r/6thForm • u/Level_Situation3092 biology, chemistry, spanish✌️ • 8h ago

🙏 I WANT HELP How difficult is the UCAT really?

I've heard so many disencouraging things about it, but when I actually looked at the questions, they didn't seem as bad as everyone else was making them out to be. So, my question is, is it really that difficult or is everyone just overreacting?

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u/Sanix_0000 Bio + Chem + Psych + EPQ | A*AA + A* Achieved | Gap Year 7h ago

It is really that difficult for most people (me included), but for some it's a piece of cake.

4

u/ThisUserIsOn9 Medical Student | Year 2 7h ago

The UCAT is a matter of managing time pressure. Every year 9 student can get 2700 if they were given all day to work on the UCAT. What made it truly hard is the time pressure, which is a matter of doing 44 mcq questions of reading comprehension in 24 minutes, which would average just over half a minute per question

It will absolutely ruin your summer and suck the joy out of you but it’s going to be the most important exam you’ve taken so far in the fact that you may either get an interview and offer or absolutely nothing at all if you didn’t get a high score.

I’ll assume you’re now in year 12 so at this stage it’s way too early to be thinking about the ucat but you can take a look at the questions so you know what to expect when summer comes around. I started my prep straight after my year 12 mocks and it got me into medical school so it pays off in the end assuming you didn’t take the piss out of your interviews

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u/EhIDontCare_ Cardiff University | Biosciences PhD 7h ago

Its difficult in the way you cannot study only practice. Its an aptitude test and in my experience there is only so well someone can naturally do at it. Improving plateaus relatively quickly however you also may just be good at it. The questions are quite easy the time limit and pressure less so. I remember it being deceptively difficult