5 Reasons You Must Sit The UCAT MED

Are you confident in your ability to achieve a high UCAT score? Don’t leave UCAT to chance – your score will determine your acceptance into a university course so this makes it high stakes. But don’t worry, our affiliates at UCAT Masterclass our running a UCAT Mock Exam Day (MED). Here are 5 reasons you must sit the UCAT MED.

What is the UCAT MED?

The UCAT MED or Mock Exam Day (MED) run by our affiliates at UCAT Masterclass is a FREE online UCAT trial exam open to anyone worldwide. It’s as close as you’ll get to a real UCAT exam.

UCAT Masterclass run the UCAT MED globally, so when the results are calculated and scaled you’ll get an accurate prediction of your position relative to your competition.

The 2023 UCAT MED will be held on Sunday 26 Feb 2023

Different regions will have it at different times. Check the time for your timezone:

• 12am – 12 am AEDT for Australia
• 8 pm – 2 am NZST for New Zealand
• 7 am – 1 pm GMT for the UK

You can register here by creating a free account on UCAT Masterclass.

Now you know what the UCAT MED is, you need to know how it will help you increase your UCAT score.

5 reasons you must sit the UCAT MED

1. Exam Experience

The UCAT MED gives you actual UCAT exam experience. The UCAT Masterclass exam simulator is the most accurate simulation of the UCAT experience before the exam day.

As you know, the hardest parts of exam preparation is getting exam experience.

Sitting a timed test under simulated conditions complete with keyboard shortcuts and an on-screen calculator lets you understand how you’ll react to the stress of the actual UCAT.

Sitting a realistic mock exam allows you to:

• Understand the challenges of the whole exam
• Learn which sections are the most stressful
• Discover which keyboard shortcuts you have to work on
• Learn to use the onscreen calculator under duress
• Manage your stress and anxiety against the clock

The UCAT is meant to stress you out: medicine is often full of life and death situations where people must make decisions and calculations under immense pressure.

It is designed to be very hard to finish.

The UCAT MED offers you the chance to learn to cope with being time-poor and under high pressure.

2. Time management

UCAT is designed to challenge you under time restrictions and work under pressure.

As you know, the UCAT has 5 sections. The first four subtests test your cognitive ability and the last subtest, Situational Judgement, assesses your ability to make moral and ethical decisions.

The timing and structure of the subtests is tabulated below:

There is clearly a challenge!

For example, you will only have a little more than 20 seconds for each situational judgement question.

Similarly, for abstract reasoning, you need to answer 55 questions in 13 minutes. That’s around 10-15 seconds per question. It’s not that different from the time you’ve just spent reading this sentence and processing it.

Unlike other practice tests, the UCAT MED has stakes that matter: it is your only opportunity to see how you compare to other candidates prior to the actual UCAT.

Clearly, you need to execute excellent time management skills to excel. You’re not going to learn how to do this without first sitting a practice test and seeing how you perform.

3. Question Practice

You have to know how to answer a variety of different questions types consistently and accurately to ace the UCAT.

There are many possible UCAT questions. Think about all of the possible Situational Judgement scenarios you may face! The only way you may improve your judgement skills is by practising them under the pump.

The UCAT MED gives you that opportunity, for free. In addition, there is an extra practice test you can sit with a free UCAT Masterclass account.

If you’re unsure of what sorts of questions you may face, you should refresh your memory with our detailed subtest guides:

• Verbal reasoning
• Decision making
• Quantitative reasoning
• Abstract reasoning
• Situational judgement

If you need to score well in UCAT and improve your performance, you must take as much practice as you can get, right?

Need more help preparing for the UCAT MED?

Our beginner’s Guide to UCAT has all of the answers you need to understand the UCAT! Read it here.

4. See your rankings

The UCAT MED is not a standalone online test. It is a WORLDWIDE EXAM DAY. 

Students who sit the UCAT MED, sit a global assessment. UCAT Masterclass calculates student’s decile positions against thousands of other students around the world.

Remember, the UCAT is sat by people in:

• The United Kingdom (England, Scotland, and Wales)
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Italy
• Poland
• Iraq and Kurdistan
• The Caribbean

The UCAT MED shows how you’ve performed and how you rank – in decile bands – against your competition: just like the actual UCAT! The only thing closer to the UCAT is the actual UCAT.

Learning how you are positioned against others gives you the edge in your preparation between January and July.

5. Self Reflection

To consistently improve and develop you need to self-reflect.

The UCAT MED will highlight what you do well and what you do poorly. Use this information to improve!

As UCAT is a test that demands you do well, self-reflection is a great weapon in your arsenal to ensure that you’ll do well.

The UCAT MED performance report will provide you with the detailed insights into your strengths and weaknesses you need to strategise you study regime. Use this opportunity to improve your marks before the UCAT in July.

Sitting the UCAT MED on Sunday 26 February 2023 will give you over 5 months to target your weaknesses and develop the skillset you need for success.

Want to sign up for the UCAT MED?

You can set up a free UCAT Masterclass account here.