Welcome to part two of 60 second UCAT tips! This blog will cover Quantitative Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning and Situational Judgement.
Disclaimer: this blog will be more useful if you’re a little bit familiar with the format of each section. If you’re not, you can read up on each section of the UCAT here.
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This is the section that you could probably score the highest on so long as you practise all the different types of UCAT questions that come up.
Generally speaking, the maths doesn’t go beyond Grade A GCSE maths. The most common types of questions to arise are ratios, percentage change, speed = distance/time, converting units, areas/perimeters and some statistics.
Try to get as familiar with these as possible, and make sure you know all the formulas for working them out.
You are given a very basic on-screen calculator so it’s worth ditching all the extra functions on a scientific calculator whilst practising, so that it’s the most accurate representation of the test.
You’re also given a whiteboard to jot down some notes, so feel to use one whilst studying, or simply some blank paper. Surprisingly however, the more mental maths you can do the better, as it takes time to tap numbers into the calculator or scribble on the board, so try to minimise this as much as possible.
Depending on the question, it may be worth working on your estimation skills as rounding numbers up or down makes it easier to do the maths mentally. The actual answer should be near enough what your (estimated) answer is.
The best way to go about maths questions is to again read the question first and then look at any data that may be provided. Eyeball the data to identify the key information, then plug in your calculation if it’s required, and select your answer.
Sometimes they add extra information in bullet points that many students ignore. Make sure you scan this information – it is usually essential to answering at least one of the questions.
Abstract reasoning is the section that by far looks the most scary and overwhelming. It also sounds tough for time, as there are 13 minutes to answer 55 questions. However, the majority of questions will compose of two sets (A and B) and five ‘test shapes’ that you must either place in Set A, Set B or Neither.
You’ll probably spend most of your time identifying the patterns. Once this is done, grouping the test shapes will be an easy feat. It is so important to not panic as this makes it harder to find the pattern.
Take a breath and work systematically through a number of potential patterns the sets may be. There is no point looking at the test shapes first, your eyes should immediately scan Set A and Set B to identify the pattern.
The patterns often fall into one of the following 4 categories:
This section is assessing your professionalism and ethical code of conduct. Your answers will reflect the kinds of decision you’ll make in compromising or stressful situations.
In these questions, it is important that you read the whole scenario first before answering any questions. Take a good 30 seconds to read it all, and then each question shouldn’t take more than 10 seconds to answer.
It’s quite handy to have a read of the GMC guidelines to see what is expected of healthcare professionals in different situations, but some points you should always consider are:
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