are up too.  Eat a normal breakfast on the morning of the UMAT, by that we mean eat whatever you eat normally for breakfast. You don't want to eat too much, or something that you don't normally eat as it may upset your stomach or cause...

Need Some help finding the right UMAT package? MedEntry has packages to suit all your UMAT needs. Simply follow the flowchart to see which package will suit you best for the UMAT. Please note: Students will have access to the MedEntry materials from the date of purchase until the UMAT test date in July. Footnotes from flowchart:  * Previous Student = Students who had a MedEntry package in the previous year. A Last Year's Student discount applies to any consecutive year purchase. Apply discount when you checkout. ** Current Candidate = students in the latter half of year 11 or...

MedEntry offers UMAT Coaching in all parts of Australia, including Sydney. Regular UMAT Coaching Workshops are held throughout the year at the University of Technology, Sydney. Sydney UMAT Workshops:  Our UMAT lecturers offer useful tips on solving each type of problem in an effective manner. Exclusive to MedEntry, these two-day workshops in Sydney are usually split into coaching on the first day and sitting a practice exam on the second. The dates for the Sydney UMAT Coaching workshops may be viewed here . Aside from UMAT workshops, the MedEntry UMAT Coaching Program in Sydney also offers online practice questions to...

Transcript of video:  Top tips for multiple choice in the UMAT The UMAT consists of only multiple choice questions. While multiple choice means they give you the correct answer as one of the options, choosing it is not as easy as it seems. Here are some useful tips for answering multiple choice questions for the UMAT   ·          Answer all questions. For Logical reasoning, problem solving and understanding people questions in the UMAT you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting the right answer. In Non-Verbal Reasoning questions, a 1 in 5 chance, so why not go for...

The internet is a vast expanse of information. It’s where we go to find out the latest news about everything. The downside is it can distract us from studying for the UMAT. During UMAT prep time you should be focused. You should try and use this time to simulate exam conditions you will face on the day. Culling your distractions is not easy, but you can make the first move to use your time more wisely. ColdTurkey ColdTurkey is a great program for those who cannot resist visiting distracting websites during UMAT study time. You can set ColdTurkey to block...

Have you ever thought about  using books to prepare for the UMAT?   Before you go and spend your money on UMAT books there are a few things worth considering:   Unlike online materials which can be regularly updated, the publisher of such books is unable to amend them in keeping with the frequent changes that do occur in the UMAT. There is no way of seeing other reader reviews of such publications, so how will you know what your peers think of them? Is the author well versed in all facets of the UMAT and how much experience do...

  Transcript of video: The passages that you are required to read and understand in the UMAT can be long and dense. Absorbing enough information from the passages to answer the questions can be difficult and your brain will not be able to recall all the information that you read from a passage. However, passages can be broken down into simpler forms to help you better process and recall the passages when it comes to answering the questions. Passages may be simplified using paraphrasing. This helps transform the big, complex paragraphs and passages into small bite-sized pieces of information. Good...

  Everyone has their own concept of the world, of how they interpret and predict stimuli. This “concept” is underpinned by their philosophical approach to life. Whilst philosophy may seem to be a branch of knowledge best left for academics, the truth is we all utilize some form of it. It surprises some people when they are told they use philosophy in just about everything they do – even science. The way we gain knowledge and enquire about it is greatly impacted by how we view the world. In the UMAT, you will encounter questions that require you to evaluate...

So you have bought a package and started your practise. Well done! You are on your way to improving your UMAT score already. Now it is time to develop effective revisions skills that prepares you mentally and physically. Practise is no good if your nerves let you down. Even elite athletes at the Olympics who practise for years crumple due to nerves. Don’t let that be you! Don’t save your exams!  The most important thing to remember when doing UMAT practise is – DON’T “save” your practise exams until the last month. Doing that basically leaves you with one month...

A lot of people think because their final year of school is such a busy one, they should forget about doing the UMAT and focus on their studies instead. Some say, “Don’t worry if you are not sitting the UMAT, you can always just sit the GAMSAT during Uni and get into Medicine that way”. Whilst this is true, the graduate entry route is no doubt harder. You compete with a far wider range of test takers. The percentage of students who actually get into Graduate Medicine is also far lower than the UMAT percentage intake. The decision to sit...