UCAT Decision Making

What Is The Decision Making Section?

The decision making section requires you to use logic and reasoning to solve textual and visual data-related questions.

It requires you to solve questions that have corresponding text or visual data. There are 29 questions that need to be answered in 31 minutes.

You’ll have access to a basic on-screen calculator for this section.

It replaced decision analysis in 2017.

Types Of Decision Making Questions

In this section there are two types of question:

• Multiple Choice: Four answer options, where only one option will be correct.
• Yes/No Statements: state ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for each answer.

Decision making questions are designed to test your application of reasoning and logic to a problem, and assess your ability to evaluate different arguments and gain information using statistics. It’s important because, as a Doctor, you’ll be faced with complex situations and have to make difficult decisions.

Average Decision Making Scores

The average decision making over the last four years is 629. Last year’s average score was very close to this, at 625.

Find out more about how the UCAT is scored.

Decision Making Strategies

There are a series of tips and techniques for each type of question. You need to learn:

• How to recognise assumptions
• How to spot strong and weak arguments
• The techniques for single parameter and multi-parameter puzzles
• How to identify syllogisms and draw conclusions from them
• How to approach venn diagrams
• How to apply conditional probability and independent probability
• How to identify the maths behind questions

These are all covered extensively in our live UCAT Course and Online UCAT Course.

It’s important to know that most people struggle with the decision making subtest because they haven’t had enough practice. It’s really essential that you work through as many DR questions as you can, in order to get comfortable with this style.

Example Decision Making Question

To improve productivity, should the NHS make uniforms for all Doctors?

Select the strongest argument from the statements below:

1. Yes, as it might help motivate and put staff into a mindset of working
2. Yes, as surgeons already wear scrubs as uniforms
3. No, as administrators feel it would be difficult to monitor and enforce
4. No, as it has been shown to be limited benefit

Watch the video below for the answer – and to find out how to approach this question.

More Decision Making Tips

We covered this example question in our UCAT webinar – and gave you some tips for how to tackle the decision making subtest. Watch the DM clip below: