BEAT THE UCAT 2026 Discussions Megathread

Start building early. Not with full mocks — with foundations. Speed reading and mental arithmetic create flow, and 10 minutes a day compounds a lot faster than you think. The biggest regret students have and the main reason why UCAT pressure peaks can be avoided.

How would you recommend starting early with the foundations and essential skills the UCAT demands? Thanks.

How would you recommend starting early with the foundations and essential skills the UCAT demands? Thanks.

Can you recommend really good providers to help with UCAT which offer programmes or course please?

For QR- every UCAT student agrees that the pearson onscreen calculator is a nightmare! And the highest scoring students AVOID IT.
Practice mental arithmetic, such as times tables, learn common fractions and percentages, and become effortless at doing long calculations quickly on paper. In A-levels we can all agree we use the calculator for everything, and I was sure that I'd be slower writing numbers out and doing calculations by hand, but what the top 1% students told me is that the secret to scoring high in QR is being a student who can do calculations on pen and paper faster than navigating that calculator. And you have time to build that now!
Practice until reaching for the calculator becomes a last resort. Trust me.

There are two schools of thought on this. I agree that you should be able to most integer arithmetic yourself, but there are a lot of questions in QR where I feel like even if you can do the maths (full of decimals and percentages and the like) yourself you will A) take ages or B) make a mistake and get the wrong answer anyway.
Personally, I am a very anxious person and have you ever been in a maths exam and suddenly you need to do 14 + 12 or something stupid on a calculator just in case 😂.
You absolutely should avoid the calculator, but not the to the point where you are sacrificing your score. Natural ability/awareness of practice also comes into this, some people will simply have a better handle of mental arithmetic come test time.
I think it is actually worth it spending some time learning to use the calculator well so that you are faster and also make less mistakes using it (personally I think MedEntry's guide book on this is great, that's what I used, and there's a training area in Medify I'm pretty sure where you can practice using it).
This way, you are able to quickly decide in the test "no, I need a calculator for this" and get it up and do the calculation. Instead of dithering trying yourself and then ending up needed the calculator anyway and then taking ages to use it because it is slow and clunky.

There are two schools of thought on this. I agree that you should be able to most integer arithmetic yourself, but there are a lot of questions in QR where I feel like even if you can do the maths (full of decimals and percentages and the like) yourself you will A) take ages or B) make a mistake and get the wrong answer anyway.
Personally, I am a very anxious person and have you ever been in a maths exam and suddenly you need to do 14 + 12 or something stupid on a calculator just in case 😂.
You absolutely should avoid the calculator, but not the to the point where you are sacrificing your score. Natural ability/awareness of practice also comes into this, some people will simply have a better handle of mental arithmetic come test time.
I think it is actually worth it spending some time learning to use the calculator well so that you are faster and also make less mistakes using it (personally I think MedEntry's guide book on this is great, that's what I used, and there's a training area in Medify I'm pretty sure where you can practice using it).
This way, you are able to quickly decide in the test "no, I need a calculator for this" and get it up and do the calculation. Instead of dithering trying yourself and then ending up needed the calculator anyway and then taking ages to use it because it is slow and clunky.