UCAT Situational Judgement

The Situational Judgement section of UCAT assesses your non-academic abilities, focusing on integrity and adaptability in ethical scenarios. 

This section is quite different from the other UCAT sections and has a different marking system. So understanding how it works and what is being tested is key. 

This page will help you prepare for the Situational Judgement section by breaking it down and providing tips to help you get ahead. 

Jump to sections:

• What Is Situational Judgement?
• What Is The Question Format?
• What Skills Are Tested?
• Average Situational Judgement Scores
• Situational Judgement In 60 Seconds
• Situational Judgement Preparation Tips

What Is Situational Judgement?

Situational Judgement is the final of the five sections of UCAT. It involves assessing real-world scenarios, identifying important factors and appropriate responses.  

You’ll get 26 minutes to answer 69 questions, related to 22 scenarios. This allows just 70 seconds per scenario and around 23 seconds per question. 

It’s the only UCAT section that uses a 1-4 band scoring system, with band 1 being the highest performing band and 4 the lowest. 

What Is The Question Format?

Situational Judgement is made up of multiple-choice and ranking-style questions.

These can be broken down into the following question types:

• Appropriateness: After each scenario, you’ll be presented with an action. It needs to be rated according to how appropriate it is in the context of the scenario.
• Importance: You’ll get a number of actions after each scenario and you need to rate them on how important they are within the context of the scenario.

What Skills Are Tested?

The Situational Judgement section assesses your people skills by asking questions centred on ethics, empathy, integrity, team-work and communication. It’s important because, as a doctor, you’ll be working with other medical professionals as well as patients and it’s essential to have good people skills.

Average Situational Judgement Scores

The average Situational Judgement score in 2019 was Band 2, with 40% of UCAT takers scoring in this category. This is also the average band score between 2015 and 2019.

You can read more about how UCAT scoring on our  UCAT Scores page.

Situational Judgement In 60 Seconds

One of our top tutors offers some advice on how to take on Situational Judgement:

More Situational Judgement Preparation Tips

• It’s Not About Personal Reactions. The questions aren’t meant to test how you would react in these scenarios. You need to ask: what would a medical professional do? How are they expected to act?
• Read Good Medical Practice. The General Medical Council’s Good Medical Practice is fundamental reading for aspiring medics. It will inform you on all aspects of good practice, including communication, maintaining trust, patient safety and teamwork.

Want to try some Situational Judgement questions? Start for free on our UCAT Question Bank!

You can read a selection of our most popular UCAT Situational Judgement blogs below:

• 60-Second UCAT Tips: Abstract Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning and Situational Judgement
• UCAT Situational Judgement Tips: Top 3 Strategies

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