UCAT Prep

heads up, ucat is out of 2700 now in case you weren’t aware. this is because they removed AR, so now there are 4 sections. and another thing to mention is that for cambridge and ucl you don’t need a 99th percentile score, looking at cutoffs from 2024 you needed a minimum of 3010 to apply and successfully get an interview at all three of the unis you’re aiming for assuming your other stats are as required (3010 was the imperial cutoff).
honestly once you’ve familiarised yourself with how the ucat works banging out questions is the best way to prepare. at the start i was watching videos on youtube to get to grips with how the test worked, but after that the only way to improve is to practice questions under timed conditions and focus on your weak areas. unfortunately my revision style is very random so i didn’t have a plan set out, but i was averaging about 6 hours of study a day in august, where i would do a mock in the morning and another mock in the afternoon/evening and spend the time around that reviewing mistakes and focusing on my weak areas. i started with medify but for the last month i also got a medentry subscription so i never ran out of mocks, but i would say this probably wouldn't be necessary if you use free online mocks like the ones on passmed. save the official mocks for close to the time you sit your exam because they most closely reflect the real thing.
i got 2940 b2 in the real ucat but in my last few mocks leading up to test day i was getting ~ 3350 b1. it just goes to show that no matter how well you prepare anything could happen on the day of the real test! i think my biggest piece of advice would be to control what you can control, like how much you study and how much you look after yourself in the process, and then just hope for the best tbh. some of my friends burnt out and didn’t score as well as they wanted - it’s also really important to take breaks and try to enjoy the summer a little bit as well!

Thanks for all that, I was thinking around 5 hours a day through a 2-2-1 split throughout the day, I thought even though they removed the 4 section, there was still that extra section that actually related to medicine. However, I get what you mean about scoring around 3010 and not aiming for 3250 but I just think that my A-levels are cut out for it, I believe I can get three A* but I only do three A levels whereas the average applicant has 4 A levels. I was also thinking of doing an EPQ but my English language ain’t the best so I don’t think I could get an A* so scoring a high UCAT will help get an offer.