ursi Posted July 7, 2011 Report Share Posted July 7, 2011 how did you guys prepare for the ukcat? im freaking out here. i will never manage to get a high score and my exams in a month. ive been studying as hell. any tips on this? which section did you find the hardest and why? and about medicine... did they accept you also with around 36-37 predicted grades? which universities gave you an interview/offer? i want to know all about medicine and ukcat and bmat Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShootingStars Posted August 11, 2011 Report Share Posted August 11, 2011 I cannot help much, but with how standardised tests go, do lots and lots of practice and just search all over the internet for tips on how to improve. Definitely google it!I can give you uni information though. Nottingham is supposedly very good for medicine, and you can also consider Imperial, University of Reading, University of Manchester, University of Warwick. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted August 11, 2011 Report Share Posted August 11, 2011 how did you guys prepare for the ukcat? im freaking out here. i will never manage to get a high score and my exams in a month. ive been studying as hell. any tips on this? which section did you find the hardest and why? and about medicine... did they accept you also with around 36-37 predicted grades? which universities gave you an interview/offer? i want to know all about medicine and ukcat and bmat Try and do the practice papers for the UKCAT is my advice. I failed to do those and made a complete hash of the test when I finally sat it. There aren't really any books you can buy or ways to study other than doing past papers and trying to get the hang of the sorts of questions they like to ask and their crazy stuff (they have a whole section on pattern spotting which, for me at least, was extremely WTF and made no sense at all, I had no idea what to start looking for!). Also, in the actual exam, they have a seriously lame way of doing it involving sitting you down in front of a timed computer screen, it's not even on paper. Don't make the same mistake as me -- bomb through it! Even if you're not sure, there's no negative marking, so make sure you finish. I stupidly didn't do this and as it's multiple choice I'm sure it's possible to pick up a lot of marks by guessing even if you don't even read the question. I found the pattern spotting hardest because I basically had no idea what I was doing, ahah. Good reason, in my opinion. Re: being accepted with predicted grades of 36-37 I don't know anybody who had grades that low who was offered an interview. There might be people out there, but I personally don't know of anybody with predictions below 41/42 ish who was offered an interview. HOWEVER you should note that some Universities give out interviews not on the back of your IB grades but on the back of things like your UKCAT grades. For instance some Universities like Sheffield take the UKCAT very seriously and if you get over a certain score you're guaranteed an interview (but not an offer, obviously). University College London has a similar system with the BMAT - if you get over a certain score, they'll give you an interview guaranteed. You can actually work a bit for the BMAT a bit more than the UKCAT. Go over GCSE level Biology, Chemistry and Physics (especially the science you gave up for IB - in my case Physics, I had major problems with that in the BMAT exam) and also brush up on your problem solving and Maths skills. You can get some books which help you a lot with how to approach common Maths problems based on the BMAT. I personally found the Physics and Maths parts hardest, but I know for many people it's the essay which gets them stuck. If you're not good at essays/thinking things through logically and arguing them well in a short space of time, I suggest you work hard on that section as it catches a lot of people out. Also they can give you copies of your answer in interviews and ask you about what you wrote in an exam you did months ago! In conclusion, do past papers for the UKCAT and buy the BMAT book, but at the end of the day these things will probably make only a smallish difference to your final score. You either can or can't. If you realise that you can't for one or the other, don't apply to Universities which take them seriously. For instance, if you realised the UKCAT was going to go very badly, you'd apply to non-UKCAT Universities. Tactics, innit. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ursi Posted August 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 hey thank you both for the replies i did my ukcat a few weeks ago and it went really well ^^ oh and do you maybe know which universities are more likely to accet applicants that are not from the UK? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted August 12, 2011 Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 I don't think that sort of bias exists, to my knowledge. All Universities seem equally likely to accept foreign applicants, to me. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ursi Posted August 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 ok, i hope that you are right ^^ and thank you again! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cookie.dough.love Posted September 5, 2011 Report Share Posted September 5, 2011 hey thank you both for the replies i did my ukcat a few weeks ago and it went really well ^^ oh and do you maybe know which universities are more likely to accet applicants that are not from the UK? Both Nottingham and Sheffield University LOVE the IB and international students, you should definitely try them! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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