UKCAT for 2018 Entry Discussion

Wow, amazing score. What has helped your AR the most? Was the Medify helpful at all for the official mocks? I've heard the Medify isn't representative and is way too hard.

I really like the Verbal Reasoning book! I'm working through it slowly.

I've done some of the questions in the book. I had a Q about your Extreme Language technique. It seems to work quite well for many of the VR questions, but do you think sometimes you can just guess based on it rather than actually reading the passage? Or is that quite risky!

Also what tips do you have for Decision Making. Do you have a free book for that too?

Yes this book is really good. Many thanks. Do you have books for the other sections please?TIA

I actually find Medify easier than the official mocks. In the mini-QR mock I got 830... Not to mention their way of calculations score for DM is completely off since they calculate each part of the syllogism, causing the average to be boosted (which is why I translated my score according to the official mocks).

Don't know how I got the AR score. Seriously felt like I got 550, if that. I just kind of tried the simplest, stupidest patterns I've found...

That's just me though. My friend finds Medify much harder and barely scores 600 average despite her doing rather well in the official 2 mocks (she got 650 and 670 respectively if I remember correctly).

For AR do you find Medify representative at all? From what I have seen it's more complex and different kind of patterns than the official materials

For AR do you find Medify representative at all? From what I have seen it's more complex and different kind of patterns than the official materials

I think AR is quite ok with Medify, but mainly because the book I have has rather complex AR examples (with "engines" and all...), therefore it was nice to go onto this and do something slightly easier. Nonetheless I still struggle with AR (duh, my results...).

Is that the ISC 1250Q book or something else? I got 830 in AR last year and now I am barely able to answer any of the AR questions from the ISC book. Don't know if my ability has gone down or if I forgot how hard the ISC AR questions are.

Is that the ISC 1250Q book or something else? I got 830 in AR last year and now I am barely able to answer any of the AR questions from the ISC book. Don't know if my ability has gone down or if I forgot how hard the ISC AR questions are.

It is always good to get practice of different types of questions. The ISC book is extremely difficult and not representative of the actual exam - but this doesn't mean that you should avoid their book completely. Sometimes doing harder questions will mean you find averagely difficult questions easy

For a question bank, I'd recommend Medify - A resource we give free to all of our Medic Mind Mentees for one month.

Hope that helps!

Mohil
UCL Medicine Y4
medicmind.co.uk/ukcat-mentoring

pping

Hey is there such a thing of "over-prepping" or reaching your peak early?

Hi SiMan,

There definitely is a thing of reaching your peak early. I found when I was revising for the UKCAT, that after a certain point I was not improving anymore and would end up over-complicating how to answer questions because I had done so much preparation. The best amount of preparation is 4-6 weeks - any more than that and you will 'reach your peak', and your progress will be lower after. There are several reasons for this, but one could be that you burn-out. You could become fatigued and when it comes to your exam you are unable to provide the same amount of energy and concentration as you would have earlier on.

But don't be cautious about this until you feel you have reached a level where you can no longer improve. Practice does make perfect with the UKCAT.

To quote our slogan, Motivate yourself, Mentor yourself, Maximise yourself

Good Luck! I'm here to help with any other questions you may have. How much preparation have you had so far? Are there any sections in particular you would like advice on?

Mohil
Medicine UCL Y4
medicmind.co.uk/ukcat-mentoring

Fyi I have rescheduled from Fri to next wed to avoid a conflict and to buy myself a couple more days! Keep us posted Mac - will be very interested to see how your mocks compare to the real thing.

Cannot be C. We don't know the sample size thus we don't know if it's a generalisation.

I would say it's D because those who talked to her would speak English and be more willing to teach science in that language. Therefore it's self-selecting

Cannot be C. We don't know the sample size thus we don't know if it's a generalisation.

I would say it's D because those who talked to her would speak English and be more willing to teach science in that language. Therefore it's self-selecting

Okay people, mock 4 results are here! Kaplan again.

VR: 650 (meh)
DM: 800
QR: 800
AR: 630 (really...)
Band 2

Average: 720 Band 2

Not bad at all. Kind of disappointed with AR and VR considering the amount of effort I've put into them, but can't complain at all! Honestly if I got these scores on Friday I'd be a happy camper. And it's a massive improvement over the other Kaplan mock I did today. So considering that + the fact I am a bit tired after doing one exam already, I have to say I am not mad at all. Just going to review the AR now, as I was 100% sure I got 700 or more on that...

Note: I adjusted the DM score according to the official mocks, where 4/5 would give half a point instead of a full point. This increased the score by 2 whole points as I managed to get 4/5 in four different syllogisms. Emailed Kaplan twice about the way they grade this part of DM, but no response as of yet.

Nice! Kaplan sucks...they are just too slow to adapt it seems.

Was that Kaplan #4?

Going to spend some time on Medify QR today...will try to do half of the sets. Also spent 1hr on AR. Tomorrow will be a full day of verbal.

Yeah it's Kaplan 4. Call me crazy but I'm about to do the 3rd mock of the day. Kaplan again.