[inspiron1]

(Original post by rawragee)
I feel massively under prepared looking at this thread I was planning to do mine late August, which gives me about three weeks to practice around school and going away.. am I being too hopeful?

Ha I feel the same.

[manupalace]

Has anyone else signed up for a Kaplan test review seminar? Has anyone done one before? If so was it useful?

[MJK91]

(Original post by rawragee)
I feel massively under prepared looking at this thread I was planning to do mine late August, which gives me about three weeks to practice around school and going away.. am I being too hopeful?

Don't worry, I'm just a bit slow and have to start early! I'll probably still do crap :P

[pepeeglesfield]

(Original post by rawragee)
I feel massively under prepared looking at this thread I was planning to do mine late August, which gives me about three weeks to practice around school and going away.. am I being too hopeful?

phew im not the only one :P

[Future_Dr]

Am I in a disadvantage if I book my exam late august like 29 August?

[MJK91]

(Original post by Future_Dr)
Am I in a disadvantage if I book my exam late august like 29 August?

Just bear in mind if you become ill you may struggle to rebook in time at your chosen centre. It may involve some travelling to other centres.

[fuzzster]

Hey guys, it there is anyone interested in buying either:

- 600 UKCAT practice questions book which includes a full mock exam by Olivier Picard
- Write the Perfect Personal Statement book by Olivier Picard

then message me. They are in near perfect condition and were extremely useful to me when I applied to medical school in 2012.

[Nlaji]

(Original post by inspiron1)
Ha I feel the same.

Hey Guys, I've been in that position twice and I feel your pain. Here's some unwarranted advice. It really worked for me. The first time around I got 635, second time I got 705.

According to the official UKCAT website, “the test asses a range of mental abilities identified by university Medical and Dental Schools as important”. It states that “there is no curriculum content as the test examines innate skills”. It goes on to suggest that “you should take time to familliarise yourself with the test” and that “coaching is not necessary, desirable or advantageous”.

This description gives the impression that after simply familliarising yourself with the test you are in a good position to sit it - this is rarely the case. People who perform well in the test almost always do thousands of practice questions before sitting the exam. The UKCAT is all about practice. The more you practice, the better you will perform. All the skills required can be developed, you just have to be prepared to spend time on it.

The greatest challenge of the UKCAT is the time pressure. As a result, the best type of preparation is timed practice. There are a number of websites which provide thousands of timed questions and mimic the format of the real thing. Crucially, they allow you to get used to doing the test on the computer. Ideally when preparing for the test you should use a wide range of resources. Combine books, websites and official UKCAT practice exams. It is best that preparation is done over a month or two leading up to the day. To perform to your best ability, around 4000 questions will sufficiently prepare you for the real thing.

The way that the scores are used varies. Some Medical Schools have cut-off scores in each section, some simply rank candidates by their total scores and interview the top 20%, others give it specific weighting towards an overall application score.



Does that help?

[Natalie21]

(Original post by Nlaji)
Hey Guys, I've been in that position twice and I feel your pain. Here's some unwarranted advice. It really worked for me. The first time around I got 635, second time I got 705.

According to the official UKCAT website, “the test asses a range of mental abilities identified by university Medical and Dental Schools as important”. It states that “there is no curriculum content as the test examines innate skills”. It goes on to suggest that “you should take time to familliarise yourself with the test” and that “coaching is not necessary, desirable or advantageous”.

This description gives the impression that after simply familliarising yourself with the test you are in a good position to sit it - this is rarely the case. People who perform well in the test almost always do thousands of practice questions before sitting the exam. The UKCAT is all about practice. The more you practice, the better you will perform. All the skills required can be developed, you just have to be prepared to spend time on it.

The greatest challenge of the UKCAT is the time pressure. As a result, the best type of preparation is timed practice. There are a number of websites which provide thousands of timed questions and mimic the format of the real thing. Crucially, they allow you to get used to doing the test on the computer. Ideally when preparing for the test you should use a wide range of resources. Combine books, websites and official UKCAT practice exams. It is best that preparation is done over a month or two leading up to the day. To perform to your best ability, around 4000 questions will sufficiently prepare you for the real thing.

The way that the scores are used varies. Some Medical Schools have cut-off scores in each section, some simply rank candidates by their total scores and interview the top 20%, others give it specific weighting towards an overall application score.



Does that help?

Which such websites have timed practices?

[MJK91]

(Original post by The Unique Bloke)
OK the kaplan 2011 practice test is totally lame , i just did the DA and got 19/28 and i am 100% sure the mark scheme has gone haywire for at least 6 of them , so i should have got 25/28

Q 5 should be A
Q 9 should be A
Q 10 should be E
Q 11 should be C and not D since we cant use code 14 to mean two diff things....
Q 14 should be A
Q 21 should be C
Q15 E?

Way to spoil ppls confidence Kaplan , Screw this test.
Its not even made to accommodate the timings properly , doubt anyone could complete the quantitative reasoning part within the given time and get most right lol , although this maybe my feeling just cuz i have started to practice like from today. Nevertheless the kaplan test mark scheme needs to be sorted out fast

I haven't got time to go through all those right now, but Q5 could be either (granted), though I think "Leave, woman" makes more verbal sense than "Go, woman".

Q9 is definitely B: Big house is defined as G(G7) as a cottage is by definition a small house, so it must be defined as big twice to be a big house.

I appreciate you don't think the answers are right, but so far I think they seem to be.

[MJK91]

(Original post by Natalie21)
Which such websites have timed practices?

Emedica UKCAT prep has timed sections.

[Lightingspeed]

Hi, I am sitting the exam in August and was wondering do they give paper or mini white whiteboard for sections like QR and DA? If so is it limited? (can we rub out previous working out on the white board)? Thanks

[MJK91]

(Original post by The Unique Bloke)
I appreciate you seem to think that they are right , yet i think otherwise , you probably went through all and just commented on the one i got wrong. cheers. and yeah Q9 is B.
Hmm which do you think is closer Go female = Go Women or Leave Woman
I think its more important that its closer to the code than making sense , just a thought..

No need to get all touchy, my comments weren't meant to be offensive. I just think it's slightly high and mighty of you to criticise people who are pretty well educated in making these tests.

I didn't just go through the one that was wrong, I went through the first three where two were, in my eyes, correct and one was borderline. You may think that it's more important for the sentence to match the code but then that wouldn't be decision analysis, would it? It'd be 'who can match up the code to the sentence the fastest'.

Do you not think that if you're willing to accept that you were wrong on B, you could be wrong on some of the others? It seems to me that you're basing this solely on the "Go, Woman" question which, yes, is borderline but semantically it makes more sense to mean "Leave, Woman".

Just a thought...

[MJK91]

(Original post by Lightingspeed)
Hi, I am sitting the exam in August and was wondering do they give paper or mini white whiteboard for sections like QR and DA? If so is it limited? (can we rub out previous working out on the white board)? Thanks

It varies centre to centre but you'll always have some way of writing your thoughts down. Usually a whiteboard but whether it is rewritable or not is down to the centre, I think.

[noregrets]

So today I did the Kaplan mock (one day before my exam)...According to their scoring I got:

VR 670
QR 530 (LOL, I think this was because I had to keep going in and out of the calculator on my laptop so lost lots of time and wasn't properly concentrating)
AR (700) - really pleased with my score on this, practice really does pay off
DA 700

Avg - 650

If I got the above tomorrow, I would be over the moon, though I think the Kaplan test is supposed to be easier than the real thing, and I'm not sure if they really know how to calculate scores.

[JumpingJonny]

Im sure this is in here somewhere but how is the UKCAT score communicated to the universities on your UCAS form, as at no point have I had to enter my UCAS ID etc. Do I need to provide this on the test day or do the link your UKCAT score with your UCAS application purely through personal details i.e. I need to ensure home address etc is the same?

JJ

[Lightingspeed]

(Original post by MattKneale)
It varies centre to centre but you'll always have some way of writing your thoughts down. Usually a whiteboard but whether it is rewritable or not is down to the centre, I think.

Thanks

[me, myself and I]

(Original post by manupalace)
Thanks

Do you have to do resits? It would be a shame to have to postpone your UKCAT. I have rearranged mine but only for the day after, if I don't feel ready in the days leading up to it I guess I'll have to rearrange it again. I also think it costs more to do it in September.

Edit: Why the neg?

no idea why the neg wasn't me though!

And yes, I do have to postpone it now. I don't get resit dates until the end of July though (and i'm not in the country then!) so I don't know when exactly i'll be done which is really annoying. Gah!

[EternalDoom]

Could someone give me tips and techniques for how to be faster on QR? I struggle to finish the questions fast enough in the time limit

[Future_Dr]

what did people get in their UKCAT Score? You get the result on the day don't you?