{"id":12325,"date":"2020-04-12T16:20:12","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T16:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/2020\/04\/12\/all-things-ucat\/"},"modified":"2021-09-15T15:02:46","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T15:02:46","slug":"all-things-ucat-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/cy\/all-things-ucat-2\/","title":{"rendered":"All things UCAT!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is important that you know what admission test each medical school you apply to requires – for Cardiff, it is the UCAT (formerly known as the UKCAT).<\/em> In this blog, I will share how I did my preparation and further tips. I hope it is useful!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like I mentioned previously,<\/a> I ensured that I had completed my UCAT before sending off my UCAS application<\/a> so that I could see if my UCAT score was competitive enough for the medical schools I was applying to. <\/em>I did my UKCAT in mid August and started my prep in mid May -which looking back I embarrassingly announced on Facebook as well! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Honestly, if I suddenly had to retake the UCAT today, there would be no way I would get a high average, because personally I think it requires some brain training to get used to the style of questions! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when should you start preparation?<\/strong><\/p>Although I did say I started 3 months in advance, in reality, I did 2 months<\/strong> of preparation which was plenty of time. I am extremely grateful that I started when I did, because closer to my test date, my Nan had passed away and there was only space to push it back a few days after her funeral. A lot of people thought this would affect my score, but in the end I did not need to claim extenuating circumstances because honestly I surprised myself and did a lot better than I had done in my final mock test. I dedicate that to my Nan because she always encouraged me when she knew I wanted to be a doctor and I knew that she would want me to try as hard as I could, regardless of circumstance.

However, in mid May, I had no idea that this was going to happen. I actually chose to start earlier than usual because I wanted to get an understanding of the style of questions and test format before doing my A levels. This meant I had a plan on what to focus on after I had completed them, because I knew that I would not pay as much attention to prep when revising for 4 A Levels.<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So what should you use to prepare?<\/strong><\/p>First of all, before jumping the gun and buying materials (which is not completely necessary), you must<\/em><\/strong> read the official UCAT website thoroughly<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong> It has information on each section of the test: the question types, how many questions, the timings as well as some useful practice tips, preparation videos and a prep plan. <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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They also provide 4 official practice tests,<\/a> which are similar to the real test, which you can do timed and untimed. Furthermore, they provide a subtest and question banks for each section<\/a> for more focussed practice, and they have an app which is great for practice when commuting.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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FURTHER RESOURCES<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

You’ll have noticed that I bought a book, but I had mixed opinions about it: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PROS<\/td>CONS <\/td><\/tr>
– more practice questions with a range of difficulties
– brilliant indepth explanations and useful techniques suggested
– doesn’t require WiFi! – could carry about when I needed it<\/td>		– majority of questions are a LOT harder than the real thing
– have to flick back and forth to get answers
– requires you to manually time yourself once you get to that stage<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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For my situation with my Nan being in hospital near to her end stages, it proved to be very useful for me to keep up revision whilst we spent long shifts in the hospital checking on her, because we all know hospital WiFi is never good! However, the rest of my revision I used Medic Portal’s question bank<\/a> – they provided lots of free questions which I could monitor my progress with and by the end, my revision was mainly using this tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are lots of other resources which will require you to pay for access, but (being a very big fan of bargains\/ free stuff!), I always recommend to start off with free resources that organisations provide first and then you can make the commitment to pay for access for a certain length of time. Here are two more which are very popular as well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n