The abstract reasoning section tests your abilities to evaluate and generate hypotheses and assesses critical thinking skills. This is important because Doctors deal with both reliable and unreliable information, and they need to make judgements based on possible diagnoses from test results.
You’ll be presented with shape-based patterns and sequences to assess your spatial awareness and reasoning.
There are 50 multiple choice questions, divided into a number of question sets. With 12 minutes to answer everything, this gives you just one minute per set.
There are four types of abstract reasoning questions in the UCAT subtest:
Each abstract reasoning question is worth one mark. Your total marks for the abstract reasoning subtest will be placed on a scale to give your UCAT score.
The average abstract reasoning score over the last six years is 638. Last year the average score in the UK was 651 – and it was 650 in Australia and New Zealand.
A good abstract reasoning score for the 2021 UCAT test was 650+. A high score of 740+ would place you in the eighth decile or higher and in the top 20% of test-takers.
Average Abstract Reasoning Scores | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
640 | 630 | 629 | 637 | 638 | 653 | 650 |
Average Abstract Reasoning Scores | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
---|---|---|---|
629 | 644 | 650 |
For more on UCAT scoring, check out our UCAT Scores page.
The first strategy you need to unlock is the process for tackling every question. The key steps are:
We teach you how to identify the pattern in our UCAT courses. We tell you how you can work out what the shapes and patterns could be, and give you a mnemonic to help you remember the process.
You also need to learn when you should flag the question and move on so that you can review it at the end and not waste time.
However, you may not be aware that there are likely patterns and variances for the abstract reasoning subtest. This means you can learn what’s most likely to come up in the test. Once you’ve developed this abstract reasoning skill, you’ll be able to tackle any AR question!
Looking at the Set A and Set B shapes below, which of the sets does the Test Shape relate to?
Choose the answer:
Watch the video below for the answer, plus an explanation of how to tackle this example abstract reasoning question.
In our recent UCAT webinar, we walked through some tips for the abstract reasoning subtest – and we explained what the answer was to the above example question.
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