UKCAT Prep , what do i need?????

[abby100]

good luck in your exam, just realised its a few days away, i have mine in august, which city are you doing it in, do you feel like your very well ready for it now ?

keep posted
i have already registered for my gamsat

[Farhana95]

UKCAT: 600Q book + an online revision site (e.g. Emedica). This will be entirely sufficient for most people.
GAMSAT: GAMSAT review ebook, gold standard prep (if you can afford it, otherwise go for the AS&A2 revision guides for biology, chemistry & physics).

Hi Matt! just purchased the emedica, and I was wondering whether it mirrors the difficulty of the real thing! Hope your UKCAT went well! Im quite worried, I have 3 weeks and have not prepared! any advice would be great x

[ashleigh1785]

Help!! I am an A+E nurse who dreams of studying medicine....ANYWHERE! I am sitting the UKCAT next month, I am sitting on a 2:1 Degree (BSc Hons), plenty of life experience but i am struggling with the UKCAT, I don't have A levels so am using my degree alone! I was planning on applying for 2 x 5 yr and 2x 4 yr, I really don't mind which i do. I have paid for a UKCAT crammer course with KAPLIN but i worry that its too late in the day to start learning advanced maths which? Am I punching above my weight here people?

[Medic_88]

I'd say it's never too late to start practising for UKCAT. Have you used the practice tests on their website? I think you can just use them straight away without downloading now. They're useful for getting to know the format of the exam and using the calculator on screen, as you will on the day.

I'd recommend getting the 600 UKCAT Questions book on amazon or ebay. Its really good at explaining each section and, as the name suggests, it has plenty of questions as examples. It goes through each answer so lets you know where you're going wrong and where you may need to change your way of looking at a problem. You could/should probably take it everywhere you go and then have a go at one of the questions when you get a minute spare. They also have timed full tests. I was nowhere near finishing the first one I did and got really worked up, but the more you do the quicker you get.

I hope others will back me up when I say the exam is about learning how to read information and questions quickly and being able to link the two together to be able to get the right answer. So, the quicker you can work out what they want to know, the faster you'll work your way through the questions.

I dont think its about learning complicated maths formulae or things like that, but the basics of speed=(distance/time) and percentages. Especially percentage change. That seems to come up over and over in the exam. A common example is: what the sale price of something is, or the opposite where they give you the sale price and the discount they applied and you are expected to work out the original price. Also currency exchange rates and bus/train/plane timetables.

Little things which may trip you up in the exam:
- Negative in the questions "Which of these isn't blah blah blah
- Time zone differences in the QA section, for flight times etc.
- Totally irrelevant information thrown in just to add bulk to the text/table
- Overly simple questions at the start of each section because you're used to much more difficult examples. This happened a bit in QA where it would just be reading a number straight from the table!

This turned into a bit of a lecture, but hope it helps at least someone!

(ashleigh1785...Don't advertise on your personal statement that you're not bothered about which course or where :P)

[Zedd]

The UKCAT doesn't really involve any advanced math but more just basic number crunching which is compounded and made difficult with a short time limit of the QR section of the test. I'm currently using Medify and think it's a good way of revising and there are other resources such as the 600 UKCAT book and eMedica which will help.

Re: Choice of course. Unless you can afford the first four years of a five year degree I'd suggest that you don't apply to them; focus on the 4 year GEPs which only take into account your degree (I think Newcastle, Warwick, and Kings College London don't take A-Levels into account).