UKCAT, the horror!

If you speak to any medicine applicant, this will be the topic they mention first. The expensive, overrated and impossible exam that will crucify your intellect and fry your soul… Maybe a slight over exaggeration but you get my point!

It’s split into 4 sections, out of 900 each:

-Verbal reasoning: this years hardest rated section. It’s where you get given text passages and you have to identify where a statement about the passage is true false or cannot tell. There are also questions where you have to match the best statement to the passage which is even harder. But the main problem is the time, with around 30sec per question, there really is no time for messing around.

-Qualitative reasoning: for me the easiest, I was fortunate to get 800/900 so I was pretty pleased. It’s where you get given simple maths problems, such as bus timetables and tax forms, and you have to give the multiple choice answer, which sometimes is just a guess.

-Abstract reasoning: you’ll either get it or you won’t. 2 set of shapes, A and B, have one maybe 2 patterns and the third shape which you get given you have to match to A or B. Sounds quite easy, but wait until you see the patterns.

-Decision analysis: the highest average scoring section. You get given a code and a statement made from the code, it’s simply matching the statements. For me it didn’t quite quick, probably as my technique was quite weak, but a lot of people score regularly over 800.

Then there was the final section. It was used more as a trial run where the scores haven’t been used by my units, but there are some that do.

-Situational judgement: you get given an awkward scenario and you have to say whether an action by a medical student, or a doctor or anything, is appropriate or not. Quite hard to explain, but generally quite an easy, common sense station. Marked band 1 the best and band 4 the worst. Average is probably 2.

For me the best practice was the timed papers on the UKCAT website, theres 2 so you get a bit of practice. Any questions feel free to ask and I’ll be happy to answer them when I can.

M