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Maths in BMAT & UKCAT

Hi all,

I was wondering how good you need to be at maths to make it through the 'mathsy' sections of the med entry tests - I got an A for my maths GCSE but then after that, didn't practice as much and so, lost interest, getting a U in the additional maths qualification (Halfway between GCSEs and AS), and despite choosing maths for one of my subjects, just couldn't work through things as quickly and successfully as I had done for GCSE.

I've looked at practice questions for both the BMAT and the UKCAT, and can answer some correctly, though not by any means an overwhelming majority - how closely do universities look at the maths scores, and if very closely, what can I do? :s-smilie:

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Reply 1
Avatar for Vulpes
Vulpes
15
Original post by matilda ---
Hi all,

I was wondering how good you need to be at maths to make it through the 'mathsy' sections of the med entry tests - I got an A for my maths GCSE but then after that, didn't practice as much and so, lost interest, getting a U in the additional maths qualification (Halfway between GCSEs and AS), and despite choosing maths for one of my subjects, just couldn't work through things as quickly and successfully as I had done for GCSE.

I've looked at practice questions for both the BMAT and the UKCAT, and can answer some correctly, though not by any means an overwhelming majority - how closely do universities look at the maths scores, and if very closely, what can I do? :s-smilie:

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks


The universities only care whether or not your UKCAT score passes their internal cutoff. Individual marks for each section aren't taken into account.

The maths section in the UKCAT can be practiced. I suggest investing in one of the UKCAT online question banks / books and going through those before the exam.

Not sure about the BMAT though.
As Vulpes said, universities don't look at individual scores in your UKCAT, they look at your total score. The maths but honestly isn't that difficult, it's the time pressure that makes it difficult. When I was doing it last summer, I knew that the questions were quite simple but the pressure of a very strict time limit made it hard to think clearly. A lot of the questions require you to work 'around' the information. I'd advise just practising loads of questions (there are a few mock UKCAT exams online) under a strict time limit.


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Reply 3
Avatar for AtomicMan
AtomicMan
13
For the BMAT, you will need to be very fluent and confident in GCSE maths. Although the content is gcse, the paper I sat required you to be able to apply it to very complex situations for some questions.
For the UKCAT some unis will state they require a minimum of say 600 in each section rather than an average so be careful of those. Also the questions in the actual exam aren't as hard, imo timing is the issue rather than difficulty.

For the BMAT you can balance out poor maths ability with excellence in bio, chem and physics so that's less of an issue.

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