A Guide to the UCAT Verbal Reasoning Questions
The format of the University Clinical Aptitude test has changed in Australia and New Zealand. Here in the UK, we hope to be able to help with your questions, as we have many years of experience working with the UKCAT. (The test in which the UCAT is created in line with).
The new test will have five sections. In this blog we focus on the first; UCAT Verbal Reasoning Questions.
The UCAT Verbal Reasoning questions are designed to test a students’ ability to read complex written materials and to then analyse them to the extent that they can communicate their thoughts to others.
What is the UCAT Verbal Reasoning Questions Format?
As published on the UCAT official website and in our previous blogs about the new format and specification, there are 44 UCAT Verbal Reasoning questions to answer in 21 minutes! This is very time-pressured! It’s perhaps the most time-pressured of all the five sections given that there are passages of text to read and digest. These passages are likely to be between 200-300 words long based on the current format of the UKCAT. There would be four passages per scenario, with eleven scenarios in total. For the whole section, there is only one minute reading time.
What Kind of Questions will there be?
With the passages of text in this section, there are two types of questions which may be asked on the UCAT.
Type one: True or false
The first is a true/false type-question. After reading a passage, you are presented with a statement from which you decide whether the statement is true, false or the third option – ‘cannot tell’. ‘Cannot tell’ should only be selected if you haven’t been given enough information to answer the question based only on that information contained in the passage.
This is one of our top tips for the UCAT verbal reasoning section – remember your answer should be based only on the information in the passage. It is not a test of your general knowledge or your guesswork! Given the time constraints, this is really important. Make absolutely sure you don’t spend too long trying to remember facts as this is just not the point of the question. Don’t get distracted by familiar or famous quotes either!
For example, your passage might contain the following:
And you might be given the statement:
Even if you knew that Soviet technology was not the reason why Yuri Gagarin did not become the first man on the moon, there is no discussion at all in the passage about why the Soviets did not land a man on the moon. You must, therefore, stick with the answer ‘cannot tell’.
Type two – Free Text
The second type of the UCAT Verbal Reasoning questions is a Free Text question. With these, you will be presented with four questions and incomplete statements. You should choose the most appropriate incomplete statement which fits with the stem. The key point – and another of our top tips – with this one is that you must choose only one. Even if there appears to be a few possible answers, you must use your judgment to select the best fit.
For example, your passage might contain the below:
And you might then have to answer the question:
You should note that the passage does describe Harriet’s mother’s death as the saddest and most tender event of her life, but not her childhood. However, it is the first memorable incident of her life, and thus the earliest.
Note that both the examples given above use extracts from full passages only. The UCAT Verbal Reasoning questions, which will be asked in the real exam, will have passages around four times that length. Thus, this section is one of the most time-pressured as there is a lot of reading to do. It can be quite tiring even though it is the first section of the UCAT you would have to face.
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What are the best tips and tricks?
Practice, practice, practice! You can find 1250 UKCAT practice questions in our book, The UKCAT practice book. This might be particularly useful for you to see the types of passages that are used in the UCAT. The book contains fully worked solutions, score-boosting strategies and would provide a good opportunity for you to practice in times conditions. You can also see our online UCAT course which with the complete tuition and guidance contains focused advice for the UCAT Verbal reasoning questions.
With regard to approaching the questions themselves we also have a few quick tips:
- Don’t rush your reading and panic. Try to finish reading the whole passage in case you miss any important information
- Be able to filter through the information you don’t need from the passage. Differentiating between important and non-important information is key
- Work out which questions you find harder or easier and make sure to devote time appropriately. It is generally, though we won’t speak for everyone, more common to find the free text questions harder and many students struggle with these more overall. Perhaps work out your strategy for these more and make sure you spend enough effort on them accordingly in your preparation.
Would you like to see more of these tips discussed in detail? As we mentioned, there is an array of products which we offer to help with the UKCAT and these will be extremely useful for the new UCAT candidates. Please get in touch with any questions.
