UCAT
Reviews
My tutor helped me overcome my biggest difficulties in the test, mainly in Situational Judgement where their advice was key to my improvement. The guided revision and study tips made the process much easier and allowed me to surpass my own aspirational score.
Score: 3110 Band 2
Read our UCAT Advice:
Click the links below to read our top tips for sitting the UCAT
UCAT Prep Timetable
Structure your revision:
My best advice is to split your revision into three Stages:
Do one initial mock to act as a guide and a benchmark for your progress.
Stage 1: 1.5 hours/day for 1-3 weeks - No timed practice, Focus on getting used to every section equally without the timings. Do no mini mocks or other full-length mocks.
Stage 2: 3-4 hours/day for 1-3 weeks - Start to introduce timing into your practice, practice timed questions, mini-mock, and maybe some full mocks.
Stage 3: 5-6 hours/day for 2-3 weeks - Start to practice full-length mocks, timed and untimed practice, and a lot of reflection on which questions you are commonly getting wrong. Think about when questions are time-effective to do or when it is more time-effective to guess and move on
N.B - You should try and get through every mock on the official UCAT website within Stages 2 and 3, but don’t worry if you don’t get through every Medify or Medentry mock!
This structure can be applied if you have 4 weeks until your exam (1 week in the first two stages and then 2 weeks in the final stage) or if you have 9 weeks until your UCAT (3 weeks on each section). If you have less than 4 weeks until your exam just start straight away and make sure you are putting in maximum time (5-6 hours a day) whilst not burning out. Remember it's never too late to start revision, but it can be too early! Don’t start revising more than 9 weeks before your exam - UCAT prep can be taxing, and it's nice to get a break after year 12 exams before starting immediately on the next hurdle.
N.B - A really common mistake I see is people worrying about timings way too early in their revision. Obviously, timing is a very important and difficult aspect of the UCAT - BUT - if you were playing a musical instrument you wouldn't start playing a new piece of music at full speed, you would break down each section slowly before putting it all together and increasing the speed. This is the same in the UCAT - you need to learn the common patterns in Abstract Reasoning and develop your techniques for Verbal Reasoning, because if you bring in timing straight away you won’t actually develop these techniques properly. So please stick to the plan - don’t think about timing to start with.