For anyone who has done the UCAT = is it hard to find a test date on the last day

is it hard to find a test date on quite literally the last day for UCAT and how should i book it (wake up early) etc...

With UCAT bookings, it changes ALL THE TIME. genuinely. a lot of ppl realise they are underprepared and keep pushing back their test date. I know someone who did that FOUR TIMES. no joke. I'd always say book at least 6 weeks before you think you'll be ready. It's better to be safe than sorry. Also having a fixed deadline motivates you to be ready in time. I booked mine for the 1st of sep (before school started) last year because I knew that I needed the time but I'd be stressed with the UCAS stuff in school. I did have second thoughts and almost re booked for two days after but decided to bite the bullet and on that day I came out with 2900 band 2 :smile:

you can really book any time but try and do it as early as possible. I can't really tell if u meant booking on the last test day of the UCAT (now that would be practically impossible - and impractical since that's ages away, last year it was September 28th) but yeah, maybe look at booking the date by July if u want to do the UCAT later.

Reply 2

meepsie

9

Original post by shdshhshdhdf

is it hard to find a test date on quite literally the last day for UCAT and how should i book it (wake up early) etc...

imo mid/end of aug is best to book as you have the summer to revise and no school stress yet

you can work on ur ps once its done

Reply 3

shdshhshdhdf

OP

6

Original post by t0rschlusspan1k

With UCAT bookings, it changes ALL THE TIME. genuinely. a lot of ppl realise they are underprepared and keep pushing back their test date. I know someone who did that FOUR TIMES. no joke. I'd always say book at least 6 weeks before you think you'll be ready. It's better to be safe than sorry. Also having a fixed deadline motivates you to be ready in time. I booked mine for the 1st of sep (before school started) last year because I knew that I needed the time but I'd be stressed with the UCAS stuff in school. I did have second thoughts and almost re booked for two days after but decided to bite the bullet and on that day I came out with 2900 band 2 :smile:

you can really book any time but try and do it as early as possible. I can't really tell if u meant booking on the last test day of the UCAT (now that would be practically impossible - and impractical since that's ages away, last year it was September 28th) but yeah, maybe look at booking the date by July if u want to do the UCAT later.

Advice on preparation.

Im starting this week after finishing y12 mocks.

How to revise?

PS. Im really bad at mental maths, speed reading/scanning,non verbal reasoning which is why I did so bad in 11+

However, im good at school (tests) - all 8's and 9's GCSE - predicted all A* (A-level)

Reply 4

GGIN

13

If you make your booking early enough then you stand a reasonable chance of getting the date you want - you might have to travel but otherwise shouldnt be a problem.

But, there are a couple of reasons that I can think of that would make it not a great idea to deliberately book on the last day.

You could be sick and no chance to delay. There maybe strikes or IT issues like this year which mean you cant do it. There would be no flexibility if something went wrong on the day. You would have to wait a year.

Also one of the key benefits of the Ucat over BMAT is that it allows you to be strategic. Doing it on the last day only gives 17-18 days or so to work put where you are applying, review their application processes and policies and target your PS to those med schools requirements (if they look at them) complete your ucas forms and get all your references sorted etc.

Could put a bit of extra pressure on.

Good luck whenever you do it.

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 5

t0rschlusspan1k

9

Original post by shdshhshdhdf

Advice on preparation.

Im starting this week after finishing y12 mocks.

How to revise?

PS. Im really bad at mental maths, speed reading/scanning,non verbal reasoning which is why I did so bad in 11+

However, im good at school (tests) - all 8's and 9's GCSE - predicted all A* (A-level)

I cannot recommend medify enough. Just to let you know, I also am not the strongest on mental maths (and maths in general as I don't do it alevel) but managed to get an 8 in GCSE. This NVR is NOTHING like the 11+ - at best its like 11+ on steroids. and trust me there's a big difference in ur NVR abilities from when you were 11 to ur current age. Medify is amazing as they have timed sections to get better at speed reading, mental maths and also using the calculator rllly fast (as u may be aware the UCAT is an online test). I wouldn't buy a book for UCAT practice as then that way u get used to doing tests online. Start practicing q's now if u can, to get better at technique watch Youtube videos. Save the official UCAT mocks and use them in intervals (don't rush them all at once) so u can reflect on mistakes and there arent many of these official resources so be careful. There are free resources like Passmedicine but Medify is so good bc u can do targeted practice on each section and see where your strengths and weaknesses are (enhanced by thee many mini mocks as well). There are so many questions on there that it is impossible to finish them all. And it's not too expensive (I paid 30 quid for a month). Sorry for the info overload btw - there's a lot of advice to give!!

Don't feel let down by any bad results - I got awful results in my mocks, like 2300 and 2500 max until on my test day I somehow got 2900 band 2!! Side note, the situational judgement on Medify is a bit hit or miss - use the official documents for how to be a good med student by the GMC (I forgot the name for the ACC document but its insanely useful) guide to good medical practice, its something like that. I cant vouch for Medentry bc I didn't use it but ppl have told me that it's good bc it gives harder AR and QR questions so that way u find the actual test a lot easier than your practice.

GOOD LUCK!!! Hope all goes well, I'm available for anymore specific q's u may have, bc I was in the exact same position last year :smile:

Reply 6

shdshhshdhdf

OP

6

Original post by t0rschlusspan1k

I cannot recommend medify enough. Just to let you know, I also am not the strongest on mental maths (and maths in general as I don't do it alevel) but managed to get an 8 in GCSE. This NVR is NOTHING like the 11+ - at best its like 11+ on steroids. and trust me there's a big difference in ur NVR abilities from when you were 11 to ur current age. Medify is amazing as they have timed sections to get better at speed reading, mental maths and also using the calculator rllly fast (as u may be aware the UCAT is an online test). I wouldn't buy a book for UCAT practice as then that way u get used to doing tests online. Start practicing q's now if u can, to get better at technique watch Youtube videos. Save the official UCAT mocks and use them in intervals (don't rush them all at once) so u can reflect on mistakes and there arent many of these official resources so be careful. There are free resources like Passmedicine but Medify is so good bc u can do targeted practice on each section and see where your strengths and weaknesses are (enhanced by thee many mini mocks as well). There are so many questions on there that it is impossible to finish them all. And it's not too expensive (I paid 30 quid for a month). Sorry for the info overload btw - there's a lot of advice to give!!

Don't feel let down by any bad results - I got awful results in my mocks, like 2300 and 2500 max until on my test day I somehow got 2900 band 2!! Side note, the situational judgement on Medify is a bit hit or miss - use the official documents for how to be a good med student by the GMC (I forgot the name for the ACC document but its insanely useful) guide to good medical practice, its something like that. I cant vouch for Medentry bc I didn't use it but ppl have told me that it's good bc it gives harder AR and QR questions so that way u find the actual test a lot easier than your practice.

GOOD LUCK!!! Hope all goes well, I'm available for anymore specific q's u may have, bc I was in the exact same position last year :smile:

Thank you so much.

How much time did you give yourself to revise?

PS. I'm very bad at maths (got a 6 at GCSE)

What happens if i do terrible?

Gap years, repeats.

Ik i shouldn'y be thinking about this yet but I just know i will never be able to do good on these cognitive tests.

Reply 7

t0rschlusspan1k

9

Original post by shdshhshdhdf

Thank you so much.

How much time did you give yourself to revise?

PS. I'm very bad at maths (got a 6 at GCSE)

What happens if i do terrible?

Gap years, repeats.

Ik i shouldn'y be thinking about this yet but I just know i will never be able to do good on these cognitive tests.

first off, dont be so negative. UCAT is something that I think everyone can improve in and half of it is rlly technique, not naturally given cognitive ability. I started looking at questions with my friend on Passmedicine, and we'd do the questions together after our end of years (Which were exactly this coming week, a year ago!) but I wouldn't call it proper revision. I started properly acclimatising myself with the format of the tests on the official website in July, and practiced the questions on there after school had ended. I did this to make sure I got a break, as I was very burnt out from year 12 so I really needed it! I'd start to revise using Medify questions on the 1st of August (I think), giving me about 4 weeks left until I did my UCAT. Technically that was about 8 weeks in total but consider that I really ramped up revision after the first 3. Make a rough plan (there's already a rlly good one on the website) to spend about a week going through questions untimed (on official website) and reading documents to help with SJT, and then start to get in daily practice on each section. You can even do simple things like trying to read through newspapers more often for skim reading, watching Medic Mind tutorials for maths questions (I really needed that for the tax q's - thankfully I didn't run into many of those question types at all, but its good just in case). Then maybe in your second week attempt the first Practice Paper A on the official website to get a rough idea of where you started (IT DOESNT SAVE UR SCORE ON THE WEBSITE UNLIKE MEDIFY- BE VERY CAREFUL TO MAKE SURE U REVIEW UR TEST FULLY AFTER DOING IT). At this stage IT IS OK IF UR GETTING LITERALLY LESS THAN 2000 it just makes seeing ur progress more satisfying. Then its good to get an idea of ur weaknesses by doing targeted qs for each section on Medify, which u can do either timed or untimed, with mini mocks in between (try every 2 days bc theres a lot of resources on there - the more practice the better, BUT DONT BURN OUT.) Try doing a mock of some sort (on official website or Medify) about every week. Spacing out ur revision like this really helps to see ur progress and ALWAYS REFLECT on WHY you're getting things wrong - especially AR as the patterns repeat and DM as the techniques to use are very similar.
I was in the GCSE year where we got TAGs. Even though I technically achieved an 8, I was predicted a 6 and who knows, maybe that's what I would've got in the real thing. Please don't lose hope just bc of gcse stats!!! Ucat has barely anything to do with concrete knowledge - id be in more fear of that if I did the BMAT.

If it so happens where your UCAT doesn't go so great, it's ok. You still have options. There are many threads where ppl are advised on this (I had the same spiral of what ifs last year) and although I cant give personal advice abt what to do next remember that:
Applying to med unis is ALLLLLL strategy. If your GCSEs are rlly strong there are certain med schools that love that, e.g. Cardiff. Tons of Work experience? Manchester. Extremely high UCAT? Bristol. BMAT unis? Imperial, Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds.
If you think the BMAT may go better than UCAT you can sign up to do that test in about October (I would only advise this if u RLLY want to go to a BMAT uni - I knew that I didn't rlly care and there are more options with UCAT so I didn't do it - look at more threads for BMAT advice). There are multiple websites that you can use to check UCAT requirements for each med uni. Use these to set a UCAT goal - mine was to get over 2700, as I knew that my uni choices had that as minimum. UCAT requirements change YEARLY for each uni, so don't worry unless you get below 2500, band 3 as it does mean that u may be lower in ranking in comparison to other strong applicants and therefore may be invited to interview later in the year/ may not make it. If your UCAT is rlly low and below most uni's requirements, you might then choose to apply to med next year instead, and that could actually help a lot as you then focus way more on achieving A level grades. Even if others get rlly high UCATs and BMATs, 4/4 interviews, 4/4 med offers and predicted A*A*A*A* if they DONT GET THEIR OFFER - it would all be a waste. Remember that even if UCAT doesn't go well, its a lot easier to redo that than your A levels. Redoing A levels greatly narrows down the range of unis to choose from.
I think that's all I have to say for now :smile:

lmk if I missed anything and again disclaimer: This is just my experience and a lot of other ppl may advise differently. Do what you know would work for you.

For anyone who has done the UCAT = is it hard to find a test date on the last day

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you