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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
Fully updated to include the review materials and practice you need for the new Situational Judgment Test The expert advice, instruction, review and practice students need to score high on the UKCAT. If you're planning on applying to medical or dental school, the new edition of UKAT For Dummies provides a proven formula for success. It's packed with practice questions, in-depth answers, and strategies and tips for scoring well on each of the test sections, including the Situational Judgment Test and the new question types introduced for the Verbal Reasoning and Abstract Reasoning test sections.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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UKCAT For Dummies®, 2nd Edition
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UKCAT For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/ukcatuk to view this book's cheat sheet.
Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Understanding UKCAT
Chapter 1: The UKCAT and University
Looking at the Lifestyle
Applying to Read Medicine or Dentistry
Considering the timeline
Picking your A-levels
Choosing a university
Writing a good personal statement
Getting work experience
Working on your soft skills
Sitting entrance exams such as UKCAT
Preparing for interviews
Chapter 2: Dissecting UKCAT
Exploring the Origins of UKCAT
Sitting the UKCAT
Finding out whether you’re exempt from taking the UKCAT
Getting the dates right
Registering for the UKCAT
Doing the UKCAT
Deconstructing UKCAT
Timing
Marking
Weighing up
Chapter 3: Taking Tests: UKCAT Strategies that Work
Organising Yourself
Dealing with Distractions
Focusing on Your Weakest Skills
Practising Taking Tests
Staying Healthy
Arriving for the Test
Part II: Examining the Subtests
Chapter 4: Reading Between the Lines: The Verbal Reasoning Subtest
Fathoming the Format of the Verbal Reasoning Subtest
Determining True, False or Can’t Tell
Working with stems
Preparing for Success in the Verbal Reasoning Subtest
Working Efficiently on Test Day
Practising Verbal Reasoning
The Egyptian with the Evil Eye
Creative Thinking and Schizophrenia
Personality Disorders: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Alsatian Wines
Nenikekamen!
What is the Supreme Good?
The Laws of Solon
Grapes and Lemonade
The Speckled Band
Success
Concerning Liberality and Meanness
Answers
Chapter 5: Making Things Add Up: The Quantitative Reasoning Subtest
Finding Out the Format of the Quantitative Reasoning Subtest
Preparing for Success in the Quantitative Reasoning Subtest
Working Well on Test Day
Practising Quantitative Reasoning
EU Debt
Mental Health Act Assessments
Medal-winning Performances
Assessing UKCAT Scores
Light Speed
Governing Ruritania
Managing the Money Managers
Death and Taxes
Changing Rooms
Answers
Chapter 6: Looking at Pretty Patterns: The Abstract Reasoning Subtest
Figuring Out the Format of the Abstract Reasoning Subtest
Working Out Patterns in the Abstract Reasoning Subtest
Coping With the Abstract Reasoning Subtest on Test Day
Practising Abstract Reasoning
Answers
Chapter 7: Deciphering the Code: The Decision Analysis Subtest
Decoding the Format of the Decision Analysis Subtest
Preparing for Success in the Decision Analysis Subtest
Making the Right Decisions on Test Day
Practising Decision Analysis
Scenario
Answers
Chapter 8: Making the Call: The Situational Judgement Subtest
Figuring out the Format of the Situational Judgement Subtest
Preparing for Success in the Situational Judgement Subtest
Learning some key principles
Using your best judgement on test day
Practising Situational Judgement
Answers
Part III: Practice Tests
Chapter 9: Practice Test One
Verbal Reasoning
Rome in Chaos
Exporting the Format
Getting to the Bottom Line
And the Winner is …
Courage
The Raid of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry
Something Wonderful
Social Commerce
Chinese Water Crisis
The Dead Rise
Understanding Oracles
Quantitative Reasoning
FTSE All-share Index Market Capitalisations
Conflict in Afghanistan
Top Flight Material
Ryding High
Speed Test
Population Demographics
Well-Heeled
Hitting the Sales
In at the Deep End
Abstract Reasoning
Decision Analysis
The Turin Codex
Situational Judgement Test
Chapter 10: Practice Test One: Answers and Explanations
Verbal Reasoning
Quantitative Reasoning
Abstract Reasoning
Decision Analysis
Situational Judgement Test
Chapter 11: Practice Test Two
Verbal Reasoning
High Noon
This Isn’t Just Food …
Independence
You Will Be Assimilated!
Get Me the Best You Have
Digital Pennies
Taking Advantage
Living Outside the Cave
Indestructible
Capitalist Communists
All Good Things
Quantitative Reasoning
MPs’ Expenses
US Jobs Data
Inflation in the East
Under Par
The Winner’s Circle
Eating into the Market
Keeping the Lights on
Three Score and Ten
Bottle Bank
Abstract Reasoning
Decision Analysis
Scenario
Situational Judgement Test
Chapter 12: Practice Test Two: Answers and Explanations
Verbal Reasoning
Quantitative Reasoning
Abstract Reasoning
Decision Analysis
Situational Judgement Test
Part IV: The Part of Tens
Chapter 13: Ten Steps to Help You Get into Medical or Dental School
Deciding Whether Medicine or Dentistry is Right for You
Achieving the Best Grades
Doing Your Research
Get Your Personal Statement Right
Revising for Your Exams
Practising Your Interview Skills
Staying Up to Date with Medicine and Dentistry
Sticking to the Timescale
Reducing Your Anxiety
Having a Life beyond Medicine or Dentistry
Chapter 14: Ten Ways to Stay Cool Under Pressure
Keeping Things in Perspective
Accepting That it’s Your Choice
Sticking to Your Plan
Breathing Deeply
Relaxing Progressively
Trying Visualisation Exercises
Becoming Familiar with the Application Process
Steering Clear of Denial
Avoiding Upsetting Other People
Taking a Break
About the Authors
Cheat Sheet
More Dummies Products
Guide
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Introduction
You want to be a doctor or a dentist. You clearly love a challenge!
Medicine and dentistry are varied careers with interesting science underpinning daily practice, and with the opportunity to meet a wide cross-section of society and help people through difficult times. The jobs can be tough but they are also highly rewarding if you approach them positively.
Before you head off to medical or dental school, you need to prove to universities that you deserve the chance of training with them. The selection process is long and, to be honest, sometimes unnecessarily frustrating. But if you take things one step at a time, you can get through it successfully.
A key part of this is scoring well in the United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT). The UKCAT is a fairly new exam, taken as part of the selection process for many medical and dental courses. It measures your innate talent to cope with the kind of material that you assimilate during your medical or dental training.
Universities want to know that you can interpret written material, perform basic math operations, spot patterns quickly, and use complex information to make challenging decisions. They also want to be sure that you have a sound ethical approach to life. These are all skills that doctors and dentists put into practice every day of their working lives.
For instance, as a doctor or dentist you may have to rapidly extract relevant information from a colleague’s clinical letter, calculate the right dose of a drug to administer based on a patient’s weight, or interpret a range of lab test results to make a diagnosis and deduce a patient’s likely prognosis. And during all of that, you have to behave in an honest, polite and considerate manner.
The UKCAT doesn’t expect you to be able to do all those things already but it tries to ensure that you have the ability to learn how to do them when the time comes. Fortunately, as with every test that is theoretically meant to check natural aptitude, your test score improves as you become familiar with the style of questioning.
Practice pays dividends.
We regularly teach prospective applicants to medical and dental school on how to prepare for the UKCAT. Most students are pretty anxious about sitting such a different kind of exam. The UKCAT isn’t the sort of test for which you can simply learn a set of facts and expect to do well. Understanding what the UKCAT involves means practising a lot of questions, figuring out why certain answers are correct, and then applying that knowledge in the real exam to get your best possible score. We’ve written this book to give you the framework you need to succeed on the UKCAT.
About This Book
UKCAT For Dummies is for intelligent, motivated individuals who want to rapidly familiarise themselves with the nature of the UKCAT and get plenty of focused practice answering the kinds of questions they’re likely to face on the day of the exam.
The book breaks down the different parts of the test into smaller chapters. You can read each chapter in isolation to get up to speed on a section you find tricky, or you can work through the book from cover to cover to get an overview of the entire test.
We also want to leverage our background as psychiatrists to show you some techniques to cope with exam stress. These techniques will help you in the UKCAT and also the other exams you face over the coming years as you study to be a doctor or dentist.
In this book we include the following:
Background information on the UKCATThe skills each component of the UKCAT testsA large number of sample questions for each subtest, including the new Subjective Judgement Test, with worked-through answers to help you understand the solutionsComplete timed tests to help you optimise your time management, which is crucial in the UKCAT.Strategies for taking tests and managing your anxietyBroader tips and strategies to help you navigate the sometimes confusing world of medical and dental school applicationsWithin this book, you may note that some Web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these Web pages, simply key in the Web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy – just click the Web address to be taken directly to the Web page.
Foolish Assumptions
Anyone who writes a book has to make some assumptions about their readers.
In this book we assume that you intend to sit the UKCAT, with a goal to becoming either a doctor or a dentist. If that’s not the case, you can breathe a sigh of relief and put this book down!
We also assume that you’re prepared to put in some work. Little in life is handed to you on a plate, and a place in medical or dental school is no exception. If you want that place, you need to have to invest time and effort, not only on this book and the UKCAT but also on the broader application process.
Our focus on the UKCAT in this book means we only have space to briefly mention some of those other application elements. We assume that you will supplement that information with your own wider reading. Fuller descriptions can be found in our sister book, Get into UK Medical School For Dummies.
We should mention that the sample questions in this book are designed to help applicants acquire the skills needed to answer a range of potential questions. The questions are not designed to be used by test administrators.
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book we use various icons in the margins to flag up important information. Here’s what the icons mean:
We use this icon to highlight the most important information and insights in the book. We recommend that you read this material carefully.
Knowledge is important, but strategy can help you answer questions more efficiently. We indicate these strategic shortcuts with this icon.
UKCAT can be tricky at times. We use this icon to flag up potential pitfalls that many candidates encounter. Avoiding these mistakes improves your score relative to your competition, increasing your chances of impressing the universities receiving your scores.
UKCAT is underpinned by a lot of research and testing. You don’t really need to know much about it to do well in the test, but sometimes it can be helpful to know why examiners ask the questions that they do. This icon marks out those aspects of the test.
Beyond the Book
In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the Web. No matter how hard you study for the UKCAT, you’ll likely come across a few questions that leave you clueless. Check out the free Cheat Sheet at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/ukcatuk for helpful test-taking tips, pointers for how the test is organised, and a few words of advice.
Where to Go from Here
You can read this book from cover to cover for a full overview of the UKCAT. Or you can cherry-pick the parts and chapters that address the bits of the text you’re most worried about.
Closer to exam time, you may want to do the practice tests under timed conditions to replicate the feel of the actual exam and check that you’re on track – head to Chapters 9, 10, 11 and 12.
The book’s structure is flexible enough to be used whichever way meets your needs best.
We also recommend that you do the practice test on the UKCAT website (http://www.ukcat.ac.uk/preparation/practice-test) and the practice tests in this book. Trying the practice test gives you valuable experience with the software that you use on test day itself.
For more advice about applying to medical school in general, have a look at our sister book, Get into UK Medical School For Dummies, and the resources on www.medschoolsonline.co.uk. For dental schools try www.dentalschoolscouncil.ac.uk/uk_dental_schools.htm
We wish you the best of luck in the UKCAT and in your future career. And remember: One day we may be under your medical or dental care, so we have every interest in making sure that you do very well indeed!
Part I
Understanding UKCAT
For Dummies can help you get started with a huge range of subjects. Visit www.dummies.com to learn more and do more with For Dummies.
In this part …
Decide whether a career in medicine or dentistry is for you.Understand what the UKCAT is designed to test.Understand how the test is structured, and get the low-down on the various sub-tests.Find out how to apply to take the UKCAT.Chapter 1
The UKCAT and University
In This Chapter
Understanding medicine and dentistry as careers
Getting into medical or dental school
Understanding the role of UKCAT in the application process
You can easily drift into a career without really thinking about whether it’s right for you. This chapter explains what medicine and dentistry are like as careers, and what role the United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) plays in the application process for these courses.
Looking at the Lifestyle
Getting into university to study medicine or dentistry is tough. Doctors and dentists are some of the most respected members of society. Medical and dental jobs retain an air of glamour and mystique in the eyes of the general public. And although the reality is often more challenging and more pedestrian than the fantasy of medical dramas, these careers do have some unique benefits.
As a doctor or dentist, you earn extraordinary privileges. As well as receiving an excellent grounding in the sciences, you develop your communication skills, sharpen your deductive skills, and discover all sorts of intimate details about complete strangers along the way.
Medicine and dentistry are two of the few professions where you can incorporate both science and art into your daily working life. A career in medicine or dentistry comes with more job security than most jobs provide, along with an historically comfortable salary.
These jobs have downsides too. Doctors and dentists often cope with the less enjoyable bureaucracy and organisational restructuring. They also face perennial threats to training time, remuneration, and education budgets. More fundamentally, the jobs are often exhausting – physically, mentally and emotionally. Dealing with some of the most troubled and unwell people in the country every day can take its toll. Ask yourself whether that’s something you want to do, and why. A bit of honest soul-searching now may save you from agony later on.
If you still want to apply to medical or dental school, you need to overcome one of the toughest university degree application systems. Things weren’t always so complicated. When we started out, all we needed was a bit of relevant work experience, solid A-level predictions, and the ability to sound intelligent and vaguely enthusiastic in an interview. If you applied to Oxford, you needed to navigate the little matter of the Oxford Entrance Exam, but if you performed well, you got a two Es offer: as long as you got two Es on your A-levels, you were in!
Barriers to admission are far higher today. To be accepted as one of tomorrow’s doctors or dentists, you have to show intelligence and initiative, communication skills and commitment, and resilience and reliability. You need to demonstrate both breadth and depth of work experience, take part in significant extracurricular activities, have excellent AS results and A-level predictions, be prepared to take on large tuition fees with their associated loans, be naturally talented and have practised enough to perform well in the extra exams that universities make you sit, such as the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) and the United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT).
This increasing complexity isn’t due only to more people applying for courses. The situation is also because universities increasingly struggle to distinguish between good and great candidates on the basis of A-level predictions and results alone. We wait to see whether the recent introduction of the A* grade shifts the balance back to A-level results, but currently many universities consider good UKCAT scores vital. Because university admissions policies tend to change particularly slowly, there may be an organisational inertia against streamlining entrance requirements for fear that doing so would lead to a reduction in the quality of applicants to the best universities. Therefore, UKCAT is likely to remain a key part of the selection procedures for the foreseeable future.
Getting a good UKCAT score is crucial to your chances of success.
We often hear first-hand how worrying the UKCAT is to candidates. The good news is that with preparation, you can improve your eventual performance markedly. In this book we aim to help you do just that.
Applying to Read Medicine or Dentistry
If you’ve weighed the pros and cons of a career in medicine or dentistry and decided it’s what you really want, you need to know exactly how to go about it. The application process is long, and it starts early.
Use this section as a jumping-off point to research the medical fields further. Our focus on the UKCAT in this book means that the information in this section is only introductory to the wider application process. For more detailed information, take a look at our related book, Get into UK Medical School for Dummies (Wiley).
Considering the timeline
In Figure 1-1 we show a rough timeline of when to do what if you want to apply to medical or dental school. Use the timeline to keep the big picture of the application process in mind.
Figure 1-1: Timeline for applying to medical or dental school.
Picking your A-levels
Unless you’re reading this book at a remarkably early stage, you’ve probably already chosen your A-levels. If you still have time to optimise your choices for medicine or dentistry, remember that chemistry is mandatory, and having biology really helps too. Many medical and dental applicants study physics or mathematics at A-level, but these subjects aren’t essential for getting into medical or dental school.
An increasing number of candidates sit more than three A-levels. Languages, psychology and business studies are popular options to help potential medical and dental students demonstrate their breadth of ability.
The choice is yours, but you need to expect to score highly in your chosen subject areas if you want even a hope of getting into medical or dental school.
Having the highest grades is much more important than having many grades. Assuming that you’ll do well in chemistry and biology, choose your other A-level(s) based on the subjects you’re likely to get As and A*s in, instead of just trying to cram in more sciences. General studies doesn’t count towards your A-level total for medicine or dentistry, so you must sit at least three other subjects.
Choosing a university
The UK has 35 medical schools and 18 dental schools. Many offer courses for graduate candidates as well as undergraduates. All these schools provide a good standard of education. The exact name of the degree varies a little between institutions, as do the letters you get after your name when you qualify. After completing any of the medical or dental degree courses, however, you’re a fully-qualified doctor or dentist entitled to register provisionally with the General Medical Council or General Dental Council, and able to begin working in the UK.
Choosing between schools on the basis of a given year’s statistics on applicant-to-place ratios is dangerous. Prospective students often spend hours searching through data tables that state how many applicants each medical or dental school gets, in an attempt to calculate their chances of success. This strategy is deeply flawed: the raw statistics tell you little about the real nature of the competitive selection process at each university.
The applicant-to-place ratios at Oxford and Cambridge tend to be about half that of, say, Brighton. That doesn’t mean Brighton is harder to get into. Other factors interfere, such as only the best candidates daring to apply to Oxbridge and maybe people using Brighton as a reserve option, because the university is based in a vibrant part of the country.
We recommend that you choose a medical or dental school based largely on its course structure, its teaching style and whether you think that you can meet its typical entrance requirements. The location of the school may also be relevant.
Be realistic but positive when choosing a medical or dental school. You have four slots on your Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS) form to use on medical or dental schools, so you may feel that you can dare to aim high with one of your choices, on the basis that you feel more secure about your chances with your other choices.
Read each university’s prospectus, attend open days so you get a feel for the environment, and talk to current students for an unvarnished report on what life’s like for people living and studying there.
If you like the idea of research, consider applying to a school that offers an intercalated BSc degree. These courses often include a strong research element. Courses with intercalated degrees mean that you graduate at the end of your time at the university with a BSc degree as well as your medical or dental degree, at the cost of only one extra year at university.
Getting a place on a graduate course is even more competitive than getting one on an undergraduate course. Candidates need to demonstrate a real zeal for their chosen career, and many courses expect a high level of proven academic achievement. Researching the different courses to find ones that suit your career to date is crucial to your chances of success.
The peculiar case of the Oxbridge MA
All medical students at Oxford and Cambridge do an intercalated degree.
For historical reasons, the degree awarded by Oxford and Cambridge is a Bachelor of Arts (BA) rather than a Bachelor of Science (BSc). A holder of an Oxbridge BA may upgrade to a Master of Arts (MA) a certain number of years from starting university, on payment of a small fee and without extra study or exams.
The prosaic historical reason for the MA is that it enables Oxbridge graduates to be considered full members of the university, and thus to be able to teach students.
A more whimsical (if untrue) explanation for the award of an MA is that the Oxbridge universities consider their education of such high quality that it takes the extra years for students to fully appreciate its nuances, and by then they are wise enough to receive an MA!
Only in the 19th century did MA degrees begin to be associated with a further level of education.
Perhaps confusingly, Oxford and Cambridge also award more typical MA degrees that reflect extra study.
Writing a good personal statement
The only information a medical or dental school has about you is your UCAS application form entries and your UKCAT and/or BMAT results. You can probably see the importance of doing well in the UKCAT and how crucial your UCAS form is. Most of the UCAS form is fairly straightforward, but the personal statement can distinguish you from everyone else.
Your personal statement must be engaging to read. It should highlight your reasons for choosing medicine or dentistry, how you’ve demonstrated your commitment to the career, and the soft skills (which we explain in the later section ‘Working on your soft skills’) you’ve acquired so far. Don’t expect to write your personal statement in an afternoon.
Start writing your personal statement months before the application deadline. Starting early gives you time to identify any gaps and undertake the necessary work to plug the holes, helping you create a more compelling and coherent personal statement.
We recommend you give the statement a linear narrative structure rather than using a bullet point format. Include a beginning, middle and end. Each paragraph should flow smoothly from the previous one, yet also make sense in isolation.
By the conclusion, the reader must be convinced that you have a realistic and enthusiastic view of medicine or dentistry and that you’ve worked hard to get the real-life experience to formulate that viewpoint. The reader must also feel confident that you have not only the academic skills but also the communication and leadership skills that go along with being a doctor or dentist. Describing the personal insights you’ve gained by reflecting on your work experience and extracurricular activities can go a long way towards demonstrating an appropriate level of maturity.
Although many universities use a standardised marking scheme to grade your personal statement, good writing skills are still vital: in a well-written personal statement, shortlisters can easily identify and score the areas they’re looking for.
Bad spelling, poor grammar and inferior use of language have torpedoed many a personal statement. Bad writing comes across as immature and lacking in confidence. We also suggest that you avoid bizarre or highly controversial opinions, which may expose a poorly thought-through position on a sensitive topic.
Getting work experience
Work experience needs to demonstrate your commitment to medicine or dentistry as a career. In many respects, where you go and for how long you work are less important than being able to explain what you learned.
If possible, try to get experience both in the high-powered side of medicine and dentistry (operating theatres, consultant clinics, cosmetic dentistry, maybe even management meetings) and at the ‘coal face’ of general practice and hospice and charity work. This not only broadens your understanding of your future career, but also lets you compare and contrast the two settings. If you express these insights clearly and concisely in your personal statement, you’ll come across as a much more rounded and mature applicant than those applicants who simply list what they did on their work experience.
Arranging work placements can be tricky. If your school and social circle lack good contacts, a sensible starting point is to make an appointment with your local GP or dentist to talk through your interest in a career in medicine or dentistry.
Work experience rarely organises itself: you have to make the effort to reach out to people and organisations in your local community that can help. Many opportunities exist for motivated individuals. Remember that charities and the non-profit sector are often keen for free and enthusiastic help.
Working on your soft skills
A high level of academic ability and productive work experience make for a strong package. To become a doctor or dentist, however, you also need to prove that you have soft skills: leadership potential, communication skills and charisma.
These soft skills improve with practice. For most people, the easiest way to get that practice is to become involved in extracurricular activities that encourage these traits. Think about any sports you do, clubs you belong to and groups such as Scouts and Cadets, and you can probably channel all these settings to give you some soft skills experience. This experience can be a great store of anecdotes for you to recount on your personal statement and in your interview.
Sitting entrance exams such as UKCAT
Almost all applicants to medical and dental school need to sit extra exams in addition to their A-levels. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London and University College London (UCL) request that medical applicants sit BMAT. The vast majority of the other medical schools and nine of the dental schools require you to sit UKCAT.
You have four potential slots on your UCAS form, therefore your choices may span the range of these schools. For medical applicants, that can mean you need to sit both exams. That makes for a hectic and exhausting year.
UKCAT and BMAT test different domains. BMAT focuses more on raw current academic ability, whereas UKCAT assesses aptitude and potential. Performance in both UKCAT and BMAT improve with practice and familiarity, so if you need to sit UKCAT, keep reading this book.
Preparing for interviews
If you’ve got an interview with a medical or dental school, you’re doing well. Most of the cull in applicant numbers takes place before this stage, so you’re ahead of most of your competition by the time the school invites you for an interview.
Performing at your best in interviews can be difficult, even if you’re experienced. You have to be consistent with the information on your personal statement but still come across as fresh, enthusiastic and personable.
Ask your friends and family to practise interviews with you. If you have a teacher at school willing to conduct mock interviews, that can be a great way to get constructive feedback on your strengths and weaknesses. Dedicated interview skills workshops can provide this feedback and help you focus on the key messages you need to get across to the interviewer.
Chapter 2
Dissecting UKCAT
In This Chapter
Discovering the history and current structure of UKCAT
Understanding when and how to apply for the test
Knowing what to expect on the day of the test
Before sitting the UKCAT, you need to know what’s in it and how to apply. This chapter provides that information.
Exploring the Origins of UKCAT
The United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) is, as its name suggests, a test of aptitude, which means that the test is theoretically designed to reward candidates with a natural talent for the tested skills.
The UKCAT universities knew that they had lots of information about their applicants’ current academic achievements in the form of GCSE and A-level (or Scottish Higher) results and predictions. But in addition they wanted to assess a wider range of mental abilities identified as useful in medicine and dentistry, including critical thinking, numerical reasoning, and ethical judgement.
The universities hoped that, alongside the existing academic record, an aptitude test would help them choose the most suitable candidates to join their medical and dental courses.
UKCAT is described as a psychometric test, which means that the test tries to measure your thought processes or, more accurately, how those thought processes affect your performance in a set of standardised tasks. By grouping those tasks into different subtests, the results show the examiner something about how your ability varies across different dimensions of mental activity.
A further hope was that the UKCAT would be a fairer way of narrowing down the field of applicants, because an aptitude test minimises the effect of background and schooling on a candidate’s achievement.
The UKCAT Consortium
The UKCAT is a relatively new test that started in 2006.
The UKCAT Consortium, a company registered at the University of Nottingham, runs the UKCAT. The consortium’s members and directors are drawn from the 26 universities that use UKCAT as part of their selection procedures for medical and dental applicants. This corporate structure ensures that a strong link is maintained between the eventual users of the test results and the compilers of the test.
The test is entirely computerised and physically administered by Pearson VUE, a for-profit subsidiary of the wider media group of Pearson PLC. Pearson VUE administers computerised testing not only for UKCAT but also for a whole array of other organisations and businesses. For example, if you’ve sat your UK driving theory test, you’ve already used Pearson VUE’s computerised testing services.
Sitting the UKCAT
The UKCAT is designed for applicants to medical and dental university courses. The test is a required part of the selection process for the courses and universities listed in Table 2-1.
Table 2-1 Universities and Courses Requiring UKCAT
University
UCAS Course Code
University of Aberdeen
A100, A201
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
A100, A101, A200
Brighton and Sussex Medical School
A100
Cardiff University
A100, A101, A104, A200, A204
University of Dundee
A100, A104, A200, A204
University of Durham
A100
University of East Anglia
A100, A104
University of Edinburgh
A100
University of Exeter
A100
University of Glasgow
A100, A200
Hull York Medical School
A100
Imperial College London Graduate Entry
A101
Keele University
A100, A104
King’s College London
A100, A101, A102, A202, A205, A206
University of Leeds
A100
University of Leicester
A100, A101
University of Manchester
A104, A106, A204, A206
University of Newcastle
A100, A101, A206
University of Nottingham
A100, A108
Plymouth University
A100, A206, B750
Queen’s University Belfast
A100, A200
University of Sheffield
A100, A104, A200
University of Southampton
A100, A101, A102
University of St Andrews
A100, A990, B900
St George’s, University of London
A100, A900
Warwick University Graduate Entry
A101
In Table 2-2, we explain what the UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) course codes in Table 2-1 actually mean.
Table 2-2 UCAS Course Codes
UCAS Code
Course
A100
Medicine
A101
Medicine (graduate entry four-year programmes everywhere, except King’s extended medical degree)
A102
Medicine (widening access six-year programme at Southampton; graduate professional entry four-year programme at King’s)
A104
Medicine (including initial pre-medical/foundation year)
A108
Medicine (including foundation year; Nottingham only)
A200
Dentistry
A201
Dentistry (graduate entry four-year programmes)
A202
Dentistry (graduate entry, King’s only)
A204
Dentistry (including pre-dental/foundation year, except King’s, where it is for medical graduates)
A205
Dentistry (King’s only)
A206
Dentistry (Newcastle, Manchester and Plymouth), Dentistry (King’s; widening participation schools only)
A900
International medicine
A990
North American medical programme (St Andrews only)
B750
Dental hygiene and dental therapy
B900
International foundation for medicine (St Andrews only, one-year programme)
In short, UKCAT is required for undergraduate medical entry everywhere in the UK except Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Imperial, Liverpool, Oxford, Swansea and UCL. However, Imperial and Warwick require UKCAT for their graduate medical courses.
For Cambridge, Imperial, Oxford and UCL medical undergraduate courses, and the Oxford graduate course, you need to sit the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) instead of the UKCAT. (Check out the BMAT website for more information at www.bmat.org.uk.) Swansea’s graduate medicine course requires the Graduate Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT). If you want to avoid any sort of extra exam, your only options are Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool.
Does UKCAT work?
It can be debated whether UKCAT actually succeeds in its aim of testing underlying aptitude. Therefore, whether its inclusion in the selection process adds to the fairness of the eventual outcome of determining who is accepted into medical and dental training is also questionable.
In its favour, the test certainly doesn’t contain any curriculum or science content. It focuses on exploring the cognitive areas it aims to test. The UKCAT Consortium takes great care to ensure that the test questions are written by appropriate experts, and it then tests the questions extensively for validity and reliability. The UKCAT Consortium also tries to minimise the possibility of cultural bias. We can therefore say that the test has good intentions.
The very existence of the UKCAT does, however, add an extra hurdle to applying to medical or dental school. People from families not historically likely to apply to these medical or dental schools may be put off from applying by the knowledge that they have to sit yet another exam, whereas people from schools or families with experience and knowledge of the system may be more motivated and understand the process better.
In addition, the UKCAT has an entrance fee of £65 or £80 (or £100 for non-EU candidates), depending on when you sit the exam, which may prevent some people from registering. Bursaries to cover the cost are available in some circumstances. (See ‘Registering for the UKCAT’ later in this chapter for more details.)
More fundamentally, some people question how pure an aptitude test the UKCAT is. A perfect aptitude test should not reward revision or practice. A test designed to reveal underlying mental capability should always give similar results for the same person, no matter how prepared that person is. The UKCAT Consortium takes great pains to emphasise that revision is not required for the test. However, the Consortium’s website also states: ‘Familiarise yourself with the requirements and question styles in each subtest.’ Candidates who reapply tend on average to improve their scores in the second year.
By buying this book, you’re already one step ahead in realising that practising any test, even an aptitude test, results in better test scores.
Finding out whether you’re exempt from taking the UKCAT
You have to sit the UKCAT if your course and institution are listed in Tables 2-1 and 2-2, and if you live and are educated in one of the following countries: Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Botswana, Brunei, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania, and the United States of America.
If your home isn’t in the roll call above, you’re exempt from the requirement to sit the UKCAT. If you’re exempt, you still need to contact UKCAT using a form available on the UKCAT website (www.ukcat.ac.uk). UKCAT will then issue you with a reference number and contact the universities you apply to on your behalf, to let them know that you are exempt.
Getting the dates right
You have to take the UKCAT in the same year as that of your application cycle.
Candidates applying in 2014 for entry in 2015 (or for deferred entry in 2016) sit the UKCAT in 2014. Your test score is valid only for one application cycle. If you reapply the following year, you need to sit the UKCAT again that year.
The logic behind the need to resit an aptitude test from one year to the next somewhat escapes us. As aptitude is an innate talent, it shouldn’t vary significantly between years. Nonetheless, the UKCAT rules are clear about resitting, so be sure to stick to them.
The exact dates for UKCAT registration, testing and the publication of results vary from year to year, although usually only by a few days. UKCAT is good at maintaining its own website with the relevant dates for the current year. UKCAT’s website is www.ukcat.ac.uk and has a lot of useful information, not just test dates.
In Table 2-3, we show the approximate UKCAT dates within a typical application cycle.
Table 2-3 Example UKCAT Dates for a Typical Cycle
Event
Date
Registration opens
1 May
Bursary applications open
1 May
Testing begins
3 July
Registration deadline
21 September
Bursary application deadline
21 September
Exemption application deadline
21 September
Last testing date
5 October
UCAS application deadline
15 October
We recommend that you aim to sit the UKCAT fairly early in the cycle. Then, if you fall ill or for some other reason can’t make your initial test date, you still have time to rebook for a later date. An early test date means that you have to start your preparation sooner, but the insurance you gain by having room to manoeuvre is probably worth the trade-off.
If you need to cancel or reschedule your test, log in to Pearson VUE’s website (www.pearsonvue.co.uk). Rescheduling is free of charge, provided you give at least a full working day’s notice between the time of rescheduling and the original day of your test. If you cancel or try to reschedule with less than a day’s notice, you’re counted as a no-show and are liable for the full fee (and then have to pay a further fee for the rescheduled test).
Registering for the UKCAT
UKCAT registration is entirely computerised. Go to UKCAT’s website at www.ukcat.ac.uk and click the Register Here link at the bottom of the page. Registration is only possible within the approximate period indicated in Table 2-3 (the current dates are shown on the UKCAT website). You will be seamlessly transferred to Pearson VUE’s website and guided through a series of online forms to create an account to access the system, register, and pay for the test. Registering is no more intimidating than opening an account with any online shopping site, so don’t panic!
The UKCAT application fee is £65 if you sit the test in the summer part of the application cycle, and £80 if you sit the test in the autumn. If you’re not from an EU country, the fee rises to £100, regardless of when you sit the test. You can pay securely online with any major credit or debit card. You don’t have an offline option, so if you don’t have access to one of these cards, you need to look into getting a temporary or prepaid card from your bank or from another organisation like the Post Office.
Many potentially eligible applicants don’t realise that UKCAT operates an extensive bursary system that covers many EU candidates for the full test fee. You can apply for a bursary by completing the form at www.ukcat.ac.uk/pages/bursaryApplicationForm.aspx. You can only apply during the registration window indicated in Table 2-3.
Bursaries are available for those in receipt of:
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) or 16–19 BursaryDiscretionary Learner Support (or equivalent)Full Maintenance Grant or Special Support Grant (or equivalent)Income Support, Job Seeker’s Allowance or Employment Support AllowanceWhen Universal Credit begins, it’s likely that its recipients will also be eligible for bursaries, but this is not confirmed yet.
Members of households in receipt of some of the above benefits, or those from the EU in receipt of equivalent benefits, may also be eligible.
Details of any changes to the eligibility criteria can typically be found on UKCAT’s website.
To apply for a bursary, you require documentary evidence (generally a letter from the relevant government agency) that you are eligible for the bursary. After you demonstrate eligibility, UKCAT sends you a voucher code to enter into the normal booking system during your application process.
If you’ve already paid, you may still be able to get a refund. Contact Pearson VUE Customer Services directly on (+44) 0161 855 7409.
If you can demonstrate that you have special educational needs, you can sit the UKCATSEN instead. The UKCATSEN has the same content as the UKCAT, but gives you 25 per cent more time to complete the exam. UKCAT can also accommodate mobility and other needs if you contact the organisation in advance.
Don’t register for the UKCATSEN if you don’t have special educational needs. Not only is this unethical, but you will be found out. UKCAT does not expect you to provide clinical evidence to verify your eligibility for UKCATSEN, but the universities do require such evidence. Your test results will be declared null and void if you can’t provide evidence of special educational needs at this stage. The evidence needed is typically in the form of a certificate from a qualified medical practitioner or another relevant health professional.
Doing the UKCAT
You can find UKCAT test centres across the UK and in the countries where UKCAT is not exempted. You should be able to find one relatively close to you via the UKCAT website.
Make sure that you know where you’re going on test day! We can’t think of anything worse than turning up to an exam late, or rushing to get there and feeling frazzled, sweaty and confused.
For the UKCAT, we recommend being 15–30 minutes early, because you need to go through some formalities before you start the exam.
Bring photographic proof of identity with you, such as a valid adult passport with your own signature (children’s passports aren’t accepted) or a photocard driving licence. If you don’t have either of these, ask your school or college to provide an appropriately certified form letter.
You don’t need to take anything other than proof of identity with you. In fact, you’re not permitted to take anything else into the test room itself. Banned items include coats, bags, phones, wallets, watches, keys and sweets.
Although this strict approach seems excessive to casual observers, at least you’re now forewarned and won’t be surprised when the invigilator insists you leave your priceless family heirloom Rolex in a locker.
For the exam, your workstation consists of a computer, a laminated non-erasable notepad and pen, and a chair. You can ask for a set of headphones or earplugs if the ambient noise is too loud.
UKCAT recently revised its procedures to avoid the need to issue handheld calculators to candidates. Instead, you now have access to a software-based calculator on your workstation computer.
Become accustomed to punching numbers into a screen-based calculator rather than your familiar handheld device, so you don’t slow down too much during the numerical portions of the exam.
You can leave the room for invigilator-escorted comfort breaks, but the test is not paused during this time, so try to avoid doing so. The time pressure is already one of the toughest things about the exam: you don’t want to make it worse.
After the test, you get your results immediately, because the UKCAT is computer-marked.
UKCAT automatically forwards the results to the universities on your UCAS application that require a UKCAT score. If you want an extra transcript of your results, you can order one for a fee.
You can’t retake the test in the same application cycle.
Deconstructing UKCAT
The UKCAT is a computer-administered exam lasting two hours. The test consists of five parts: verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, abstract reasoning, decision analysis, and the situational judgement test, which are all covered in Part II of this book.
Each of the five parts of the UKCAT is in a multiple-choice format and is timed separately. This section covers the timings and scoring of the UKCAT.
Timing
Students consistently report that one of the hardest things about the UKCAT is the time pressure rather than the content. We show the timings for the UKCAT and the number of question items in each section in Table 2-4.
