UKCAT practise

[mimsypoo]

I've been doing the official ukcat practise program thing, and I always have time to spare at the end, but my score for each section is 55%. Any good tips (that aren't in the passing the ukcat and bmat book because it hasn't helped me very much )? And what should I be getting on average in practise tests to get a decent score in the actual thing?

[FLmedicine20]

what sections do you need help on? I'm an international student from the states, I worked out of 2 different books...

Verbal - it was my lowest section when I took the test this past friday (avg. 640)... I found it difficult to decide b/t false and cannot tell statements - I wish I took more practice tests on the verbal...having the description of the answers made sense, but only after I answered the question wrong!

Quantitative Reasoning - one of my books was EXTREMELY difficult, and scared me b/c I'm good at math...but the actual test was easy...not too much reading, ask a lot on percentages - I did simple warm up practices (adding, subtracting, etc., basic math), I completely guessed on some math questions that required reading, try and answer 30 out of 40 AT LEAST, but you should have time to answer them all (timing is crucial)

Abstract Reasoning - once again, one of my books was EXTREMELY hard, I didn't understand the answers when explained, however, on the exam it's a lot easier (I scored a 680) - it asked a lot on number of sides, shapes, rotations, some angles, etc. - I had difficultly with a few of them, but I had 3 minutes left to review!

Decision Analysis - practice practice practice...I had time left over in this section too...make sure you write down every code in the question and pick the question that is most simple, makes sense, and uses EVERY code! I found that some wrong answers would have some codes missing, have all the codes but introduce something else, and not make any sense. It's easy to eliminate those that have past, present, or future tense when it states what tense it is in the question!

I hope this helps...I did practice questions for a/b a month, the abstract is not that difficult, I found the verbal hardest....you should be okay if you have time left over b/c it actually gives you time to review those that you may flag!


GOOD LUCK!

[mimsypoo]

i get really confused in the quantative... about what they actually want me to work out!! its not the actual math because im quite fast... its just when they show graphs and stuff i get quite thrown

in the abstract its quite hard to know what to look out for, it seems that i follow a kinda gut feeling, and in the time span i dont really have a particular technique to follow to work out the right answer

ive only got 2 weeks till mine

[FLmedicine20]

What helped me w/ the abstract was comparison(s) - I'd go w/ a simple pattern in set A and see if it can apply to set B...if they were similar, I'd find a different pattern...A bit time consuming, however, once you find the pattern(s) you can zoom through the test questions for the sets...

On the math portions with graphs, especially pie charts (had a/b 3-4 question sets on that) - I would read the question first then look at the chart (normally in percentages) and the title for any other numbers (ie total population, or numbers represent the population in the thousands...etc.)...I know people have different techniques, but this one worked out best for me b/c I hate reading!

[Dr_Ciggie]

The problem with Abstract Reasoning is this..This is taken from the "How to pass the UKCAT" book by Mike Bryon & Jim Clayden. The following are what you should look for when attempting AR qs:

Number
Size
Shape
No of sides
Enclosed or not
Type of shading or colour
Patterns
Position in the cell
Direction
Rotation
Reflection
Intersection

Now...How the hell are you supposed to discern the correct answers based on such a broad spectrum of things to look for in such a short amount of time? A even bigger problem is that the UKCAT is computer-adaptive so the quicker you answer "easy" questions, the sooner you will encounter the more difficult ones. The problem is that you won't know for sure if you have answered the easier ones correctly. I feel this can be misleading because the harder q's will inevitably have more rules to them..and in a situation where you do not know whether you are answering an easy question or a difficult one, you could be faced with a predicament where you are using the wrong rules to deduce the answer...

[Dr_Ciggie]

Oh and this is how to calculate your "rough" UKCAT equivalent scores...
if you are getting 55% for each section, your UKCAT scores are 495 for each section (assuming that each question holds equal weight which in most cases is true)...

55/100 X 900 = 495..

You should be looking to get ~ 70% of the questions right which will give you an above average score of ~630 for each section...

Hope this helps.

[magpie7]

Oh and this is how to calculate your "rough" UKCAT equivalent scores...
if you are getting 55% for each section, your UKCAT scores are 495 for each section (assuming that each question holds equal weight which in most cases is true)...

55/100 X 900 = 495..

You should be looking to get ~ 70% of the questions right which will give you an above average score of ~630 for each section...

Hope this helps.

Complete nonsense.

I was getting around 55% right, (more in AR) and... Well, look at my sig for scores.

So what if you're getting 20% right? You get a score of 180 do you? No, minimum score is 300.

[Dr_Ciggie]

magpie you need to learn to "read"..this is what happens when you put your trust into the UKCAT verbal reasoning test..You master the ability to read quickly at the expense of accuracy...I made it clear in parenthesis that "assuming that each question holds equal weight"!!!

If all questions assume equal weight, and you have 44 items for verbal reasoning, then each question holds ~ 20.5 points (20.5 X 44 = 902 = ~900)..

Now, if you get 55% of the questions right, you have answered ~24 out of 44 questions correctly...
:- 24 X 20.5 = 492.

You cannot get lower than a 300 scaled score, so getting 20% of the questions right would lead to the "minimum" score on the scale which equals 300, rather than the expected score of 180..

Read before you write!!!

[magpie7]

magpie you need to learn to "read"..this is what happens when you put your trust into the UKCAT verbal reasoning test..You master the ability to read quickly at the expense of accuracy...I made it clear in parenthesis that "assuming that each question holds equal weight"!!!

If all questions assume equal weight, and you have 44 items for verbal reasoning, then each question holds ~ 20.5 points (20.5 X 44 = 902 = ~900)..

Now, if you get 55% of the questions right, you have answered ~24 out of 44 questions correctly...
:- 24 X 20.5 = 492.

You cannot get lower than a 300 scaled score, so getting 20% of the questions right would lead to the "minimum" score on the scale which equals 300, rather than the expected score of 180..

Read before you write!!!

Well, the UKCAT is not scored like that.
55% got me 700... Not 492.

(assuming that each question holds equal weight which in most cases is true)...

You 'assumed' wrong. Very wrong. Where did you even get such utter crap from anyway?
It is much more likely to be scaled to a Bell Graph.

You think that Pearson VUE score their tests with the linear graph that people learn in Primary School?

[Dr_Ciggie]

Lol you are quite the dim one arent you? Refute this if you can:

I took the following from pages 414 and 415 of the "600 UKCAT practice questions" book..

This is pertaining to how the decision analysis section of the test is scored..

There are a total of 26 question..

Questions 1 to 20 are each allocated 35 points..
Questions 21 and 22 are each allocated 34.5 points..
Question 23 (word 1 and word 2) is allocated 32 points (16 X 2)..
Same goes for Questions 24 and 26 (32 points each)..
Question 25 is allocated 35 points..

My assumption was "assuming that each question holds equal weight which in most cases is true"...I do not see how my assumption was incorrect...After all, 21 out of 26 questions hold equal weight (35 points) and the remaining 5 questions are not far off (34.5 points each for the remaining 2/5 questions, and 32 points each for the remaining 3/5 questions)..

So you can safely assume that "roughly" each question is allocated ~35 points..

You should just accept certain facts instead of trying to refute others just for the sake of instigating pointless debates..it will make you look less dumb if you do that!!