UCAT 2024 Entry Discussions Megathread

Can anyone explain statement 2. "Driving is often safe". Why is the answer No.

It says "driving is safe only when road safety laws are put into place" and that "road safety laws are put into place to protect pedestrians".

From this I would conclude, driving is safe as road safety laws are put into place. But to say driving is "often" safe is a bit too much? I am interested to know how one can comment on the frequency of safety based on the statements given.

Based on the statements given:
Accidents occur sometimes
Driving is considered dangerous when accidents occur
Driving is considered safe when road safety laws are put in place.
Road safety laws are in place.

Understanding:
Some accidents occur, meaning some driving is dangerous.
Road safety laws in place = safe driving, when accidents do not occur (this is only sometimes), so driving is often safe.

Does that make sense?

Can you please recommend the websites or any particular approach to follow for UCAT and BMAT?Your help will be really appreciated

My main issue is " Road safety laws in place = safe driving, when accidents do not occur (this is only sometimes), so driving is often safe."
We can agree driving is sometimes dangerous and therefore the remaining must be safe i.e. (sometimes - this should be often as the opposite of sometimes dangerous is often safe) it is safe. But how can we say it is "often safe".
Often safe gives the impression that more than 50% of the time driving will be safe. This is different to sometimes safe which can be 1-99% of the time i.e. there is no certainty that it would be safe more, less or equal to 50% of the time. Instead, we can only say it is possible for it to be safe more than 50% of the time but cannot say for certain.

Sometimes safe ≠ often safe

It's solely based on the statement being made and no external knowledge. Driving is dangerous sometimes (I would say this is <50% rather than 1-99%) due to accidents occurring sometimes even with road safety laws in place. On the flip side, driving is safe when road safety laws are in place and no accidents occur. In theory, if accidents occur sometimes then they do not occur the majority of the time (i.e. 'often'). So driving is often safe as accidents do not occur the majority of the time with road safety laws being in place.

Try to focus on the key terms in the statement included in the question and exclude any external knowledge on the topic. I'd try not to get bogged down with why it's right or wrong and focus on what in the statement makes the answer right, in this case it's 'sometimes' where the opposite circumstance is 'often'

Edit: made an edit in the quoted text

Okay I'm with you now:
* Sometimes dangerous = often safe

Using that same logic then you would agree the statements below would follow, if not why?
1. Some A are B. Therefore, most of A is not B.
2. I play golf sometimes. Therefore, most of the time I don't play golf.

Yes

Yes

"Driving can sometimes result in accidents". The word "can" tells us that there is some possibility that driving would result in accidents without actually saying driving has lead to any accidents. However, the entire questions relies on us assuming that this statement means driving sometimes results in accidents. Why can we make this assumption?

It's just the way the question is styled and how they want you to select an answer. You need to make decisions based on only the information presented to you. You need to take what the statement says as true for that question and try your best to not consider anything not stated (external knowledge).

I have a feeling you might be reading too much into the question and losing focus of the key terms. For questions like this, it's important to pick out the key terms in the statements given that become the deciding factors to select an answer. Thinking too much into it can make you waste time on one question and prevent you from gaining the same marks elsewhere

I would have said even though "Driving can sometimes result in accidents" doesn't tell us that accidents actually happen, the next statement, "road safety laws are put into place to protect pedestrians" tells us to make the assumption that driving does in fact result in accidents. The assumption here is, there would be no need to have road safety laws if driving wasn't hazardous. Would this be a good and quick way to reason it?

(Btw - thanks for the advice )

That would work, but perhaps this is a quicker way:
What is considered safe? Road safety laws in place (which they are) and accidents not occuring (opposite of 'sometimes' is 'often' in this case)

What is considered dangerous? Road safety laws not being in place (but it's stated that they are in place, so reduces likelihood of being dangerous) or accidents occurring (it's stated that this is only sometimes, so also reduces likelihood of being dangerous)

Hey guys
So i got rejected by all of my four unis this cycle for medicine.
I am an international student and hold an offer for Biomed at Newcastle.
Gap year is not the right choice for me ik it.
My plan is to accept the biomed offer at newcastle and apply internally for their transfer while also simultaneously reapplying to other unis via UCAS while I am still in my first year (2024 entry cycle).
I know that some unis allow you to do this and I have just sent out a mail to nearly all UK med schools. Once they reply I will have a confirmed idea of my choices
And just to add in if this cycle also I don't get in I will be happy to finish my biomed degree

My main reason for such a long post is that does anyone over here have any advice or has someone done something similar who can help me?

Hey, sorry for the late reply. I personally used medify with my scores generally ranging from 2850-3050 B1 in my mocks and I achieved 2970 B1 in the actual exam, so i think a benefit of medify is that it is somewhat realistic, or at least in comparison to medentry which is harder supposedly. In terms of my approach I spent 5 weeks preparing with the first 3 weeks doing mini mocks and question banks and then the last 2 weeks i did one mock per day which i found to be very beneficial, just doing a 2 hour mock in the morning and then analysing it in the evening and then having the time to enjoy myself aswell. My main piece of advice though would be to do the exam as early as possible, whilst also allowing 5 weeks revision, i did mine at the end of july and it meant i really got to enjoy my summer and take a good break before a stressful y13 whilst also having the time to figure out how to strategically use my score before ucas applications.

Hi this is all the mocks I did on Medify + Medentry + official website last year. Hope this will be helpful for the 2023 cycle.

Personally I think Medify is helpful for VR, AR and QR, but quite easy on DM. Medentry is good to use as the practice for DM and a backup. But always save 2-3 weeks for the official question bank and mocks!

Can I ask what was timeline, in how many months you did this? Thanks

My revision took around three months, started with 1 to 2 mock per week to one mock per weekday.