The UKCAT

As part of all applications to medical school normally some sort of entrance exam is required to be taken in order to rank and score the applicants. The two most common ones in the UK are the UKCAT and GAMSAT. Having never taken the GAMSAT I don’t have too much knowledge of it. My understanding is that the GAMSAT is a tough exam of basic science amongst other things and takes a long time to sit.

My decision to sit the UKCAT was largely based on the fact that Bart’s and Warwick were my two top choices and that it looked slightly easier to prepare for, which was important for me given that I was studying at the time for my degree.

The UKCAT is a five-part exam testing verbal reasoning, decision making, quantitative reasoning, abstract reasoning and situational judgement. When I first sat the exam it was stated that you don’t need to prepare for this exam and that however many times one sat the exam they would always get similar scores. This is absolute bobbins, having sat the exam four times (!) I can categorically say preparation and practice definitely does help. Now, there is a preparation page provided by those who produce the exam which can be found here.

My advice for the exam are primarily to focus on timing. The questions themselves are not too complicated and if you have a degree or are doing well in you A-levels you shouldn’t have a problem at all with the level of difficulty. What most people struggle with is doing the questions in the time provided. Doing timed tests is what you should practice when preparing for this exam. There are a number of books available the foremost of which is ‘Get Into Medical School. 1000 UKCAT Practice Questions.’ I personally wouldn’t recommend this book. When I used it I found the questions were more difficult than the actual test and it doesn’t help you practice the timing.

When I practiced I used, Medify, an online resource which costs £40 for a month. This has the test in the correct format and has timed options available. I spent about 2 hours per day for approximately two weeks and was reasonably successful with a score of 730 average, which was enough for a number of interviews.

I have quite mixed views about this exam as a whole. Having been based previously in a dental school and knowing the admissions team there, their admission was that they know a good score in the UKCAT does not reflect on how someone will be as a doctor (or dentist). However, with thousands of applicants all with perfect A-levels or a degree how else can these people be sorted through?

My tips for anyone taking the UKCAT would be:

• Practice using timed questions so you are aware of what time you'll have for each question. 
• If you think a question will take you a long time to answer, then mark it and move on. There is likely to be questions later on that are faster to work out and answer.
• Practice quickly using the calculator and preforming the simple calculations. 
• If you have more than a year before you plan to sit the exam, then sit the exam the year before you intend to apply in order to give you some practice of what the real exam feels like.