What external resources should I use? How should I use them?

Let’s first talk about the most common method of preparation: online UCAT platforms. The most commonly used ones are Medify, Medentry, and the official UCAT resources (click link to go to each page). Personally, I used all three and the following are my thoughts on each:

Medify (PAID):

• Difficulty of questions was most similar to the real exam
• Offers questionbanks for each section, up to 10 mocks for each section, and 21 full-length mocks
• Allows you to review performance for certain question-types and select those specific areas for practice
• Shows how long you spent on each question compared to others
• Shows you percentage of people that selected each option in a question, which allows you to see where you stand relatively
• Doesn’t offer percentile information after mocks, but provides your performance-equivalent score for each section (according to how well you did compared to others who completed the same exam)
• Shows you progress bar of how well you’re doing in each section and each question-type in that section compared to others on dashboard
• Provides in-depth answers to each question
• Extensive resources for learning the theory behind each subtest as well as strategies
• Would 100% recommend to anyone preparing for the UCAT (would recommend Medentry more for interview preparation and individualised training)

Medentry (PAID):

• Difficulty of QR was a bit excessive, but the rest was pretty similar to the real exam
• Offers questionbanks for each section, subtest mocks, and 10 full-length mocks (you can choose to purchase five additional full-length mocks)
• Offers trainers to develop skills for each section (e.g. a calculator speed trainer) but I personally did not use any
• Provides in-depth answers to each question and explains strategy used to approach questions when you’re reviewing the questionbank, subtest mock or full-length mocks
• Shows how long you spent on each question in a graph as well as compared to others (helpful if you want to visualise and target areas/question-types you spent too long in)
• Shows you percentage of people that selected each option in a question, which allows you to see where you stand relatively
• Shows you progress bar of how well you’re doing in each section and each question-type in that section compared to others on dashboard
• Offers percentile scores after mocks as well as performance-equivalent score (according to how well you did compared to others who completed the same exam)
• Would recommend to anyone preparing for the UCAT if they are looking for supplementary practice, interview preparation (they provide university-specific preparation), and application tips for Australian/NZ universities
• Extensive resources for learning the theory behind each subtest as well as strategies
• Offers different packages for how personalised you want the training to be, if you want to include interview preparation, and if you want to attend workshops
• Offers live workshops and events with other doctors and students (very engaging)

Official UCAT resources (FREE):

• All of the questions were harder than what I and several others experiences in the real exam
• Limited number of mocks and questionbank questions
• No section or question-specific strategies offered

Final thoughts: I would personally recommend Medify but it is up to you to choose which methods of preparation work best for you!

Throughout my preparation, I read through several posts on blogs and student forums such as ATARNotes, medstudentsonline, the /ucat subreddit on Reddit, and Medentry. I highly recommend you go to these forums whenever you have a question or just want some advice on the UCAT (as well as the general medical/dental entrance process)

On these forums, you can:

• Ask questions about pretty much anything
• Access personal stories and experiences other people have had with the UCAT, Medify, Medentry and the entrance process (these stories actually gave me a lot of motivation whenever I was dealing with stress or bad scores)
• Access advice on preparing for the UCAT and the healthcare field
• Compare scores you achieved on Medify or Medentry with other people
• Access helpful updates post-UCAT (e.g. what others got and scores required to get into certain universities based on past records)
• Be part of a very active and supportive community

The following threads are some of the ones I read over during my preparation:

• https://medstudentsonline.com.au/forum/threads/predicting-ucat-scores-from-mock-exam-results.35614/
• https://medstudentsonline.com.au/forum/threads/aus-med-and-dent-place-offers-2019-collated-data.35166/
• https://medstudentsonline.com.au/forum/threads/aus-med-and-dent-place-offers-2018-collated-data.34443/
• https://medstudentsonline.com.au/forum/threads/predicting-ucat-scores-from-mock-exam-results.35614/#post-354713
• https://medstudentsonline.com.au/forum/threads/predicting-ucat-scores-from-mock-exam-results.35614/#post-354713
• https://atarnotes.com/forum/index.php?topic=151806.0

I also came across The Medic Blog during my UCAT preparation, which was helpful in gathering general tips for my preparation. Here’s an article I used to assess my performance on Medify: https://themedicblog.co.uk/ucat-conversion-table/

Finally, if you would like to go the extra step in achieving a high UCAT score, I would recommend getting a tutor to assist in your UCAT preparation. All our Excel Academics UCAT tutors have scored in the top 5% of the exam and are experienced teachers with proven UCAT success. They take a personal 1-on-1 approach, being there for you as your friend, mentor and teacher! In addition to teaching you section-specific strategies, they will help you build a personalised study system that works for you, your abilities and your schedule. It’s all about you! You no longer need to worry about building a plan and going through such a gruelling process all by yourself – our tutors will be by your side every step of the way.

I know I’ve mentioned reviewing performance quite a bit, but what do I actually mean? There are multiple ways to review, but these are the general methods I followed to improve my performance:

• See which TYPES of questions you usually get wrong and target them in your practice
• Update your strategy as you find more efficient methods and errors in your process
• Write down any specific tips you learned from the questions i.e. ones you think you can apply to other questions in the future
• Pay attention to how long you spend on each question and identify areas where you spend too much time. Work on improving your speed for these
• Actually read and digest the explanation for answers you get wrong. I know it can be quite tedious, but it really does help!

Now, here are some general tips for your UCAT preparation:

• Use ear plugs if you need to during the exam
• Don’t eat or drink anything during mocks to get used to doing to the same for the real exam
• Make sure to balance resting and time for yourself / for things you enjoy doing with your exams. Your identity is defined by so much more than your UCAT score or ATAR!
• Don’t neglect your ATAR for the UCAT. Instead try to incorporate UCAT preparation into your daily routine, balancing other commitments accordingly
• Mimic actual test conditions – BE STRICT WITH YOURSELF
• START PREPARATION EARLY!!
• Know how much time you should spend on each question and build your speed
• Triage (know when to skip). Whenever a question is too long or too complicated, flag, guess and move on. Come back to these questions later if you have time. In the end, each question is worth the same number of marks, and you don’t HAVE to answer all of them (especially for VR) – just get as much as you can done and follow the strategy that works for you. When doing mocks, I usually go through one round where I answer all the easy questions and get those easy marks, skipping any long questions. Then I come back for a second round, where I attempt these longer questions, knowing I didn’t miss out on any easy marks
• Use the whiteboard to make problems easier to interpret, remember key pieces of information, and keep track of your thinking process

For more in-depth information and strategies, go to the subtest-specific articles linked at the top of this page.

How do I sign up for the UCAT? When is it?

You can sign up for the UCAT using the Pearson website. Registrations are typically open from March to May, with testing period being between July and August.

How is the UCAT used for universities?

The UCAT is usually used along with your ATAR to decide whether you receive an interview offer – which then decides whether you receive an offer into the university for their medical/dental program. However, the weighting for each criteria is different across universities, with the following article listing the requirements for entrance into each university: https://www.medentry.edu.au/blog/medicine-prerequisites-what-are-the-requirements-for-studying-medicine-at-each-university

Also, you can use the aforementioned student forums to see what results were required to get into specific universities from previous years (medstudentsonline is especially useful for this).

UCAT Quantitative Reasoning Section

Personal Experience and General Tips

Quantitative Reasoning is the most intuitive section in the UCAT, especially if you’re into STEM. It’s not hard maths, it’s FAST maths!

In this section, you will have to answer 36 questions in 25 minutes. There are four broad question types: Algebra, Statistics, Number and Geometry.

Quantitative Reasoning revolves around interpreting data sets, word problems and solving numerical problems. The maths is actually quite simple, but it is usually the details in the tables and graphs, or certain wording that throws most people off. That’s why it’s ALWAYS important to read the question carefully and translate it into the correct mathematical equivalent i.e. correct equation to solve. This use usually the strongest section for most people as it would be what we are most familiar with starting out. However, it still requires consistent practice to get used to spotting certain details, trick questions, and calculations that many would initially trip up on.

In practicing for this section of the UCAT, I developed a few general methods to approaching it:

• If you have enough time to prepare for the exam i.e. a couple months, it is definitely worthwhile improving your mental computation skills. This is so you don’t have to waste time using a calculator or writing things down, which gives you more time to attempt other questions. I did this by downloading a mental math app on the app store and practicing on it for 5 mins a day.
• Although I just suggested you just improve your mental maths, from my personal experience, improving my calculator speed helped my exam performance much more. Being fast and efficient at using the calculator saved me a LOT of time during the exam, and I would highly recommend you train your calculator typing skills, too! I trained mine for 5 mins a day using the following website: https://www.typingstudy.com/numeric_keypad. Make sure to use a desktop keyboard as that is what will be provided to you in the real exam.
• Guess and skip long questions (e.g. long words problems), and come back to them later if time permits. Every question is worth the same number of marks, so it is better to attempt easier, shorter ones that you are more likely to get correct than waste time on long or difficult problems. The timing is a bit more relaxed in this section so you usually get time to come back to questions you flagged
• Ensure you’ve translated the question into the correct mathematical equation. Do this by paying attention to wording, table headings, graph headings, and double-checking questions IF you have time.
• First, go over the theory and brush up on any maths required by doing untimed QR questions. As you progress onto timed questions, find faster, more efficient ways to do certain calculations (ones that work for you). Write these down so you don’t forget!
• Get used to calculations required for each question type and make them second nature so you don’t have to think much about them. This means acquainting yourself with percentages, fractions, probability etc.
• Write down important values on your whiteboard. Don’t erase them as this may be important for subsequent questions of the same set (e.g. don’t erase the sum of prices for a certain product as it could be used again in a later question in that set). Sets are usually 2-5 questions long.

Strategies to use in the test

The following strategies sheet is what helped me get a 900 for the QR section in the real UCAT. I can’t guarantee you’ll achieve the same, but this sheet consists of some of the strategies that helped me a lot in the actual exam:

https://excelacademics.notion.site/All-UCAT-Strategy-Sheets-1b5b3df8164942f4b705f03f78cc7cbb?pvs=4

External resources to use to practice and find more info

From my personal experience, the Medify QR questionbank and mock tests were the most helpful in preparing for this section. The level of difficulty was similar to the real exam and the explanations for questions definitely helped formulate effective strategies for each question type. I also tried out Medentry but found the difficulty and timing unrealistic – so if you are using Medentry, don’t be too disappointed by your results as, in my experience, the questions were much harder than the actual exam.

UCAT Abstract Reasoning Section

Personal Experience and General Tips

Abstract Reasoning is the most fast-paced section in the UCAT, with only a few seconds being allocated to answering each question!

In this section, you will have to answer 50 questions in 13 minutes. There are four question types: Set A, B or Neither, Complete Series, Complete Statement and Set A or B.

Abstract Reasoning revolves around pattern recognition. Initially, it may be the most challenging (you might get pretty bad scores like I had) as the subtest is quite unfamiliar to what you would have experienced in the past – BUT it is by far the easiest to improve in (I went from 550 to getting 890 in the real UCAT). It just takes a lot of practice!

In practicing for this section of the UCAT, I developed a few general methods to approaching it:

• Don’t be bummed out by bad scores in your initial exam. AR is super easy to improve in as long as you put in the practice!
• Write down patterns you get wrong or you’re unfamiliar with in a big google document (or similar). Go over these patterns at the end of each week to build familiarity and make pattern recognition second nature.
• Follow a strategy/approach for each question type – one that works for you. I would suggest going through my strategies sheet below and adjusting each to your preferences. This automates your thinking process and saves you a lot of time by allowing you to have a consistent method to go through.
• Practice untimed questions in the beginning, going through your strategy and tweaking it until it works for you. Keep staring at the shapes and test every possible pattern you can think of until you identify the pattern that works. This practice is required to train your brain to identify different shapes and patterns even when at first it seems that there aren’t any. Once you have a strategy for each question type, move onto timed questions to practice applying the strategy under pressure
• As tempting as it might be to look at the solutions, always try to figure out the pattern by yourself (especially when reviewing questions you got wrong in your practice or you couldn’t answer)
• There can only be so many patterns! If you go over a large volume of them, you’ll be able to spot small variations from the core patterns more easily. All you have to do is practice a LOT! And that too, consistently. I practiced using the AR questionbank on Medify for around 20 mins everyday throughout my UCAT preparation.
• It goes super fast so guess and skip questions if you don’t get the pattern in under 10 seconds (come back to them later, but still guess in case you’re not able to come back)

Strategies to use in the test

The following strategies sheet is what helped me get an 890 for the AR section in the real UCAT. I can’t guarantee you’ll achieve the same, but this sheet was my go-to for every single question in the AR subtest.

https://excelacademics.notion.site/All-UCAT-Strategy-Sheets-1b5b3df8164942f4b705f03f78cc7cbb?pvs=4

External resources to use to practice and find more info

From my personal experience, the Medify AR questionbank and mock tests were the most helpful in preparing for this section. The level of difficulty was similar to the real exam and the sheer volume of questions available made it a reliable source of practice throughout my preparation. I would highly recommend using it!

UCAT Decision Making Section

Personal Experience and General Tips

Decision Making in the UCAT exam can be thought of as combination between verbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning. It can be confusing at first, but, again, dissecting approaches to each question type makes improvement much easier!

In this section, you will have to answer 29 questions in 31 minutes. There are six question types named: drawing conclusions, logical puzzles, interpreting information, venn diagrams, evaluating arguments and probability

Decision Making involves applying logic to various situations as well as interpreting graphs and diagrams. The correct logic for each scenario takes time and practice to develop, as you go through questions and become aware of certain fallacies and faults in your initial logic. This section really pushes you to consider all possibilities for each answer and scrutinise them by following a logical process (one that suits you). Decision making is also quite intuitive but, in my experience, thoroughly reviewing mistakes and practicing areas of weakness was the single biggest contributor to my improvement!

In practicing for this section of the UCAT, I developed a few general methods to approaching it:

• Have a well-practiced strategy for each question type (Venn diagrams, logic puzzles, logical deduction, probability, analysis & interpretation). The smaller number of question types in this exam makes developing strategies pretty straightforward, and as the time constraints aren’t too tight, you’ll have time to apply them to each question.
• Thoroughly review questions you got incorrect and write down WHY. This helps you by fixing logical misconceptions you may have previously had, showing you the correct way to ‘think’ about each question, and identify common things you have to check before responding to problems (e.g. if any options generalise data).
• Use whiteboard to visualise/process problems and write down important connections or implications. Basically, draw or write down anything that will make the problem more concise and clearer for you to answer – in my case, drawing tables, diagrams, and venn diagrams helped especially with logic puzzles and logic deduction questions. The whiteboard should be your best friend for this section!
• I highly recommend going over all theory and, if you can, logic and proposition rules. The latter helped me significantly in logic puzzles and deductions as it helped me spot mistakes in reasoning that would have been hard to decipher without previous knowledge.
• Improve venn diagram interpretation speed. You can do this by practicing this specific question type on Medify or Medentry. This method actually helped improve my score a lot as venn diagram questions are usually very easy to get correct – so it is best to be fast at solving them and moving onto the rest of the exam.
• Don’t make any assumptions and don’t jump to any conclusions. If you can’t draw a conclusion based solely on the information presented to you in the passage, then you shouldn’t make your own conclusion.
• Don’t forget to pay careful attention to the specific words used when statements are made. These words will often describe the likelihood of something occurring e.g. “commonly”, “often”, “rarely” etc
• Follow clear logic. Write down some phrases that help you simplify the complicated situations given to you in each passage e.g. “If the table is black then it must have a white chair however, if the table is green but with a yellow book, it must have a green chair” can be simplified as “Bt -> Wc (Black table -> White chair) and Gt + Yb -> Gc (Green table AND Yellow book -> Green chair)”.
• This section often leaves you with a bit more luxury time at the end. Take advantage of this to go back to the harder questions that you’ve guessed or flagged.

Strategies to use in the test

The following strategies sheet is what helped me get an 800 for the DM section in the real UCAT. I can’t guarantee you’ll achieve the same, but this sheet lists ALL strategies I used for this section as well as specific rules to implement in your logic:

https://excelacademics.notion.site/All-UCAT-Strategy-Sheets-1b5b3df8164942f4b705f03f78cc7cbb?pvs=4

External resources to use to practice and find more info

From my personal experience, the Medify DM questionbank and mock tests were very good practice but ended up being a bit easier compared to the real exam. I highly recommend using the UCAT Consortium resources to supplement your practice with Medify (or Medentry) as the difficulty is more accurate – and the more practice the better!

UCAT Verbal Reasoning Section

Personal Experience and General Tips

Verbal Reasoning is the section most people struggle with – and for good reason!

In this section, you will have to answer 44 VR questions and in 21 minutes. You will encounter two question types: reading comprehension and true, false and can’t tell questions.

Verbal Reasoning is usually people’s weakest section as the passages can be quite long and the questions require a lot of scanning and inference to answer correctly. For people who aren’t very good at VR (like myself), the goal is usually to optimise performance in other sections to compensation for this one. To be completely honest, this method has been very effective for most people I know as well as myself as the preparation time for the UCAT may be insufficient in significantly improving one’s reading comprehension – a skill that others may have worked on developing for most their life. This is why it is important to be realistic with how much improvement you expect in this section and decide where to put your time and effort in accordingly. Nevertheless, if you are good at VR it is definitely worth brushing up on your skills by practicing with VR questionbanks and, in general, reading non-fiction texts regularly!

Strategies to use in the test

The following strategies sheet is what I used to prepare myself for the real UCAT. It lists strategies that many people recommend using and lists countless tips on how to approach questions:

https://excelacademics.notion.site/All-UCAT-Strategy-Sheets-1b5b3df8164942f4b705f03f78cc7cbb?pvs=4

External resources to use to practice and find more info

From my personal experience, the Medify VR questionbank and mock tests were very good practice for the real exam. I also read non-fiction books and the news regularly (this has always been a habit of mine) to supplement my practice, increasing reading speed and improving comprehension.

UCAT Situational Judgement Section

Personal Experience and General Tips

Situational Judgement is a section in the UCAT that requires the most emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills to do well in!

In this section, you will have to answer 69 questions in 26 minutes. There are two question types: Appropriateness and Importance.

Difficulty-wise, the situational judgement test is very straightforward once you have memorised all the theory (which can be found on Medify or Medentry) – it is simply a matter of applying what you have learned and having some level of empathy. The scenarios are quite short to read, which in my experience, allowed for plenty of time to answer questions after thorough analysis and assessment. As most Australian universities don’t consider Situational Judgement in their selection process, students usually neglect studying and practicing for it. If you are applying to said universities, then I recommend you focus more on the other sections. However, with that being said, I still do think it’s very important to learn the ethical and interpersonal side of medicine as it aids your interview preparation and will generally make you a more informed, empathetic doctor.

Strategies to use in the test

The following strategies sheet is what I used to prepare myself for the real UCAT. It lists strategies that many people recommend using and lists countless tips on how to approach questions:

https://excelacademics.notion.site/All-UCAT-Strategy-Sheets-1b5b3df8164942f4b705f03f78cc7cbb?pvs=4

External resources to use to practice and find more info

From my personal experience, the Medify SJ questionbank, mock tests, and learning material were more than enough in helping me prepare for the real exam. I also used the following texts to solidify all the concepts I learned using Medify:

• https://www.educacionmedica.net/pdf/documentos/modelos/tomorrowdoc.pdf
• https://www.gmc-uk.org/ethical-guidance/ethical-guidance-for-doctors/good-medical-practice/duties-of-a-doctor#knowledge-skills-and-performance
• https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/documents/good-medical-practice—english-20200128_pdf-51527435.pdf?la=en&hash=DA1263358CCA88F298785FE2BD7610EB4EE9A530

What to do after sitting the UCAT

After sitting the UCAT, you can access your scores within 15 mins through the Pearson Portal. To get a relative idea of how competitive your scores are, you can input them into the percentile calculator on the UCAT Consortium website for the previous year. This will give you a percentile, but seeing as how high scores are progressively corresponding to lower percentiles, your percentile for your year may be slightly lower.

If you get a low score, you have a couple of options:

• Apply to a university that doesn’t require the UCAT e.g. JCU, Griffith, USYD, or University of Melbourne
• Take a gap year and retake the UCAT. Reassess what went wrong: did you not give yourself enough time for preparation? Did you not apply effective strategies? Did your nerves give you performance anxiety? Use the time to improve on your performance and be 100% ready next time around.
• If you get a high ATAR, you could instead enter a medical-related undergraduate degree and possibly transfer into a postgraduate medicine degree once you finish. At The University of This this is contingent on your WAM and an interview process. These are usually called ‘guaranteed entry pathways’
• Start a degree and retake the UCAT during your degree to transfer courses
• Consider postgraduate options: start a degree and take the GAMSAT to transfer courses

Take this opportunity to reflect on why you want to do medicine/dentistry and if it really is the right path for you. This reflection period will either solidify your motivation to enter the medical field or possibly open up new doors for a career that is better suited to you! You should not be going into the medical field just because you want money and prestige. Medical school is long and tough, and you have to possess not only the interest, but the dedication to commit the rest of your life to it.

If you get a good score, CONGRATULATIONS!! Here are the next couple of steps to take:

• Ensure your ATAR is competitive
• Start your medical school application process
• Start your interview preparation

The UCAT is a demanding exam, putting students under extreme time pressure and challenging their critical thinking skills. However, preparation is key to succeeding and will facilitate improvement no matter how difficult the exam may initially seem.

Good luck and I wish you all the best!

This blog was written by our Chemistry tutor, Sreeya. You can find her profile here.