Succeed In UKCAT With Cool Tips
We understand how tough the preparation process of a competitive exam can get. The matter might be all the more nerve wrecking, if it is something as tough as UKCAT! At times, preparation can really bog you down when you suddenly realize how much extra effort you still need to invest, in order to outscore the others. However, amidst the boring process of UKCAT preparation, here come a few more exciting tips, that might spice up your life and yet, make your studies a bit more interesting.
- Firstly, when you start getting fretted with the UKCAT course, call up a few of your friends who are also appearing for the same exam, and sit for a group study session. This would not only give you a great productive time with friends, but would also enable you to know your standing amongst the rest. However, to make it a bit more productive, ask each of your friends to get a different set of question paper from different sources, so that each one of you are enriched with more UKCAT practice materials.
- Do not limit your preparation to just UKCAT books and study materials. Since this is an aptitude test, that requires application of mind, keep your mind open to every single thing that might possibly contribute to the exercise of your gray matters. Start with solving challenging puzzles from books, magazines and Internet. You may also resort to several brain teasers, mechanical puzzles, sudoku etc. That would not only give you a productive leisure, but would also exercise your flair for logical analysis and indirectly prepare you for ‘Abstract Reasoning Skills’ and ‘Decision Analysis’ section of UKCAT examination. So Get Set and SOLVE!!
- In order to score well in Non-cognitive analysis section, start interacting with the doctors, and see how they look at a particular problem and situation. Since this part of the UKCAT question has nothing to do with your cognitive assets, resort to the experiences of the professional people, and broaden your views and perspectives.
- While you prepare for the test, make sure that also keep solving the maths papers of other competitive examinations too, so that your knowledge and command over maths get intensified every day. Since different exams have different format and courses, occasionally following this procedure can turn out to be very productive for the long run too.
A Vivid Understanding Of UMAT Questions Is Essential
UMAT questions are not that easy. Although it apparently looks like easy MCQ questions, if one delves into the matter, he might undergo intense brain storming, in order to perceive its meaning and logic accurately enough, to solve the questions with ease and comfort. Therefore, before you start practicing the UMAT papers, it is extremely essential to first familiarize yourself with the nature and standard of the questions.
- The items in UMAT section 1, is based on logical reasoning and problem solving. As it may be concluded from the name itself, you have to derive a logical conclusion out of these questions. However, solving this section becomes a challenge because these questions are extremely ambiguous in nature. Not all the information is explicitly mentioned in the correct order, and is rather dispersed all over the passage. A few of them are also latent, which may be eventually extracted through application of mind and your cognitive intelligence. In order to answer the questions, you should first go through the entire passage meticulously and grasp its meaning by reading in between the lines too. The faster you unleash the hidden, the faster you solve the problems.
- The questions of UMAT section 2, Understanding People, are about your subjective approach and understanding of human psychology. Since being a doctor involves a lot more than just treatment, to include non-cognitive traits like the correct interactive skills, proper PR, good ethics and a warm approach, this particular section will ask those questions that would judge your ability as a doctor on these non-cognitive grounds. The questions can include a conversation between a doctor and a patient, or a passage, an interpersonal situation, news related to the experiences generally faced by doctors etc. You have to analyze the psychological aspects of the characters, the proper reaction that could fit that situation the best and so on. Make sure that the best of your non-cognitive intelligence is projected through your answers.
- In UMAT section 3, the Non-verbal Reasoning, you have to prove your spatial skills. With the help of the given non-verbal items, resort to logical and spatial thinking, in order to get the answers. The questions would be based on abstract figures and geometric shapes, from where you need to establish the correct relation between the figures. In certain questions, you might need to determine the proper sequencing of a set of patterns, skillfully placed one after the other.
Are You Eligible For UMAT Exam?
When a high school student aspires to become a doctor, the first thing that comes to his mind is UMAT exam, and whether he is at all eligible for the test or not. Many students do not even register for the exam, as before enlightening himself about the UMAT eligibility criteria, they conclude that they are not suitable for the test. However, UMAT eligibility criteria is not as stringent as one might think it to be. The main criteria for UMAT are:
- You should be in the 12th year of your school. If you are currently in your 11th grade or lower, then you are not eligible yet. However, that does not mean that you cannot start preparing. It is always better to start an early preparation, and then apply for UMAT while you are in your 12th grade. This will expand the time of your preparatory period and give you an edge over the others.
- The student need to necessarily hail from science and medical back ground if they are aspiring to sit for this test. Many students from non-science back ground have also succeeded in yielding remarkable scores to get admitted to a good medical college. However, for these students, it is advisable to gather some medical knowledge from other sources, while undergoing UMAT preparation, as some of the questions may be indirectly pertained to medical practices.
- Since this exam is conducted in New Zealand and Australia, you should be a legal citizen of these nations. However, the international students might also be enrolled under a medical college in Australia and New Zealand, but they are most likely to appear for a different examination, depending on the unique rules and regulations of a particular university.
- Students, who are already enrolled in a medical course or is a certified medical practitioner, might need to seek for a special permission from the UMAT office if they want to sit for the UMAT test. Registration for these candidates might get cancelled if they do not support their application with a proper written document from the UMAT authorities.
- Since UMAT test is conducted online, it is obviously necessary to have a personal computer with proper Internet connection at home.
UKCAT Test: A Bird’s Eye View
The UKCAT examination consists of five sections. They are:
- Verbal Reasoning: This is the first section of the paper that consists of 44 questions that has to be covered in 22 minutes. In order to clear this section with ease, the student needs to have a very good command over the vocabulary and intense knowledge about its application. Some of the questions in this part is extremely tricky, and therefore, it requires the candidate to study the question paper extremely carefully in order to understand the correct application of the words, and answer the tricky questions accurately.
- Quantitative Reasoning: This is the second section of the UKCAT paper and probably the most challenging of all. Even those students, who have otherwise been good in mathematics, might find handling this section a challenging task. This is because, although it consists of mathematics, the questions are not exactly related to what has been taught in school. It involves more application of mind and intelligence than what is required for academic excellence in maths. UKCAT quantitative reasoning would have 36 items that has to be solved in 23 minutes.
- Abstract Reasoning: Moving on from the most challenging section to the most interesting one, the abstract reasoning section of UKCAT test. In this section, the candidate needs to deal with non verbal stuffs, like geometric and abstract shapes and determine their relationship. The questions will demand you to state a certain pattern of relationship amongst the given shapes. However, even this section is not as easy as it might apparently seem to be. This is because of the time constraint, where only 16 minutes are allotted for 65 items. One minute should be devoted to reading the instruction, to leave the student with just 15 minutes.
- Decision Analysis: This is the fourth section of the UKCAT exam, the student will be judged on his ability to deal with coded information that gradually becomes more ambiguous and inconclusive. The candidate has to come to logical derivations with a set of ambiguous information that are dispersed all throughout the question. Picking the right piece of information and putting things in place is bound to become a little more challenging when a short span of 32 minutes is assigned to solve 28 items.
- Non-Cognitive analysis: In this section the student’s personal attributes to become a doctor would be judged, through several questions that would indirectly yield the candidate’s personal opinions, perspective, and approaches. This easy section should be completed in 27 minutes, while the numbers of questions keep varying from time to time.
Tips To Simplify UKCAT
Sitting for UKCAT? Needless to say, that you are also suffering from anxieties and tensions like many other aspiring UKCAT candidates. If you are worried about how to crack the test with ease and how to outscore others, then here are a few tips from genie that might make you land in your favorite college!
- Do not stress yourself. The more you stress, the more you suffer. Stress is the culprit, when it comes to loss of concentration and dedication. Instead, feel cool and confident before the test, and rather devote your time to UKCAT preparation.
- UKCAT is definitely a tough exam to crack and therefore your main ‘mantra’ should be PRACTICE! Many student lag in that part and end up getting poor scores. In your initial days of preparation, start with solving one question paper, and then slowly increase it to two, three and so on.
- Yet another villain of UKCAT test is the time. Many students fall prey to its atrocities and succumb to the limits of time, to submit an incomplete paper! The best way to emerge triumphant over the tricks of time limit is to learn how to combat the situation right from the very beginning. How to do that? Sit with a watch every time you are solving an UKCAT test paper. Be sure that you abide by the time limits in each section of the question paper. It might seem like a huge challenge initially, but slowly you would learn how to strategize the time limits according to your own convenience, and bring the time under your control. Even if you are defeated in this mission in the initial days, you would find yourself emerging victorious on the final day.
- Do not just limit your preparation to UKCAT books. Instead, increase your level of interactions. Ask your friends regarding how they are going about with the preparation. Consult your seniors to know more about the test. Get perspectives and insights from several other experienced sources. This would enrich your ideas about the test and make you feel better accustomed to the UKCAT examination.