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Should I postpone my UCAT? Any advice appreciated

Hi all! I’m currently aiming to study medicine at university and preferably a London university or Oxbridge. I all 9s with two 8s at GCSE, three A*s predicted and achieved an A in my AS this year.
I have been preparing for the UCAT exam for the last couple of weeks, and it’s been very stressful. I’ve come to the week of my exam, which is on the 31st of August, and have been consistently getting around 2500-2600 on my mocks on medify.

Absolutely all and any advice on how to take things from here would be appreciated! Is it worth rescheduling to September to buy time? I’m also aware that I have y13 which will be incredibly busy. Do you have any advice on making a drastic improvement in the time a have? How should I structure my revision and work from now?

Reply 1

Hey there, thanks for posting a question in the Medicine forum. :biggrin:

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Reply 2

learn + review exactly where ur going wrong, make a bank of all q u get wrong coz ibr theres a lot of repition in patterns that come up - not just in ar but also stuff like qr and dm - as many syllogisms and questions as possible.

I'm sure you'll be fine, mock scores arent representative of the acc thing - ive heard and seen a lot of massive jumps ins scores. Basically walk in thinking ur gonna get 3600 lol and its gonna end well

Reply 3

Can you give it a lot of attention before the 31st?

Is there a particular section which you are finding particularly tricky?

Have a look at the main UCAT thread to see if others are wrestling with the same problems.

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7475233

it depends on the date you can get to reschedule. If it’s the first / second week in Sept it might make all the difference. You have great stats otherwise.
(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 4

I don't think it's wise to reschedule it to September as, you're right, you're going to be incredibly busy once year 13 starts. Do you really think it's worth pushing the date back and having a few extra weeks to revise? You know yourself best - if you genuinely think you will improve by then and it will make the difference between an offer and a rejection, go for it. If you think it's just a case of pre-exam jitters, it's better to get it over and done with.
Good luck!

Reply 5

Original post
by Fisherman98
learn + review exactly where ur going wrong, make a bank of all q u get wrong coz ibr theres a lot of repition in patterns that come up - not just in ar but also stuff like qr and dm - as many syllogisms and questions as possible.
I'm sure you'll be fine, mock scores arent representative of the acc thing - ive heard and seen a lot of massive jumps ins scores. Basically walk in thinking ur gonna get 3600 lol and its gonna end well

Thank you so much for the response- I already have a bank for AR, but I've started one for DM and QR too now! I think my main issue with both sections is timing, as I often make mistakes due to running out of time rather than misundertanding the q. Do you have any suggestions on how to improve that?

Reply 6

Original post
by George&Mary
Can you give it a lot of attention before the 31st?
Is there a particular section which you are finding particularly tricky?
Have a look at the main UCAT thread to see if others are wrestling with the same problems.
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7475233
it depends on the date you can get to reschedule. If it’s the first / second week in Sept it might make all the difference. You have great stats otherwise.

Thank you so much for your response!

I've been giving it a lot of attention, but I've still stayed pretty stagnant in my score- I got 2590 b1 in my last medify mock which is really terrifying.

My best section is by far VR, followed by AR where i'm getting around 680-700. DM and QR are definitely the weakest, where I'm averaging 620-640. I think my main issue (as with most) is timing. It takes a lot of time for me to spot a pattern quickly in AR, or complete all the questions in time for QR. I often end up spending 20 secs eyeballing/ estimating the latter qs in QR, maybe I should focus on accuracy? With DM timing is again, the issue. I've tried triaging the Qs, and doing the basic syllogisms and evaluating arguments first, followed by probability, venn diagrams/ data based syllogisms and finally logic puzzles. I often end up completely guessing the latter qs because i'm just out of time.

I just feel very hopeless. I know If I postpone the exam, I'll be in a worse position as my school is starting on the 2nd, and I'll be busy and tired. At the same time, I do not feel prepared at all for the 31st.

Reply 7

Original post
by snowblob
I don't think it's wise to reschedule it to September as, you're right, you're going to be incredibly busy once year 13 starts. Do you really think it's worth pushing the date back and having a few extra weeks to revise? You know yourself best - if you genuinely think you will improve by then and it will make the difference between an offer and a rejection, go for it. If you think it's just a case of pre-exam jitters, it's better to get it over and done with.
Good luck!

Thank you for your advice and the well wishes! You're right, Y13 September will be incredibly busy and stressful, and as UCAT is an aptitude test, maybe my scores will suffer a bit too. I also won't be able to give it my full atention as there'll be other work/ personal statements ect etc.

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