Ucat 2023

I am very confused with UCAT. I am doing my A level right now as a private candidate and will be sitting for A level exam on summer 2024. Should I do UCAT on 2023 or 2024 after my A level exam? Please anyone give me some advice….also when to apply for uni…after doing UCAT or before UCAT??
Thanks in Advance😊😊

Hi, the UCAT should be completed in the months before you submit your UCAS application which is the October of the year that you are in your final year (beginning of your year 13 year and the same academic year that you sit your A-level exams)

So if you are sitting them in summer 2024, you will need to have done your UCAT this year as you will be submitting your UCAS application in October 2023 for medicine.

Hope that makes sense. You can find more information online about UCAT preparation and timing. The booking for UCAT has not opened yet, but you can register for an account on the Pearson Vue website. Check out free resources such as The Medic Portal, 6med and YT videos to help out!
Useful guide for you to get started: https://6med.co.uk/ucat/guides/getting-started/

Hope that's helpful!

Does the actual UCAT exam have similar patterns to that found on medify for AR? Or are they completely different?

So I am a final year med student so wrote my UCAT years ago (2017, back when it was called UKCAT) and my AR had practically very similar patterns to Medify and the official UCAT practice papers that are on the website. My brother who sat the UCAT this year said the AR in the actual exam for him was easier than the questions on Medify!

There are only so many patterns and combinations for AR that can come up so practicing is the best way to improve and become more efficient in AR.

Hope that is helpful!

hello! Would you say that the difficulty level for the other sections on the UCAT was similar to medify?

Sorry for the late reply! The verbal reasoning in question banks is very representative of the exam. I did find that in my exam, the passages were sometimes longer for some questions and much shorter for others. I think they do a representative distribution for the questions.

QR I found, was much more straightforward in the actual exam, but then again could have been down to the luck of the type of questions.

I never had DM in my exams (it was a trial section for my year so I just skipped through it) so I cannot comment on this sorry!

Flagging and skipping was my best friend, tbh in the actual exam as I had the time restraints in the back of my mind, and it meant I finished the questions and was able to come back to questions I was less certain of for more time to review.

Hi and thanks for your reply!
Which section in the actual exam you found the most challenging.
Did you find the AR and SJT harder than medify?

I just did my UCAT yesterday and came out with a 3020 Band 1. In my opinion, AR & SJT were easier than medify although this varies per applicant as a different question bank is used each time ( additionally I did a **** ton of practice on both sections, about 1000 sets for each, this allowed me to recognise each pattern and scenario for AR & SJT respectively ).

Something to note for QR is to skip all the hard questions and guesstimate. If you waste time doing a hard question, sure you may get a mark, but you'll lose out on marks on easier questions.

Guys i'm panicking...
I use both medentry and medify. Apparently medentry is harder than the actual ucat, so I used that mostly so i'll find the actual exam easier. I've been getting scores from 700 to 800 consistently, usually with around 30/36 in qr. However when I did the official UCAT Mock A, i got overall 600. I find that in vr for example, the passages are generally short, but the questions themselves involve a lot more complexities and brain power to be able to answer them. Also, the qr is wayyyy harder than the qr in medentry...

I've always heard that the qr in medentry is much harder than the official (and medify). I've also heard people saying that medify is more representative of the actual exam's difficulty compared to medentry. I find medify easier than medentry, like most people. But here's the problem: when i try out the official UCAT question banks and mocks, all of the questions appear to be much much harder than both medentry and medify. There's clearly a confliction between everyone elses opinions here...

My question is, are the UCAT official question banks/ mocks more similar to the actual exam than medentry, or medify? Because the questions on medify are the easiest out of the 3, but ucat official questions are like 50x harder than both medify and medentry. How do you guys find the official question banks and mocks compared to medify or medentry?

Guys i'm panicking...
I use both medentry and medify. Apparently medentry is harder than the actual ucat, so I used that mostly so i'll find the actual exam easier. I've been getting scores from 700 to 800 consistently, usually with around 30/36 in qr. However when I did the official UCAT Mock A, i got overall 600. I find that in vr for example, the passages are generally short, but the questions themselves involve a lot more complexities and brain power to be able to answer them. Also, the qr is wayyyy harder than the qr in medentry...

I've always heard that the qr in medentry is much harder than the official (and medify). I've also heard people saying that medify is more representative of the actual exam's difficulty compared to medentry. I find medify easier than medentry, like most people. But here's the problem: when i try out the official UCAT question banks and mocks, all of the questions appear to be much much harder than both medentry and medify. There's clearly a confliction between everyone elses opinions here...

My question is, are the UCAT official question banks/ mocks more similar to the actual exam than medentry, or medify? Because the questions on medify are the easiest out of the 3, but ucat official questions are like 50x harder than both medify and medentry. How do you guys find the official question banks and mocks compared to medify or medentry?

Cheers guys,
Do let me know if you find the answer to my other questions.

As suggested earlier suggest ypu join/ read the 2024 entry UCAT thread for the answers.

This thread is last years. The mocks and banks have changed since then.

Dont forget that different people use Medentry and Medify and importantly its not a single exam so people dont necessarily get the same questions or level of difficulty / length of VR for example at all. So the answer to your question is that everybody has a different perspective. Go and give yours on thw 2024 thread too.