How much has the change in UKCAT affected your average?

[Bakkur]

Now taking out my score entirely, and I don't mean to be mean to Bakkur here, but in the Pearson Vue answer, was there EVER any mention of them putting out tests of vastly varying difficulty? Or marking people unfairly harshly? No, the problem was marking people's tests that may have got questions wrong unfairly highly.

I did no practice for the AR section, or indeed for any section; I was under the impression that it was a test you specifically could not prepare for (their website says "Preparation is not necessary, desirable or advantageous."). But I did find that section utterly mystifying, so much so that I'm not sure that more practice would have helped me - I just don't think I'm very good at pattern recognition (ESPECIALLY not when ALL the PATTERNS are EXACTLY the SAME grrraAArrgh.... ahem). So no, I don't think you're being mean to me, I think I'm bad at that aspect of reasoning and thus my score is not a useful one to take into account in this discussion.

Bakkur, what's that sparkly stuff in your avatar?

Small stones :P

[Argh!]

I did no practice for the AR section, or indeed for any section; I was under the impression that it was a test you specifically could not prepare for (their website says "Preparation is not necessary, desirable or advantageous."). But I did find that section utterly mystifying, so much so that I'm not sure that more practice would have helped me - I just don't think I'm very good at pattern recognition (

Yeah, I think its pretty much a barefaced lie from Pearson vue to say that preparation is unnecessary etc. Especially since they ask you the question before they allow you to book it "Have you gone through the practice exam?" I think if you had never looked at any part of the UKCAT before you sat it, you'd be lucky to get an average of 400. If you don't know what patterns to look for in the AR, it is going to be the most baffling test you ever sit. I think pattern recognition is definitely a skill you can learn.

Having said that, I'm boredline abnormal when it comes to things like that. A machine at the science museum told me I was autistic based on my responses to some strange screen with lots of dots on (they show you the dots for a second and you have to guess how many are there. Normally you can't tell at all. I got three of five right.) Another science museum quiz told me I had a 99% male brain and therefore I must definitely be a boy (I'm a girl).. I now avoid the quizzes at the science museum because they are giving me a complex.

[georgiegirl]

tact as a doctor is never saying to someone dying of a brain tumour "Man, you think YOU have it tough? You should try having asthma, its REALLY annoying". Its not holding back your opinion on a message board so as not to theoretically offend people with a lower UKCAT average who may have had their averages lowered beyond the level of being accepted to any of their university choices (none of whom are in this thread and I doubt many of whom would be annoyed with what I am saying).

Is it? I mean, really, is that, 'tact as a doctor'?

If you think that the definition you have given above is a good example of 'tact as a doctor', then if you get in anywhere, it's a travesty. How clueless can anyone be? It's about as apposite an example as your analogy of the stereo whose CD function doesn't work, but much, much more offensive because it demonstrates some incredibly ignorant and dangerous assumptions.

In the UK, someone dies of asthma every seven hours. It's not 'annoying' having asthma, it's life threatening. The fact that you could even conceptualise a scenario where someone - particularly a doctor - would say something like this to a patient indicates massive immaturity. It's not a clever example to give, in fact it makes you look like a complete twat.

I have to confess to an interest here. I would have had to call an ambulance for my seven year old daughter eight hours ago had I not had a ready supply of prednisolone and a consultant paediatrician whose door I could knock on across the road.

I suggest you learn a bit more about medicine before you go for your interviews. I would advise you especially to educate yourself about asthma, in particular to disabuse yourself of the view implicit in your post that it is merely an annoyance.

The priceless quotation above is more than enough evidence of your naivety. But if any more were needed, one only has to look to the fact that you are convinced that someone who has to reapply next year wouldn't be in the least bit offended by your persistent and indignant posting about how outrageous it is that your 900 in AR should be wiped out even though it makes no material difference to your chances of being interviewed.

Grow up, please.

[georgiegirl]

A machine at the science museum told me I was autistic based on my responses to some strange screen with lots of dots on

Funny that.

[Argh!]

Is it? I mean, really, is that, 'tact as a doctor'?

In the UK, someone dies of asthma every seven hours. It's not 'annoying' having asthma, it's life threatening. The fact that you could even conceptualise a scenario where someone - particularly a doctor - would say something like this to a patient indicates massive immaturity. It's not a clever example to give, in fact it makes you look like a complete twat.


I suggest you learn a bit more about medicine before you go for your interviews. I would advise you especially to educate yourself about asthma, in particular to disabuse yourself of the view implicit in your post that it is merely an annoyance.

Believe you me, I know about asthma. I have brittle asthma type 1. I am almost completely steroid resistant (after 11 days on prednislone 50mg BD, my peak flow had managed to halve, which is apparently pretty unheard of), I have been hospitalised numerous times and nearly died twice (two episodes of status asthmaticus, the second lasting so long I started developing cardiac problems). Thanks to all the prednislone and IV steroids I have had, I have destroyed so much bone density its like I have eaten not a single item of food containing calcium since I was 18. I cough day in and day out as a consequence as well. I don't know my lifetime risk of dying of asthma, my consultant likes to point out its reasonably high (he told me not to bother worrying about the prednislone destroying my bones because "you have to make it to an old lady to worry about osteoporosis").

However, having watched my cousin die slowly and agonisingly this summer of a melanoma that had spread to her brain, I tell you what, it was not an appropriate time to play "Well you think its tough, but I have been coughing for two years now and I can't get travel insurance to travel, and I tell you its really rather tedious". I'll take possible death over definite death anyday.

So that is why I feel quite free to comment on both asthma and brain tumours. Cause I have seen both and I tell you, I'm glad I've the former. And if I don't laugh about my asthma, I'd probably cry.

[Argh!]

Incidentally, another reason I hate Pearson Vue (related to the above) is that their Holborn test centre refused point blank to allow me to take my asthma inhaler in, even when I suggested they took it to bits to see if there were any hidden messages in it, or when I suggested they could give it to the invigilator. They just told me I could come all the way out and get it out of my locker if I needed it that badly. I meant to write an angry letter about that but I forgot.

And speaking of doctorly tact, I particularly enjoyed in a black humour way my admission to the Churchill in Oxford with status asthmaticus. The doctor read that off my chart, listened to my chest and then brought me a form. Question one was "Would you like the chaplain to visit you?" Question number two "Can we contact your next of kin in the middle of the night if needs be?" Question number three, just in case I wasn't getting paranoid enough that they weren't optimistic for my chances "Are you an organ donor?" Then sign and that was the end of the form. Someone really needed to rethink the format of that form. Maybe throw in some lighter questions.

[georgiegirl]

Hey, I'm really sorry. You caught me at a seriously bad moment, hours after seeing my child fighting for breath, lips turning blue etc.

I still don't think your example of doctorly tact is a great one. There isn't much point putting medical complaints into a hierarchy. Doctors, in particular GPs have to see an awful lot of people with truly trivial complaints and also total hypochondriacs, but these people still have valid needs. There is always going to be someone worse off. One of the saddest things I read recently in my local newspaper was about a woman who was disabled and lived alone. She started a fire in her house, having already checked to see how long it would take the fire service to reach her. She did it because she was lonely and wanted the attention but she died of smoke inhalation before they reached her and they found her curled in a foetal position beside her sofa.

I agree that your own experience does qualify you to comment about asthma, but just because your cousin suffered terribly doesn't make your own suffering any less valid.

I am truly sorry that you have to live with this, thanks to the experiences of my lovely daughter, who is constantly on high doses of meds but still has episodes where she will not respond to them, I sympathise entirely.

[Singh.Simran]

Um...though many points are still valid, there appears to be some confusion.

The asthma scenario was never an example of doctorly tact; it was an example of what doctorly tact means you WOULDN'T say... and then to set the basis that tact is not what you say on a message board (though of course our conversations on here are indicative of a great many things..)

[conservativepassion]

Up 30. But I've already had interviews with all of my UKCAT universities, and I don't think they will care much about my UKCAT!

I haven't received the email at all - - - and I don't know why! I received the other email saying that the Personality wasn't to be counted ages ago. Any explanation?

Anyway guys - don't worry about UKCAT score changes. Focus on the interviews because that's the major factor!!

[Argh!]

I agree that your own experience does qualify you to comment about asthma, but just because your cousin suffered terribly doesn't make your own suffering any less valid. I am truly sorry that you have to live with this, thanks to the experiences of my lovely daughter, who is constantly on high doses of meds but still has episodes where she will not respond to them, I sympathise entirely.

Thank you. I sincerely hope your daughter grows out of it. Whilst childhood asthma is horrible particularly because when you are small I imagine you don't really understand why it is happening nor do you understand why you have to take drugs with horrible side effects. On the plus side though, most children grow out of it by the time they are teenagers. My father had terrible asthma as a child but hasn't really wheezed since puberty. I was the opposite, I was fine til I was 17, then it was all down hill. But on the plus side, having periods triggers my asthma, so I get to run all my packets of the pill together and skip it most months! Personally I find it helps to put illnesses in hierarchy in my head, because then if I am feeling down/sorry for myself in hospital etc then I can think well heck if I think I feel bad, it could be worse, I could be that guy over there who is clearly dying of lung cancer. I do wonder what I would do if I was the person who'd developed that worst case scenario disease...

Doctors, in particular GPs have to see an awful lot of people with truly trivial complaints and also total hypochondriacs, but these people still have valid needs.

Its true, where I used to work, we had a patient who was both a massive hypochondriac and also germ-phobic (so she wouldn't come into the surgery). She used to insist on home visits 3/4 times a week, mostly in the middle of the night, and there was never anything wrong. She managed somehow to get one of the doctors private mobile phone numbers and called him more than 20 times a day, all through the day and night. She was under the care of the mental health services, but I don't think she did much because in the end she killed herself. Everyone felt terrible because we all used to complain about her because she really was pretty annoying, but still, she must have just been very lonely.