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UCAT - when should i start revising?

Hey guys,

I am a new year 12 and was just wondering when the best time would be to start revising for the UCAT - i know a few people who have told me to start revising now and others who say they only started 6 weeks before? also does anyone have any revision resources that they recommend i use when i get round to my revision?

thank you :smile:

Reply 1

I'm going to be completely honest but you really don't need to start revising now, if you want you can take familiarise and look at some questions and how to tackle them. By familiarising yourself with questions you can see the key skills you need to improve and apply those in day-to-day life (e.g speed reading for verbal reasoning) and then indirectly improve them (e.g when reading textbooks for school try to do it as fast as possible whilst still understanding the content) But I would 100% advise you to not do any hardcore revision at the moment as it's very easy to burn out. Ideally, you should do between 8-6 weeks of practise before you sit the real thing. So, focus on your exams for now as they should be the most important thing at the moment and after exams are over you can prioritise the UCAT. Personally, I would advise to sit it at the end of August as you don't really want to sit it whilst school is ongoing and it gives you the maximum weeks to revise.
For resources there's the official UCAT site which is free, but there are also others that you can pay for a package like Medentry or Medify (you can get one or both and see which one works best for you but in my opinion they are pretty similar). I would also say that if you need any strategy help or issues with timing for certain subsections, reddit usually has pretty good advice as well as some other online forums.
Hopefully this helps and the bottom line is don't stress about the UCAT right now :smile:

Reply 2

Original post
by Foodis8ae
I'm going to be completely honest but you really don't need to start revising now, if you want you can take familiarise and look at some questions and how to tackle them. By familiarising yourself with questions you can see the key skills you need to improve and apply those in day-to-day life (e.g speed reading for verbal reasoning) and then indirectly improve them (e.g when reading textbooks for school try to do it as fast as possible whilst still understanding the content) But I would 100% advise you to not do any hardcore revision at the moment as it's very easy to burn out. Ideally, you should do between 8-6 weeks of practise before you sit the real thing. So, focus on your exams for now as they should be the most important thing at the moment and after exams are over you can prioritise the UCAT. Personally, I would advise to sit it at the end of August as you don't really want to sit it whilst school is ongoing and it gives you the maximum weeks to revise.
For resources there's the official UCAT site which is free, but there are also others that you can pay for a package like Medentry or Medify (you can get one or both and see which one works best for you but in my opinion they are pretty similar). I would also say that if you need any strategy help or issues with timing for certain subsections, reddit usually has pretty good advice as well as some other online forums.
Hopefully this helps and the bottom line is don't stress about the UCAT right now :smile:


Thank you so much!! I’ll definitely take what u said on board :smile:

Reply 3

You want to balance not getting bored with focus

3 months is more than enough

BW,
The Med Den

Reply 4

Original post
by m.v:)
Hey guys,
I am a new year 12 and was just wondering when the best time would be to start revising for the UCAT - i know a few people who have told me to start revising now and others who say they only started 6 weeks before? also does anyone have any revision resources that they recommend i use when i get round to my revision?
thank you :smile:


6-8 weeks is perfect and recommended by the actual UCAT. 1-4 hours a day of study is enough. If you feel mentally exhausted on a day take a break. Mental health is an extremely important part of UCAT preparation.

Reply 5

definitely 6 weeks is fine. I'm a parent of a year 13 and they did the UCAT third week of August. Started studying for it seriously towards the end of July (as term ended, and the mocks had been done). They also had to complete the EPQ so there was a lot going on after Easter. No tutoring, just the medify and the UCAT mocks. Good luck. I would definitely focus on getting used to the A level teaching speed and level, as well as getting good grades for your mocks. Super important in the application.

Reply 6

Thank you so much everyone for the wonderful advice!!! :smile:

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