Ukcat / bmat

Hey,

I'm considering applying for medicine for entry in 2016.
I was thinking when should I start revising for the UKCAT and BMAT?
Also, I've heard the BMAT is considerably harder. Is this generally the case?
I recently heard you get your UKCAT results in November. I was always under the impression that you receive them before you apply in October. Could someone help with this?

Thanks
Any other advice would be appreciated too.

Hi there, I didn't do the BMAT but I did do the UKCAT! With UKCAT you get your results straight after you do the test; they're printed off at the test centre, so it depends when you book it for.

The UKCAT doesn't involve any scientific knowledge(but the BMAT does) and I found that you can't strictly revise for it, however I went on the UKCAT Kaplan course and used online practice tests from Kaplan up until the day of my UKCAT. So in all, I revised for about 2 months for it. I'd recommend getting the 600Q UKCAT book as well!

Different universities require different entrance exams for medicine so have a look at any that you had in mind and look at their entry requirements to see if they require UKCAT or BMAT or neither; in my case, my top choices were UKCAT only so I didn't bother doing the BMAT

Hey,

I'm considering applying for medicine for entry in 2016.
I was thinking when should I start revising for the UKCAT and BMAT?
Also, I've heard the BMAT is considerably harder. Is this generally the case?
I recently heard you get your UKCAT results in November. I was always under the impression that you receive them before you apply in October. Could someone help with this?

Thanks
Any other advice would be appreciated too.

1) revise as soon as your AS levels are out of the way. More practice = better score. Ukcat is the type of exam which gets easier the more practice you have.

2) yes BMAT is a tricky paper

3) you get BMAt results in November you get UKCAT straight after you've done the test

4) advice: practice makes perfect so practice a lot

For ukcat it's all practice - getting used to the style of question and getting used to the time constraints. More practice = the faster and better you get at it. Buy ukcat books - I had the Kaplan book. You may also want to subscribe to medify which give practice Qs

BMAT - there's a spec list for the science section so tailor your studies for that. For section 1 you may want to look at TSA(thinking skills assessment) that Oxford uses when assessing candidates. Buy the books too. Section 3 you need to be able to present persuasive arguments in your essay - don't know how you can practice that tbh it just comes naturally to some people. Ask your teachers to give you example questions and practice writing under timed conditions.

I would not recommend any courses which you have to pay for

The 600 book is old and the questions are a lot harder than the reAl thing. Nevertheless it's good practice and if you can do those Q's you'll find the actual thing relatively easy

Ah okay cool interesting!

I'm currently on a break at the moment - go back to school next week Monday. I've made a start on my personal statement and have sorted out all necessary work experience over the summer. Think I'm going to make a start on UKCAT and BMAT soon too. If you don't mind me asking, when did you take the UKCAT? And would you advise taking it then too? Thanks!

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I took it on the 17th September. I think it depends on the person, but i found that having a long time to prepare in advance really helped, and the course gave me so many extra techniques to deal with the short amount of time you get for each section, and I ended up with a score of 737.5. Maybe have a look at the types of questions that come up and see how you feel about them to begin with x

I literally winged it and never did any substantial revision for my ukcat

Still got 675 average

I think there are some official UKCAT questions online on the UKCAT website so you can start with those if you're waiting for the book.

Personally I found the UKCAT confusingly weird and the BMAT very straight forward, so I wouldn't say one is harder than the other, just depends on the person. Unfortunately UKCAT is far more widely used so if you're going to ace one... UKCAT is the way :P

Anyone knows some good tips for using the calculator in QR? It's wasting so much time when there is no Ans button.