Planning UKCAT Revision - (UKCAT in August)

Hi everyone,

Has anyone done the Medic Mind 1-to-1 UKCAT mentoring? I signed up for the 6 week scheme which has been really good and I found the 1st teaching day very useful.

I was thinking of doing a second day of mentoring, as they said they can focus more on how to tackle questions. But I thought I'd just ask and see if anyone had been on the 2 day scheme before and found it much different from the 1 day scheme? I'm also saving up for BMAT courses later in the year so don't want to spend without thinking.

Apart from that I'm using the Medic Mind books and videos, and the Kaplan Amazon book which is good, and got the ISC book for later. Also my Medic Mind teacher gave me a Medify log in so I'm saving that for later too. Any other books people recommend?

Also Qs I had:
• When should you start revising for the second November BMAT?
• BMAT September or November?
• Is applying to 3 BMAT too risky?
• Are the real UKCAT Questions harder / easier than the UKCAT website tests?

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 1

StationToStation

14

Original post by massie25

Hi everyone,

Has anyone done the Medic Mind 1-to-1 UKCAT mentoring? I signed up for the 6 week scheme which has been really good and I found the 1st teaching day very useful.

I was thinking of doing a second day of mentoring, as they said they can focus more on how to tackle questions. But I thought I'd just ask and see if anyone had been on the 2 day scheme before and found it much different from the 1 day scheme? I'm also saving up for BMAT courses later in the year so don't want to spend without thinking.

Apart from that I'm using the Medic Mind books and videos, and the Kaplan Amazon book which is good, and got the ISC book for later. Also my Medic Mind teacher gave me a Medify log in so I'm saving that for later too. Any other books people recommend?

Also Qs I had:
• When should you start revising for the second November BMAT?
• BMAT September or November?
• Is applying to 3 BMAT too risky?
• Are the real UKCAT Questions harder / easier than the UKCAT website tests?

I don't know a huge amount of these UKCAT/BMAT courses but I've heard they're mainly a waste of time and money. You don't need THAT much prep for the UKCAT and BMAT anyway since they're aptitude tests - preparation is important but it won't make an enormous difference to your score. Your fluid intelligence will in the end set a cap on how high a score you're capable of achieving and additional prep won't help. I remember reading somewhere that people who spent something like 30 hours on UKCAT prep got the best scores.

With regards to your other qs:

- A month or so before, depending on how much you need to revise the sciences.
- September unless you're applying to Oxford - you'll be able to choose your unis more wisely and applying won't be such a gamble.
- Yes.
- Personally I found that compared to the ISC book and the official site, in the real thing QR was easier, AR was slightly easier, VR was a bit harder and SJT was pretty much the same.

Reply 2

username3186450

1

hi guys, do you get a pen and paper for workings?

Reply 3

StationToStation

14

Original post by exams344

hi guys, do you get a pen and paper for workings?

Yeah.

Reply 4

6med

6

Original post by exams344

hi guys, do you get a pen and paper for workings?

Hey :-) If you are referring to the UKCAT, you get an A4 'whiteboard' (which may just be a laminated piece of paper depending on your test centre) and a marker that may or may not be a permanent marker. However, you are allowed to ask for extra whiteboards which I suggest you do from the outset. I would generally recommend relying on the whiteboard as little as possible.

Alex, 4th year UCL medic
6med

Reply 5

6med

6

Original post by massie25

Hi everyone,

Has anyone done the Medic Mind 1-to-1 UKCAT mentoring? I signed up for the 6 week scheme which has been really good and I found the 1st teaching day very useful.

I was thinking of doing a second day of mentoring, as they said they can focus more on how to tackle questions. But I thought I'd just ask and see if anyone had been on the 2 day scheme before and found it much different from the 1 day scheme? I'm also saving up for BMAT courses later in the year so don't want to spend without thinking.

Apart from that I'm using the Medic Mind books and videos, and the Kaplan Amazon book which is good, and got the ISC book for later. Also my Medic Mind teacher gave me a Medify log in so I'm saving that for later too. Any other books people recommend?

Also Qs I had:
• When should you start revising for the second November BMAT?
• BMAT September or November?
• Is applying to 3 BMAT too risky?
• Are the real UKCAT Questions harder / easier than the UKCAT website tests?

Hey :-) I don't know much about MedicMind but if you're a looking for more resources you can check out our question bank UKCAT Ninja. In terms of your questions

-about a month before hand
-if you have the time, probably go for September
-depends how audacious you feel :-) Many would say it's too risky but if you really have your heart set on 3 BMAT unis and think you have a strong application, then it's your decision at the end of the day
-it's difficult to say as it depends what resources you use and what questions you get on test day. However, the ISC books are generally considered to be harder than the actual test, especially the QR section

Best,

Alex, 4th year UCL medic
6med

Reply 6

massie25

OP

Original post by 6med

Hey :-) I don't know much about MedicMind but if you're a looking for more resources you can check out our question bank UKCAT Ninja. In terms of your questions

-about a month before hand
-if you have the time, probably go for September
-depends how audacious you feel :-) Many would say it's too risky but if you really have your heart set on 3 BMAT unis and think you have a strong application, then it's your decision at the end of the day
-it's difficult to say as it depends what resources you use and what questions you get on test day. However, the ISC books are generally considered to be harder than the actual test, especially the QR section

Best,

Alex, 4th year UCL medic
6med

Oh okay thank you Alex!

I've heard ISC is hard from my friends, but will probably use it just for practice anyway.

Reply 7

6med

6

Original post by massie25

Oh okay thank you Alex!

I've heard ISC is hard from my friends, but will probably use it just for practice anyway.

Oh yes definitely do still use it! Just don't be discouraged if you find it a bit tricky :-)

Alex, 4th year UCL medic
6med

Reply 8

username3186450

1

Original post by 6med

Hey :-) If you are referring to the UKCAT, you get an A4 'whiteboard' (which may just be a laminated piece of paper depending on your test centre) and a marker that may or may not be a permanent marker. However, you are allowed to ask for extra whiteboards which I suggest you do from the outset. I would generally recommend relying on the whiteboard as little as possible.

Alex, 4th year UCL medic
6med

why would you advise to use the whiteboard as little as possible? i suspect most people find it quite difficult to do purely mental maths without writing anything down :s-smilie:

Reply 9

6med

6

Original post by exams344

why would you advise to use the whiteboard as little as possible? i suspect most people find it quite difficult to do purely mental maths without writing anything down :s-smilie:

Sorry, I can see how what I wrote is a bit misleading! You point that some of the harder QR questions will require written working is absolutely valid. What I mean to say is try to be very economical in your use of the whiteboard because you actually don't have that much space with an A4 sheet and a chunky marker i.e. don't waste the whiteboard with calculations that you could do in your head. Hope that makes sense and sorry for the confusion!

Alex, 4th year UCL medic
6med

Reply 10

username3186450

1

Original post by 6med

Sorry, I can see how what I wrote is a bit misleading! You point that some of the harder QR questions will require written working is absolutely valid. What I mean to say is try to be very economical in your use of the whiteboard because you actually don't have that much space with an A4 sheet and a chunky marker i.e. don't waste the whiteboard with calculations that you could do in your head. Hope that makes sense and sorry for the confusion!

Alex, 4th year UCL medic
6med

Ah, i see what you mean now.

i did my first practice and got 631, band 2. not good enough for the unis i want. i practically guessed all of QR and AR as i had no time at all. Any advice?

Thanks

Reply 11

6med

6

Original post by exams344

Ah, i see what you mean now.

i did my first practice and got 631, band 2. not good enough for the unis i want. i practically guessed all of QR and AR as i had no time at all. Any advice?

Thanks

Hey :-) Don't worry at all, 631 is a good score for a first practice. Yes I could go on for hours about QR and AR (because it's literally what we do on our courses lol) so I'll just give some general advice to start with that's applicable to practically all of the UKCAT (not SJT).

It is important to remember that the UKCAT is a very time-pressured exam (as you have now realised) and your technique must account for this in all of the sections. Whilst it is true that there are no negative marks for wrong answers it is also important to remember that there are absolutely zero marks for unanswered questions! Therefore you want to make sure that you have selected an answer to every question by the end of each section and that you don't run out of time leaving questions blank.

Another factor that needs to be considered is the fact that the difficulty of questions varies enormoursly, this is especially true in QR (the maths section). Each question is worth one mark, you get no extra marks for answering harder questions! In addition, the questions are randomly distributed, i.e. the hard questions could all be at the beginning. Therefore you must be tactical. We advise our students to use the Guess, Flag and Skip technique which is basically a triage method. Every question must be 'sized-up' to see whether it can completed quickly or whether it'll be really hard. The really hard questions need to be 'guessed, flagged and skipped' so that you don't waste time agonising over them and have time to answer any easier questions that come up later. At the end of the section, if (hopefully) you have some leftover time, you can go back and work on the harder questions you've flagged. Basically you priortise the easy questions/marks first to maximise your score, in every UKCAT section.

Though not really relevant to SJT, guessing, flagging and skipping will be really useful in all lother sections of the UKCAT. It's important that you try and incorporate realistic time-pressure and the guess, flag and skip technique into your practice so that it becomes second nature.

Hope that helps as a general tip and let me know if you have any more specific questions about QR or AR.

Best,

Alex, 4th year UCL medic
6med

Planning UKCAT Revision - (UKCAT in August)

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