UKCAT Panic help!!!

[erasmus]

Hiya, my UKCAT is on the 3rd of october....ahhh!!!
And basically i have left it too late to practice!
OK heres the thing the -
Decision Analysis- Im a bit iffy at times but that should be fine with practice
Verbal Reasoning- is fine as long as i read the question properly
Quantitative reasoning- c im gd at maths i av been off for ages from skl this year but im still ahead of the rest of my advance higher class and havent been working at home! but there isnt enuf time for these questions in the ukcat!
Finally.... Abstract Reasoning- ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! I dnt get it some of the shapes are very obvious bt others not so any tricks, tips or hints on this sections will be very helpful
Also one more question how is the ukcat marked i.e. im normally gettin around 13 out of 65 in my abstract reasoning whats that in terms of ukcat score...
If some1 can tell me what their ukcat score was and wot marks they actually got thtll help as well

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PANIC PANIC PANIC And im nt the kinda guy hu panics i left revision for my highers until the day before the exam and got 4 A band 1s and a B in maths(under appeal)
Plz help

[skittles87]

Chill.... it really isn't that bad . Its never too late to practice, panicking is probably the worst thing you could do at this stage. You're only going to stress yourself out and when you get into the exam you'll fall apart and wont do as well as you could've done (speaking from experience).

This is a really good site UKCAT - The Student Room. It gives you practice questions from a few different sources.

I really don't think you can really practice for the ukcat, you'll probably find that the people with the best score haven't practised all that much but just have a knack for things like this (so unfair I know, but that's life).

You can only really familiarise yourself with the format and prepare yourself for the types of questions that might come up. For example

quantitative- practice some GCSE maths.. percentages, ratios, data interpretation etc
abstract- I made a list of all the things that could be different i.e. number, size, shape etc and tried to keep them in mind when I did practice questions, this sort of helped
verbal- read a lot of random stuff like maybe the business section of papers
decision- I found the book “600 practice questions for the ukcat” very helpful but its my fav section and the one that needed the least work.

You could maybe devote more time to the section you're worst at?

On the day you have to
1)try your best to stay calm
2)keep an eye on the time and
3)accept that you are going to run out of time in some sections, if you can't do something.. make a quick guess, flag for review, quickly move on and if you've got time at the end go back.

Hope this helps

[nerdman]

Yeah i don't think you can revise either. Just stay calm and focused throughout. At the start of mine my heart was pounding and I was too nervous, so i only got 580 in verbal ¬¬ but regained confidence at start of QR

[erasmus]

ok thanks guys
But can anyone tell me how the marks are converted ie im gettin 13/65 in my shapes section on average now this could be translated as a 600 on the actual ukcat score or mebbe 200 idk :S I just wanna c how im actually doing coz mentally if im not gettin around 80% in a test im panicking.... howeva it mite be the case that i dnt need 80% in the abstract reasoning section.....

[erasmus]

also can u come back to previous sections i.e if i finish abstract reasoning early(i wish! :P) can i come back to quantitative reasoning?

[skittles87]

I don't really know how its scored to be honest but i really wouldnt worry about it, but if still wanna know I think i read some threads on this forum that try explaining it .

No you cannot go back to previous sections... I recommend you download the practice questions from the ukcat website. They've got a practice test, which should familiarise you with the format of the test.

Good luck... Hope it goes well

[conorcd]

you can't go back once your time has finished for that section- each section is separate. I just did mine and got 672. I PRACTISED FOR 3 WEEKS SO YOU HAVE PLENTY OF TIME. I used the studentroom pages/ paid £5 on ebay to get some tests emailed to me ( still available) and ordered books through my local library - go on your council site and search the library catalogue or get your local ones to check for you. useful books are the HOW TO PASS... and the SUCCEED IN PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING series which have books for each section of the UKCAT. Also the 600 UKCAT practice questions/ succeeding in the UKCAT/ passing the UKCAT books are good -try amazon or your local bookshop if your local or school library is no good. It sounds a lot but you'll fly through the books in no time, honest.
The scores per answer are 20, 25 or 30 so 13 would be 260- 390. if you get the first ones wrong, the test will adapt and give you the easier, 20 point questions so you end up with the lower score, I think

[conorcd]

sorry for my use of capitals- my baby brother is on my knee and can reach caps lock

[erasmus]

ok thanks guys....
heres what ive got-
Passing the UKCAT and BMAT book- felicity taylor
succeeding in the 2009 UKCAT- matt green and jemini jethwa
A Kaplan UKCAT book
I have also signed upto medimix for practise questions
and im going to do the downloaded test off the ukcat website in a minute

[sistatalk]

Hiya, my UKCAT is on the 3rd of october....ahhh!!!

I mean I didn't get a brilliant score but I don't hold the UKCAT in high regard. Got an average 620. I only revised a week before the exam. I know am lazy and silly to do it. I recommend the book '600 UKCAT questions' it also has a full length mock. I found the questions in the book HARDER than the ones in the actual test, which I took yesterday.

Abstract you don't really need to 'revise', its all practice. Once you practiced a lot you get the hang of spotting the pattern and quickly. Quantitative q's were relatively straight forward. Verbal MUST watch out for this, you may want to work at this tecnique for a while longer than others and want to get above 600 on this (I didn't ) Decision is the fave, really nice. Translate literally and don't add or subtract words and balance it out if all seem a bit far.

Thats all I can pass on but for in-depth, its the book. Its about £14.47 brand new on Amazon I think, but check the bid site, Ebay, for some that go down to about £10.

Good Luck.