How to Improve Timing in Your UCAT Preparation?

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Why is UCAT ANZ Timings the Hardest Part About the UCAT?

Imagine having to tackle 225 UCAT questions, each constructed to test skills that you do not deploy on a daily basis in a tight 1 hour 55 minute duration?

Sounds a tad bit overwhelming, doesn’t it? 

The UCAT is primarily a prerequisite utilised in the undergraduate medical sphere to measure an applicant’s academic excellence and key skills deemed suitable for a demanding medical profession. These core traits need to be demonstrated for each UCAT question in a fairly short amount of time, i.e. 14 - 30 seconds per question! 

The UCAT test timings happen to be a crucial aspect to assess an applicant’s mental endurance and accuracy in that time scarce setting, hence the reason that timing seems to be the hardest part about the UCAT. 

In our years of teaching and preparing students for the UCAT, we have noticed that a majority of them struggle to keep up with UCAT timing during preparation and almost until test day.

In this article, we will explicitly talk about tips and tricks to perfect your time management skills during UCAT preparation, so you can build your ability to answer as quickly as possible!

How Can I Improve My UCAT Timing During Preparation?

UCAT Test Strategy: Focus on Slow and Steady Time Training

‘Is it normal to run out of time during the UCAT?’ This is a common, lurking fear for most UCAT test sitters as the test format is an unconventional approach to measuring one’s skills and knowledge. And for this reason, it is more than likely that you may not have sufficient time to complete all the questions. 

Running out of time during any examination can be stressful and disappointing, especially if you were well-prepared and knew the strategies to ace a question. 

With your UCAT study, overcoming the time pressure is the real challenge compared to getting the correct responses and this is reason enough that time training should be slow-paced and dealt with patiently each time you sit down to study.

The UCAT is primarily concerned with your ability to balance accuracy and speed, therefore, once you familiarise yourself with the required foundational knowledge, you need to start working through each section against a ticking clock. Remember that time training is a gradual process, so the sooner you introduce timing in your UCAT preparation plan, the more comfortable you be around improvising your strategies around never-seen-before questions.

With that being said, each question in the UCAT is worth one mark and some sections are more time-strapped than others, which means you can effectively manage your time to focus your efforts on sections or questions that will yield a higher rate of success. In order to reach this level of strategizing for the UCAT, you need to begin time training a few months before the actual UCAT test itself, even if you are not 100% confident with all question-variations. 

Get Comfortable Using the Method of Flagging!

Your mindset when dealing with the UCAT’s difficulty should be dividing time smartly to have a decent shot at all questions rather than stress-rationalising questions that are easier than others. In doing the latter strategy, you are losing out on valuable exam time. Besides, it is not necessarily the best strategy to forgo a hard UCAT question when this ‘one mark’ could potentially be the make-or-break mark to your final score calculation. 

Therefore, no matter what variation of a question-type you are challenged with, you need to assess a question’s difficulty, make a quick guess, flag it and move on to the next question. This is the ground rule for tackling the UCAT even if you are not fully happy with the method as flagging maximises your odds of getting ‘most’ questions right. 

For a detailed breakdown of the important UCAT Keyboard shortcuts that can significantly save your precious time on exam day, click on the link!

Now coming back to how comfortable you are with flagging, well, truth be told, this strategy is meant to incrementally reduce the time spent per UCAT section every time you attempt a UCAT practice test. So, our advice would be to get used to the practice of flagging a question that are taking more time than necessary!

UCAT Time Management: Adopt a Step-Wise-Approach

Say for instance, you are dedicating 3 minutes to solve one Abstract Reasoning question. At the start of your preparation, when in reality you are only allowed a shocking 14 seconds, you could develop hacks to identify which AR question requires a straightforward strategy before targeting the time consuming ones.

What this means is that each UCAT subsection is timed differently despite carrying equal weighting to the overall UCAT score. Hence, you need to focus on improving your deductive pace one UCAT section at a time. On this basis, you don’t just have a solid insight into which specific UCAT question consume a lot of your time, but also gain an awareness as to which skill is explicitly being tested. 

How Fraser’s Medical Can Help!

UCAT success is directly correlated with studying the right UCAT preparation material. In our comprehensive and concentrated UCAT courses, our mentors aim to highlight the many time hurdles you can face on UCAT test day. Some of these include, wasting time on simpler calculations or not utilising the calculator, re-reading the passages numerous times and not effectively using keyboard shortcuts. These small pockets of time you lose actually constitute a larger portion of your test time.

Our UCAT courses commence with interactive problem-based learning sessions to enhance engagement, followed by weekly skill training workshops, which progress into full-length timed UCAT mock exams that replicate the real UCAT conditions. These mock exams are an effective way to track your performance and build exam stamina by practising allocating time for each section. Additionally, your mentor will provide personalised feedback on your mock performance, identifying weaknesses, as well as techniques to overcome time pressure and mental fatigue to ensure you can confidently complete the UCAT within the given timeframe.

In Conclusion

At Fraser’s, we have a sound reputation in the UCAT space and understand that the UCAT is fast-paced and requires critical thinking as well as proficiency in time management for a competitive score. We took extra care in developing an all-inclusive course package so you can achieve the best results in the UCAT.

In addition to this, our UCAT Strategy Weekend, led by our senior UCAT staff, gives students an opportunity to sit the UCAT and understand the challenges you need to overcome before enrolling into our detailed course packages. This free event is also accompanied by a personalised feedback session from a senior tutor, who takes the time to highlight the right trajectory for your UCAT prep.

We hope this article provided insightful information and tips to help you overcome the UCAT’s hardest challenge!

Frequently Asked Questions

How is the UCAT Scored?

The UCAT has three cognitive subtests (Decision Making, Quantitive Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning) scored from 300 to 900 each, which totals to 900-2700. Additionally, a separate Situational Judgement Test is included and graded in bands ranging from Band 1 (highest) to Band 4 (lowest). Raw marks are converted to scaled scores to ensure comparability.

What is a Good UCAT Score?

A competitive UCAT score is considered to be in the top 10% (90th percentile or higher), approximately a score of 2300 or higher. Average scores are usually considered to sit between 1891 - 1950.

Can I Take the UCAT Multiple Times?

If you fail the UCAT you can sit it again but not until the following year. Thus, you can only sit one UCAT per year.

When do UCAT Scores get Released to Universities?

In line with the UCAT Consortium, results are published 24 hours after completion of the UCAT test day. However, it seems that the UCAT scores are typically released to the universities for their medical admissions processes during September of each year. Based on the UCAT and ATAR scores, students will then be invited for a medical school interview.

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