[StellaRawr11]

ok so im doing UKCAT early but i've already prepared it for like, a month
I tried doing LOTS of questions, including the 600 UKCAT question book

I just want to know, that if the real thing as hard as the practice test on the official UKCAT website?

Because the QR (the maths one) I just dont get.
Im good at maths (i've got A* for GCSE maths) but i cant do all of the 40 questions in 21 minutes, so i have to guess sometimes

the thing is, the whole table data questions just confuses me a lot and it makes me paranoid, and eventually I'd panick because i know Im going to have to spend more than 1 minute on all the table questions

The time clock thing just makes me crazy and i would just rush through the whole thing and get like 48~59%

I need to get good marks so I dont have to take it again or waste my parents money!!!!

Can anyone please please please HELP MEEE x'(((

[racheatworld]

Okay. You've already identified your weakness: the table questions. This is probably because you are spending too much time looking at the table, the reading the question, then going back and working out which part of the table you need to use, before you find the answer.

Next time you do a UKCAT practice test, skip ALL of the table questions, flag them an move on.

Read through every other question and see if you can do any of them very quickly - for example, calculating means, medians or modes, or simple multiplication. If you don't know how to do a question within 7 seconds, flag it and move on.

At the end, leave 30 seconds to go through flagged questions. Go through them all again and see if there are any you can now work out now that your "Maths" brain has warmed up. If not, don't worry. Just randomly guess them. Don't stress out if you have to guess questions, everyone will have to guess at least one questions in the UKCAT, purely because of the ridiculous time limits.

[Jin3011]

(Original post by racheatworld)
Okay. You've already identified your weakness: the table questions. This is probably because you are spending too much time looking at the table, the reading the question, then going back and working out which part of the table you need to use, before you find the answer.

Next time you do a UKCAT practice test, skip ALL of the table questions, flag them an move on.

Read through every other question and see if you can do any of them very quickly - for example, calculating means, medians or modes, or simple multiplication. If you don't know how to do a question within 7 seconds, flag it and move on.

At the end, leave 30 seconds to go through flagged questions. Go through them all again and see if there are any you can now work out now that your "Maths" brain has warmed up. If not, don't worry. Just randomly guess them. Don't stress out if you have to guess questions, everyone will have to guess at least one questions in the UKCAT, purely because of the ridiculous time limits.

Well done on your amazing score How did you practise for QR?

[sanaindaclub]

If you do decided to guess some questions (dw,everyone guesses a few) make sure you pick the same letter each time!

[racheatworld]

(Original post by Jin3011)
Well done on your amazing score How did you practise for QR?

Thank-you (my score was for last years entry).

I went through all of the 600 Q book QR questions, which I researched and found via TSR that they were much harder than the real test. I did all of these around 2 weeks before my real test. I started doing them un-timed, and then I began to complete them under the times conditions I would use in the real test. If you read at the start of the 600 Q book/or check the UKCAT website, they tell you how long you have for each section, and so from the number of questions I worked out how long I could spend (on average) on each question. Doing this with the harder questions enabled me to be very strict with my timings. Therefore, when I got into the real test and I found that my QR questions were so much easier than the 600 Q book (as expected), I had enough time for each question. I also used many other sources, I found a Kaplan test on the internet, used resources from this amazing thread on TSR, and did the official UKCAT practice tests.

Also, I fully recommend getting to grips with the on-screen calculator. That thing was the bane of my life.

QR was my worst section in practice, and my best in the real thing (I got 800!).

[StellaRawr11]

(Original post by racheatworld)
Okay. You've already identified your weakness: the table questions. This is probably because you are spending too much time looking at the table, the reading the question, then going back and working out which part of the table you need to use, before you find the answer.

Next time you do a UKCAT practice test, skip ALL of the table questions, flag them an move on.

Read through every other question and see if you can do any of them very quickly - for example, calculating means, medians or modes, or simple multiplication. If you don't know how to do a question within 7 seconds, flag it and move on.

At the end, leave 30 seconds to go through flagged questions. Go through them all again and see if there are any you can now work out now that your "Maths" brain has warmed up. If not, don't worry. Just randomly guess them. Don't stress out if you have to guess questions, everyone will have to guess at least one questions in the UKCAT, purely because of the ridiculous time limits.

I rarely see the mean and median questions??? (i think, i didnt really see them in the practice test in the official UKCAT site)

so compare to the practice test u did on the UKCAT site, was it harder than real test, or was it the same level?? cuz it took me like forever to work them out!

also what about the table with the texts? sometimes its so small i can barely see them or even have time to read all of them!!

do u think i should spend 10 minutes on doing all the questions i can and 5 minutes guessing all the questions i cant do and 5 minutes going over them and make sure?

[Varsh05]

Do they change the UKCAT test everyday for the whole of July and August??

[racheatworld]

(Original post by StellaRawr11)
I rarely see the mean and median questions??? (i think, i didnt really see them in the practice test in the official UKCAT site)

so compare to the practice test u did on the UKCAT site, was it harder than real test, or was it the same level?? cuz it took me like forever to work them out!

also what about the table with the texts? sometimes its so small i can barely see them or even have time to read all of them!!

do u think i should spend 10 minutes on doing all the questions i can and 5 minutes guessing all the questions i cant do and 5 minutes going over them and make sure?

The UKCAT practice tests on the official website were slightly harder in QR than my real test, but not by much. Yes, the mean and median questions are rare - I just used them as an example of some easy questions that you will be able to do in a short space on time. Like simple multiplication, reading straight from a graph.

No, only leave 30 seconds for guessing. 5 minutes in too much, unless you have flagged A LOT of the questions. In 30 seconds you can guess around 10 questions if you select the same letter each time and quickly move on.

(Original post by Varsh05)
Do they change the UKCAT test everyday for the whole of July and August??

They have a very large bank of questions and the questions that you get for each test are randomly selected from this bank. So no, not everybody on the same day has the same questions.

[Varsh05]

(Original post by racheatworld)
The UKCAT practice tests on the official website were slightly harder in QR than my real test, but not by much. Yes, the mean and median questions are rare - I just used them as an example of some easy questions that you will be able to do in a short space on time. Like simple multiplication, reading straight from a graph.

No, only leave 30 seconds for guessing. 5 minutes in too much, unless you have flagged A LOT of the questions. In 30 seconds you can guess around 10 questions if you select the same letter each time and quickly move on.




They have a very large bank of questions and the questions that you get for each test are randomly selected from this bank. So no, not everybody on the same day has the same questions.

Oh okay,they must have loadsss of questions then! -.-

[racheatworld]

(Original post by Varsh05)
Oh okay,they must have loadsss of questions then! -.-

They obviously don't have so many questions that nobody is ever asked the same question, but they will have a fair few so that most people's tests will not be identical.

[StellaRawr11]

Been doing some questions on the QR on the 600 questions book last few days, i think what i lack of is confidence but i still do those maths question for about 1~2 minute, excluding the time to read them (which may take 1~2 min) what should i do with this, should i just leave it as it is??

Also for verbal reasoning, what should you focus the most in the long essays? and for Abstract reasoning, i think there are only 16 minutes for 65 questions?!?! should i guess most of them or what??

what about decision analysis, do u just skimm through the codes in your head, or do u write it down?
i know writing it down would take time but!!

could you give the % of how much to guess on each section please? thank you x((

[sukee]

(Original post by StellaRawr11)
Been doing some questions on the QR on the 600 questions book last few days, i think what i lack of is confidence but i still do those maths question for about 1~2 minute, excluding the time to read them (which may take 1~2 min) what should i do with this, should i just leave it as it is??

Also for verbal reasoning, what should you focus the most in the long essays? and for Abstract reasoning, i think there are only 16 minutes for 65 questions?!?! should i guess most of them or what??

what about decision analysis, do u just skimm through the codes in your head, or do u write it down?
i know writing it down would take time but!!

could you give the % of how much to guess on each section please? thank you x((

Once you identify the pattern between the 2 sets, placing the 5 test boxes into either one of the sets shouldn't take you long (prob 5 seconds each).

[Varsh05]

(Original post by racheatworld)
They obviously don't have so many questions that nobody is ever asked the same question, but they will have a fair few so that most people's tests will not be identical.

Lool,I know what you mean!

[StellaRawr11]

I've just done the real UKCAT test in the test centre this morning and got a score of 615! I couldve done better but VR kinda pulled the average down

is that good enough and is it true that some medical unis wouldnt like accept that score?

[EcclesReece]

Does anyone know how hard the abstract reasoning is in comparison to the 600 Qs? I'm really terrified for this section now. There's literally one or two sections where I manage to get the pattern correct.

I also find some of them unfair. Like, in one I noticed there was always at least one circle in each box and the other set always contained at least one square in a box. So, naturally, I assumed that to be the pattern. Turns out I was wrong and it was to do with how many total sides there were. I just find it bad how you can get it wrong, even though you managed to find a pattern that was true!

[24nagem]

(Original post by EcclesReece)
Does anyone know how hard the abstract reasoning is in comparison to the 600 Qs? I'm really terrified for this section now. There's literally one or two sections where I manage to get the pattern correct.

I also find some of them unfair. Like, in one I noticed there was always at least one circle in each box and the other set always contained at least one square in a box. So, naturally, I assumed that to be the pattern. Turns out I was wrong and it was to do with how many total sides there were. I just find it bad how you can get it wrong, even though you managed to find a pattern that was true!

I've not done the test yet. I can comment on that Friday *bites nails* but I have found that if you get a pattern that doesn't turn out to be the exact pattern they were looking for (more in the UKCAT official than practices I reckon cos its an intelligence test to some degree so must be set up to reward lesser recognition with at least 50% points) then you will get some of the answers right.

33% chance guessing
100% chance if you spot an answer definitely goes to neither failing to guess the pattern.
Around 33% of the questions will be neither. If you spot a disqualifier for 50% of these then that's like maybe 50% of the answers right guaranteed then plus whatever patters jump out.

Abstract reasoning is proven to improve with practice also.

[myyrh]

(Original post by StellaRawr11)
I've just done the real UKCAT test in the test centre this morning and got a score of 615! I couldve done better but VR kinda pulled the average down

is that good enough and is it true that some medical unis wouldnt like accept that score?

Avoid
Kings (unless you have 10A*)
Newcastle
Durham
Plymouth
Exeter
Manchester
Dundee
Glasgow
Edinburgh
Sheffield
St Georges
and probably Leicester

[fw953]

I know you've done you're UKCAT by now but if anyone else has comes across this thread this was my own personal experience:

Last year, I was literally PANICKING before my test because I could never do the QR despite having an A* in GCSE maths and predicted an A in A level maths, I couldn't do them in the timescale and generally didn't understand the questions. The 600Q book had equally hard questions.

I found in general all the sections to be easier in the actual test than the test provided online but most notably for QR and AR which were consistently my worst in practice but my two best in the real thing with 690 and 750 respectively.

Instead of focusing on the maths questions provided tune up your non-calculator skills as the calculator provided is a horrible on screen one and using it unnecessarily will slow you down and look at the explanations for AR in the 600Q book so you can see what sort or things you should be thinking about.

I'm hoping to reapply next year and have my UKCAT tomorrow- having done it before I am way more relaxed as I know the kind of thing to expect. (last year I got 680 average)