UCAT

Because the demand for medicine, dentistry and some other health science courses is so significant, the year 12 score required to get into such courses became extremely high. Universities, therefore, needed another method for selecting students into medicine.

UCAT was developed with the goal to assess qualities considered desirable in the health professions, including problem-solving, empathy, and abstract reasoning skills. Many universities also use an interview to select students into medicine and dentistry.

There is a total of 233 questions in UCAT, with the questions divided among the subtests as follows:

1. Verbal Reasoning – 44 questions
2. Decision Making – 29 questions
3. Quantitative Reasoning – 36 questions
4. Abstract Reasoning – 55 Questions
5. Situational Judgement – 69 questions

Approximately 10% of questions will be trial questions, which do not contribute to your score. All questions will be presented in multiple-choice format, on a computer platform.

The UCAT takes a total of approximately 2 hours. There is also 5 minutes of instruction time, 1 minute before each subtest.

Registrations for a Pearson VUE online account and booking a UCAT test date open on 2nd June 2021.

When do registrations for UCAT close?

Registrations close on 22 September 2021.

When can I sit UCAT? Who can sit UCAT?

You can sit UCAT in your final year of high school and any year thereafter.

When are UCAT scores released?

After you have completed your test you will receive an email from Pearson VUE with instructions to access your UCAT Score Report.

The UCAT Consortium will communicate your results to universities so you don’t need to do so yourself.

How hard is UCAT?

UCAT is a very difficult test! The questions are completely different from those you will have encountered at school or university. It is highly time-pressured, which means that the vast majority of students do not finish the exam. The UCAT is a test requiring extreme concentration and quick thinking skills.

The good news? It is possible to prepare for and do well in UCAT.

How can I prepare for UCAT? How can I study for UCAT? How can I do well in UCAT?

Let’s consider each of these in turn.

• Understand the importance of UCATUCAT is often as important, and in some cases is more important, than your year 12 score in determining whether or not you will get into medicine. Even if you achieve a perfect GPA, this does not guarantee you a place in medicine at all universities. Some universities do not even consider your final 12th-grade scores in deciding whether or not you will be offered an interview for medicine–they only consider UCAT initially.Unfortunately, most students do not recognize the importance of UCAT and some do not even prepare, and therefore miss out on getting into their dream course.Can-Am Test Prep Academy recommends treating UCAT as another subject and allocating your time accordingly – if you are in 11th grade you should spend about 10% of your study time on UCAT, and consider increasing this as the UCAT draws closer.
• Familiarise yourself with UCAT-style questionsThe first step in studying for UCAT is to understand the types of questions that you will face. UCAT is not a test of knowledge, it is a test of your generic skills. Therefore, the questions in UCAT will be very different from anything you have been exposed to at school and university.UCAT is composed of questions drawn from five constructs:1- Verbal Reasoning: Assesses the ability to critically evaluate information presented in a written form.2- Decision Making: Assesses the ability to make sound decisions and judgments using complex information.3- Quantitative Reasoning: Assesses the ability to critically evaluate information presented in a numerical form.4- Abstract Reasoning: Assesses the use of convergent and divergent thinking to infer relationships from the information.5- Situational Judgment: Measures the capacity to understand real-world situations and to identify critical factors and appropriate behavior in dealing with them.
• Learn strategies for tackling each type of questionEach type of question requires a certain approach, and there are strategies you can learn to help you answer challenging questions quickly and accurately. There are many strategies to learn, which are covered in-depth in Can-Am Test Prep UCAT course.
• Attempt full-length practice exams under timed conditionsSitting full-length practice exams under timed conditions is the most effective preparation for UCAT. Doing so will familiarise you with the extreme time pressures that you will face, as well as allowing you to practice concentrating for two hours. Furthermore, full-length exams will expose you to the various types of questions that you will face in UCAT, and reviewing the solutions will help you understand where you went wrong.The UCAT Consortium provides practice exams.MedEntry provides all students with up to 17 full-length practice exams, as well as thousands of additional practice questions. The UCAT exams are meticulously researched to ensure they simulate both the style and difficulty of the real UCAT. Importantly, because MedEntry has been preparing students for Aptitude tests for over 20 years, we are familiar with the trends and changes that have occurred over the years.
• Identify your weaknesses and work on themOnce you have completed a few full-length trial exams, you will start to understand your weaknesses. Identify which type of question you find most difficult, and if possible, which subtype of question you find difficult. You should then work on your weaknesses by learning further strategies (by reading the guides and reviewing solutions in depth) and attempting as many practice questions of this type as possible.

How long does it take to prepare for UCAT?

Generally, the more time that you spend on UCAT preparation, the higher your resulting score.

This is why students who are taking a gap year tend to achieve higher scores than they did the previous year because they have had more time to prepare.

However, the relationship between preparation time and expected UCAT scores is not linear – it is asymptotic. This means that after a certain amount of preparation time (say about 200 hours), more time on preparation still increases the score but not dramatically.

It is also worth noting that for several reasons, the increase in scores with preparation is higher for UCAT than it was for its predecessor, the UMAT, for several reasons.

Note that quality preparation for UCAT also helps increase your GPA because of the thinking skills and test-taking skills that you develop.

What UCAT score do I need to get into medicine? What is UCAT scored out of?

Each of the first four subtests (known as the cognitive subtests) will be marked on a scale between 300 – 900, with a total score range between 1200-3600. The majority of test-takers score between 500 to 700 in each of these sections, with an average score of approximately 620 per section.

In the Verbal/Quantitative/Abstract Reasoning sections each question will be worth one mark. In the Decision Making section questions with one correct answer will be worth one mark, questions with multiple correct answers are worth up to two marks, one for a partially correct response and two for a fully correct response. There are no marks lost for an incorrect answer.

The Situational Judgement test is marked differently. Full marks are awarded for a correct answer and partial marks are awarded if your response is near the correct answer. You will receive a scaled score for the Situational Judgement test in 2021. As the Situational Judgement subtest is a measure of non-cognitive attributes, it will be considered by universities in a different manner to the cognitive subtests. Please refer to their websites for more details.

What is a good UCAT score?

A ‘good UCAT score’ depends on various factors, including which university you are applying to, whether you are considered rural and your academic rank (GPA).

Generally, a percentile rank of over 90 (which is equivalent to a UCAT score of 2850 or over) would be sufficient to obtain an interview.

This requirement may vary from year to year depending on the demand for places, as the number of places is fixed.

Furthermore, at some universities, if your academic rank (GPA) is low, you will need a high UCAT score to compensate, and vice versa. Obtaining a high UCAT score will not only increase the probability of you getting in, but you will be able to get in with a higher rank among the students who are accepted: this has numerous benefits.

Is 2500 a good UCAT score?

Unfortunately, no. A score of 2500 is an average score, which equates to about the 50^th percentile. Remember that UCAT is very different from school and university. You are being compared to students who are all intelligent and motivated. Therefore, an average score in UCAT does not mean that you are an average student: it means that you have performed averagely among all UCAT candidates.

In exceptional cases, you may be able to obtain an interview with a UCAT score of 2500. 

How do you read UCAT scores? How should you interpret UCAT scores?

Within a few hours of sitting at UCAT, you will receive an email from Pearson VUE notifying you that your UCAT score report is available to view via your Pearson VUE online account. You will need to log into your Pearson VUE account to view your UCAT score report.

Your Score Report will provide you with a scaled score ranging from 300 to 900 for each subtest, as well as a total score for the cognitive subtests, ranging from 1200 to 3600. Subtest scores are scaled from your raw score (the number of questions you got right) using statistical methods that are not made publicly available.

To get a better indication of how your score compares to other students, you will be able to find out your UCAT percentile ranking in September (well after the testing window in July) by visiting the UCAT percentile lookup website.

What is the highest UCAT score?

The highest score that can be achieved in UCAT is 3600.

Can you retake UCAT?

Yes. You can sit at UCAT as many times as you like. However, you can only sit the UCAT in your final year of high school and thereafter. Furthermore, you can only sit at the UCAT once a year. UCAT results are valid for one year only.