Tips For The UCAT ANZ Exam

Students often ask for tips in preparing for their examinations. The following is a list of general UCAT tips prepared by members of the Academic Faculty:

• Commence preparing for UCAT as early as possible. The work you will need to do to become familiar and competitive in the UCAT is not insignificant and should be commenced as soon as possible. This allows students to spread the workload over a more manageable period therefore minimising impingement on secondary school study
• Understand the rationale for the examination. By possessing insight into the domains and styles of assessment, candidates can align their thinking with that of the assessment and are therefore more likely to answer correctly
• Spend at least 100 hours preparing. Most successful students will spend a significant amount of time preparing for the UCAT. Though the UCAT consortium suggests studying for 30-40 hours in the weeks prior to the exam, students seeking higher level performance should intensify their efforts to out-develop their competition. Ideally preparation should be completed over many months rather than concentrated over a few weeks
• Practice regularly and complete all the official UCAT practice materials. The UCAT ANZ is unique in that the consortium provides students with a significant number of practice questions and materials prior to the official exam. It is essential that students complete these materials as well as critically appraising their performance and addressing areas of weakness
• Focus on your weaknesses. In an exam where candidates are ranked against their cohort, it is of high-yield for candidates to focus on improving their shortcomings. These can be identified via completion of formal practice examinations and assessing performance in each of the sections both relative to each other, and against average UCAT scores
• Engage formal assistance in your preparation. Preparing for UCAT in liaison with professionals with experience in the field enables students to focus on areas of importance and avoid common pitfalls. Formal preparation courses and programs should ideally teach students how to approach the questions seen in each section of the UCAT. This is the focus of the Institute of Medical Education UCAT Preparation courses and programs (hyperlink)

Practical exam tips and common pitfalls to avoid:

• Leaving their preparation too late. There is a maximum rate at which candidates can develop and attempting to condense study in a short timeframe is likely to exceed this rate. Leaving study late also impacts on the candidate's capacity for perform on the day
• Managing time effectively. It is very common for students to lose a lot of time attempting to solve difficult questions. To be competitive, students must legitimately attempt all questions and not leave large amounts of exam sections unanswered
• Answer all questions. This requires effective time management and exam strategy
• Read questions carefully - Many candidates will passively move through the exam (rather than actively) making elementary mistakes, which given the competitive nature of the UCAT, can cost them entry into their program of choice
• Relying on previous experience. The aim of the assessment is to determine the candidate's ability to objectively reason. The answers to the questions are therefore provided in the passages and candidates should not defer to prior knowledge to answer questions