The UCAT Situational Judgement Test (previously UKCAT Situational Judgement) assesses your non-academic abilities including: ethics, empathy, integrity, communication skills and team working. In the UCAT SJT, you are presented with 19 scenarios following which you have to rate how appropriate or important it is to carry out an action. This page provides an overview of the section as well as our top UCAT Situational Judgement tips.
Please note that UCAT was renamed from UKCAT in 2019. However, the UCAT Consortium has stated that the test content between UKCAT Situational Judgement and UCAT Situational Judgement will be the same. Read more about the UKCAT to UCAT changeover here.
Looking for more Situational Judgement tips? Visit our UCAT Tips page!
Book our UCAT Course| Format | Situational Judgement |
| Questions | 69 (22 scenarios, consisting of between 2 and 5 questions) |
| Timing | 26 minutes |
| Question Type | Multiple choice and ranking-style questions |
The average UKCAT Situational Judgement score in 2018 was Band 2, with 34% of students scoring in this category. You can read more about how Situational Judgement is marked on our UCAT Scores page.
There are two types of UCAT SJT questions, designed to assess your integrity, communication and adaptability:
After each scenario you are presented with an action. You need to rate how appropriate this action is in the context of the scenario. The options are: ‘very appropriate’, ‘appropriate, but not ideal’, ‘inappropriate, but not awful’ and ‘very inappropriate’.
For example, if you see a colleague struggling, would it be appropriate to speak to them? Or report them to your supervisor? Or perhaps both?
An important thing to remember for Situational Judgement is that the action in the question shouldn’t be assumed to be the only action taken – for example, it may be appropriate to speak to your colleague, as well as speaking to your supervisor.
After each scenario you are presented with a number of actions. You need to rate how important it is to carry out that action in the context of the scenario, from ‘very important’ to ‘not important at all’.
Those actions which are considered essential should be awarded high importance. If an action is inconsequential, or even detrimental, then if will be of low importance.
Get started with free Situational Judgement questionsRead Good Medical Practice
This is one of our top UCAT Situational Judgement tips – and essential for aspiring medics! The Situational Judgement section tests your empathy, ethics and communication skills by examining the appropriateness or importance of different responses to a scenario.
Before tackling these questions, it’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with the General Medical Council’s Good Medical Practice. This is crucial reading for aspiring medics and will inform you about all aspects of good practice, including communication skills, maintaining trust, patient safety and teamwork. After reading, you can then apply what you have read to Situational Judgement practice questions.
You can read a selection of our most popular UCAT Situational Judgement (UKCAT Situational Judgement) blogs below.
Preparing for Situational Judgement and want The Medic Portal’s top tips? Watch Tristan’s tips in 60 seconds below!
Please note that test content between UKCAT Situational Judgement and UCAT Situational Judgement is the same.
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