What is the UCAT test specification?

UCAT Test Specification Strategies:

The new UCAT test is being brought in for 2020 entry candidates. But, what exactly is in the UCAT test specification?

Those university candidates looking to apply for Medicine, Dentistry and Clinical Sciences will have been keeping an eye on the new University Clinical Aptitude Test, which is replacing the University Medicine and Health Sciences Admissions Test.

The University Clinical Aptitude Test is known as the UCAT for short, but as it is a new process, information is being released gradually and in stages. The universities and courses which will require candidates to sit this test can be found on the second page of the launch flyer. So what is in the UCAT test specification?

Why has it changed?

The reason for the change is that the UCAT test specification is being brought in line with the medical and clinical sciences test used in the United Kingdom, the UKCAT.

Students in Australia and New Zealand who are trying to get to grips with this new assessment can, therefore, refer to materials helping with preparation for the UKCAT. UniAdmissions has produced specialised preparation courses and materials for the last few years, and we would invite you to reach out to these as much as possible.

Check out our specialised UCAT online course >>>

We refer, then, to the UCAT official guide as this is a very useful resource for the UCAT test specification given that changes are being made in order to bring the UCAT in line with the UKCAT. The UCAT test specification and the suggested strategies for dealing with each section are summarised below from there.

The UCAT will be made up of five sections, as follows:

1. Verbal Reasoning

   The verbal reasoning section contains passages of text and candidates will then present questions which form part of a stem, perhaps an incomplete sentence or a multiple-choice question with four options to choose from.Strategies for the verbal reasoning section include:

   1. Don’t try and rely on your existing knowledge. This will take up time and is not the point of the sub-test. This is because the verbal reasoning section within the UCAT test specification is designed to test the candidate’s ability to deal with unfamiliar written materials.
   2. Think about your speed and how you can improve efficiency. You will have to be able to extract important information quickly while making sure you give the whole passage a thorough check to make sure you haven’t missed anything. Make sure you get this balance right by practising with as many similar passages or past questions as possible.
   3. Remember that you have to do the test in the order of the UCAT test specification and so you need to be mentally prepared to face and read blocks of text from the beginning.

2. Decision Making

   The decision-making section has stand-alone questions from visual prompts, which could be tables, graphs, images or similar. An on-screen calculator is provided. The format is multiple choice, with four options or yes or no answers to statements.Strategies for the decision-making section include:

   1. Don’t waste time on the questions if you hesitate or dither for too long. Try to get used to knowing when you need to come back to a question and dealing with it later.
   2. Although you do have an on-screen calculator, you may have working out that you want to do by hand with a paper and pencil. Don’t forget to bring these in with you and also to work out how you do analyse these prompts best.
   3. Practise all of the different question types and know your strengths and weaknesses.

3. Quantitative Reasoning

   The quantitative reasoning section also has problems relating to visual prompts, or these may be numerical, such as datasets. Some questions may share data, some may not and would just be stand-alone.Strategies for this section include:

   1. Divide and conquer: up the total amount of time and then allocate this carefully. Be strict with yourself and keep an eye on the time.
   2. Read the question carefully and make sure you are answering what is asked, not what you think is being asked.
   3. Work on basic maths skills and problems – these need to be recalled quickly and you need to be familiar with them. This includes mental arithmetic.

4. Abstract Reasoning

   The abstract reasoning section contains four different types of question. The first is when the candidate has to analyse two sets of shapes (Set A and Set B) then assign the shape presented to the question to the appropriate set.

   The second is when the student has to choose from a multiple-choice format question, the next shape in the series of shapes they have already seen.

   The third type of question involves an incomplete statement, which the student has to complete with the correct shape.
   Finally, the fourth type again involves two sets of shapes, but this time the candidate will have to find the shape which belongs to the set presented by the question.

   Strategies for this section include:

   1. Pick out the factors you need to analyse for a shape; this could be size, number, shading, colour, symmetry, number of angles, position or direction. Learn these and be able to recall them quickly.
   2. Time is of the essence. Don’t forget that.
   3. Try not to get distracted by factors which are unlikely to apply.

5. Situational Judgement

   Finally, this section, which is new for the UCAT test specification, will ask questions about a series of scenarios including the importance and appropriateness of actions to take in that described, and they will be presented in a multiple-choice format with four options. The options might be a sliding scale of importance or appropriateness.

   Strategies for this section include:

   1. Read the scenario in full. Don’t skip bits.
   2. The questions are standalone, and it is possible for all the actions to be “very appropriate”. Don’t assume that there has to be a range.
   3. Don’t worry too much about the timeframe of an action, it might still be the most appropriate thing to do despite it needing to be done immediately. Try to answer from an overall picture point-of-view.

You can see more details about these sections as well as how they differ from the old University Medicine and Health Sciences Admissions Test (UMAT) in our blog post on the UCAT test format.

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Students should note that the UCAT, and therefore the UCAT test specification from 2020 onwards does not contain any curriculum material from school lessons. Instead, it is designed to focus on the skills and abilities which will be necessary for successful medical school, dentistry school and clinical science school students to demonstrate.

We would love to hear from you and answer the questions you may have about the new UCAT test, the type of questions you can expect, and how to prepare for the 2020 entry application.