Passing the UKCAT and BMAT

Advice, Guidance and Over 650 Questions for Revision and Practice

Rosalie Hutton, Glenn Hutton, Felicity Taylor

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781473917620
• Edition: 9
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Education

The most comprehensive guide available for the UKCAT and BMAT!

If you?re an aspiring doctor or dentist, this book is all you need to face the admissions tests with confidence and get in to medical or dental school - whichever universities you're applying to. Offering support for both the UKCAT and BMAT, with hints and tips on how to pass the tests, worked examples and guidance on technique, this is your guide to success.

Inside you?ll find:

• Over 650 practice questions for the UKCAT and BMAT
• 2 full practice tests for focused revision
• Practice questions and guidance notes for the Situational Judgement section
• Guidance on applications and interviews, including the personal statement
• Test-taking strategies so you can practice and pass.

This text is your tool for extensive revision and question practice for the UKCAT and BMAT. The practice tests replicate the format of the actual tests, so you can tackle them under timed conditions and be fully prepared for the real thing.

Part I Introduction

As competition for university places continues to increase, admissions tutors are requiring more detailed assessment of students applying to university, in order to best discover their suitability for studying at undergraduate level. Nowhere has this extra burden of assessment been felt more keenly than in applying to read medicine, dentistry and veterinary science/medicine: due to the huge numbers of high-quality applicants competing for each available place, with often nothing to choose between candidates in terms of exam results, the schools have turned towards alternative methods of assessing candidates’ aptitudes. The first test to come into existence was the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT), which combines aptitude tests with an assessment of scientific knowledge and reasoning skills. At the five medical and veterinary schools that currently use the BMAT, it has proved very successful in providing a more in-depth description of candidates’ strengths and weaknesses, allowing admissions tutors to use this information as part of their selection process.

The second test that has been developed is the UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT). The UKCAT aims to test verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, abstract reasoning, decision analysis and situational judgement rather than scientific knowledge. Unlike its cousin the BMAT, the UKCAT has been taken up by the majority of UK medical schools and some dentistry schools, so it is likely that, if you are intending to apply to university to read medicine or dentistry, you will have to sit the UKCAT. Although now well established, the UKCAT continues to create a large amount of anxiety. Some candidates will have to sit both the BMAT and UKCAT and may feel unsure how they will manage to prepare for both tests while still keeping up with their normal studies.

This book has been designed to assist you to prepare for both the BMAT and UKCAT exams by helping you to familiarise yourself with the types of questions used, and how to solve them. The developers of both the BMAT and UKCAT advise that their tests cannot be revised for, but it is certain that they can definitely be prepared for: a familiarity with what you will meet in the test and a knowledge of what is required of you, combined with confidence in answering the questions, will enable you to fulfil your full potential and will remove a lot of the unnecessary anxiety and stress these tests generate.

Part I of this book introduces you to the tests.

In Part II of this book you will find detailed instructions on how to prepare for the UKCAT exam, including analysis of the types of questions you will encounter, practice tests and worked examples so that you can understand where mistakes are made and how to avoid them yourself.

Part III of this book provides over 300 practice questions for the UKCAT, across the five subtests, verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, abstract reasoning, situational judgement test and decision analysis. The answers and detailed rationale for each question are included to help you develop your understanding. Working through the questions in these chapters will help you to practise your UKCAT skills and exam technique, develop a better understanding of the areas being tested and enable you to reach your potential.

Finally, Part IV tackles the BMAT, providing examples and exam-style tests so that you can familiarise yourself with the standard required and build your confidence prior to the test. In this part there is also a detailed discussion regarding the essay section, with tips on how to research, plan and write the perfect essay.

While this book cannot promise you a guaranteed pass on the UKCAT and BMAT, if you follow the advice it offers and practise the questions it contains, we can promise that you will be much better prepared for the tests – which will permit you to achieve your best possible result.

All about the tests

The general and administrative information about the tests can be found on the UKCAT website (www.ukcat.ac.uk). This includes details of those universities requiring applicants to sit the UKCAT and/or BMAT, the dates when these tests are administered and registration for the tests.

All about the UKCAT

Introduced in 2006, the UKCAT is an aptitude test designed to assess whether or not you have the appropriate professional attitude, mental abilities and problem-solving skills that will be necessary for a successful career in medicine or dentistry. It’s used by a selection of medical schools as part of the application procedure (i.e. they look at your personal statement, your predicted grades and your teacher reference too) and they may use it to help to decide whether to call you for interview or offer you a place.

As you can see from all the universities that require it, you’re probably going to have to sit the UKCAT. The need for the UKCAT has arisen mainly out of the continuing increase in immensely well-qualified candidates applying for medicine, leaving admissions tutors with little to distinguish one candidate from another. The UKCAT does not include any questions that require science or A-level knowledge: think of it like an IQ or mental ability test. However, like anything in life, practice makes perfect, and you’ll probably want to practise the types of questions likely to come up. You can look at the ones on the website (www.ukcat.ac.uk) and also use all the ones in this book.

In terms of the test administration, all the details can be found on the website. You can sit the test any time you want in the given period. There is a fee for the test which differs depending on when you take it. Bursaries will be available for those in financial need (make sure you apply via the website before you register to sit the test). There is also a version of the test, the UKCATSEN, which provides additional time for candidates with disabilities or medical conditions.

You will sit the test at a registered centre using a computer, and in total it will take just over 120 minutes. Each UKCAT subtest is separately timed, meaning you cannot overrun on one area and make it up in another. Results are available immediately, in theory enabling you to take your result into consideration before you have to submit your UCAS application form. However, there is no clear guidance available as to what constitutes a ‘good’ score, so I would consider it wise to see your result as part of your assessment and continue with your application to medical or dental school whatever the result.

There is no negative marking, and the computer will automatically scale your correct responses to give you a score between 300 and 900 in each of the first four subtests. In the past, the national average has been in the range of 2,400–2,500. UKCAT passes your score to the universities who require it and they use it as part of your admission assessment, along with your GCSE and A-level grades and your personal statement.

Unfortunately, there is no universal magic score on the UKCAT that guarantees an interview or a university place, although many universities use the same cut-off, below which you would not be considered further. For example, St Andrew’s School of Medicine states on their website that candidates with a score less than a predetermined cut-off between 2,400 and 2,500 (not including the scores from the Situational Judgement Test) will not be considered for interview, although a score above this does not guarantee interview or entry. They then use your UKCAT score for ranking candidates post-interview, making up 15 per cent of your admissions score. Other universities give similar advice, but most just state that the UKCAT test is required without providing any further advice on score. In these circumstances it would seem sensible to continue with your application as planned.

All about the BMAT

The BMAT is a little older than its cousin, the UKCAT. It has been around for a number of years and is required for students applying to the medicine, veterinary medicine and related courses such as biomedical sciences listed on page 357.

The BMAT consists of three sections, and is a paper exam sat at your school or local test centre. You’ll sit this in November, so it shouldn’t clash with the UKCAT. The first paper tests problem-solving and analysing arguments; the second tests your science and maths knowledge; and the third tests your ability to create structured, coherent arguments in an essay format. All the information you need regarding the test, including practice papers, sample answers and arrangements for sitting the test, is available on the BMAT website (www.admissionstestingservice.org) which should be your first point of call for all your test queries. A point to note is that the entrance fee rises for late entries.

There’s a lot you can do to prepare for the BMAT, which is why you will find a detailed section later in this book telling you just how to approach the questions and with lots of examples for you to practise. Before the UKCAT came along, students used to get very stressed over the idea of the BMAT, but now you have the UKCAT to worry about too.

Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Imperial all have a reputation among students as being ‘hard’ to get into, and by allowing themselves to have a different test from all the other medical schools they probably haven’t helped their cause any. But the BMAT is a sensible test once you get the hang of it, so don’t let it put you off applying to those universities.

Courses not requiring tests

Some of you may have noticed that there are a few medical schools offering standard entry courses which require neither the BMAT nor the UKCAT (for reasons unknown to us mere mortals). Some among you may now be hatching a plan for an application which requires no tests by applying to these medical schools. We wouldn’t advise you to go down that route, mainly because these schools are likely to have lots of people applying to them as an ‘insurance’ place in case they fail the UKCAT, so they may already be extra-competitive to get into. Additionally, there isn’t much point in applying to a medical school you don’t particularly want to go to merely to avoid a test which, with a bit of work, you can ace anyway.

Instead of thinking about the tests as a negative part of your application, look at them as having the potential to help you. The very fact you own this book indicates that you are committed to lots of hard work and preparation for the BMAT/UKCAT. If this is the case, then your test result will actually give you an advantage over everyone else, rather than it hampering your application. Just be sure to follow the advice and practise the questions in the second, third and fourth parts of this book.

Time management for the BMAT and UKCAT

By reading this book you will begin to understand the style and scope of the UKCAT and BMAT examination questions, and will hopefully realise that most of the questions do not present an intellectual challenge greater than that of your A-level courses. This is not to say that the exams are a walkover: the difficulty of these tests comes from the fact that the time allowed for their completion is extremely short, and that each of the subtests is individually timed and scored, preventing you from making up for lost time in areas of the test which you find easier. Until you have taken some mock examinations you won’t really appreciate how difficult it is to answer all of the questions in the time available, and you certainly won’t have much time (if any) for checking your answers. So throughout your preparation for the UKCAT and BMAT you need to focus on working accurately under time pressure and improving your performance in your weakest parts of the papers. Every year, even the most diligent students emerge from the examination room feeling that the exam was more difficult than they had expected and anxious that they didn’t manage to complete or check all of their answers to the best of their ability. This is the challenge of the UKCAT and BMAT exams, and it is helpful to think of this situation as a mark of a successful examination method rather than a failure of the candidate. After all, there isn’t much point taking an extra examination if there is no scope for stretching the very best students.

Below are a number of suggestions to help you to prepare yourself for the time pressure you will encounter in the UKCAT and BMAT examinations: as always, adequate preparation and practice will help to increase your confidence and alleviate much of the anxiety and stress of the exams.

Attempt practice papers with 10 per cent less time allowance

It is much less stressful doing a practice paper sitting in your bedroom with the cat in your lap and a plate of chocolate digestives within easy reach than it is doing the real thing in a cold school assembly hall with 40 other stressed-out candidates. To take account of this panic factor, always give yourself 10 per cent less time when you are doing the practice papers than you will be allowed for the real thing. Hopefully, by the time you get to the real exam you will be so efficient that you can use this ‘free time’ for checking or reattempting tricky questions.

Attempt the practice papers ‘blind’

Often it is tempting to have a look through the practice papers before you actually have a go at them: if you do this, then your brain becomes familiar with the problems and may even start to solve them subconsciously before you actually come to sit the paper, hence the time pressure feels less acute. In short, it is easy to answer a question once you have seen it before (and may even have half-glanced at the answer while looking at another solution).

Have an order

The biggest cause of panic for most students is when turning over the paper and feeling they can’t answer the first question, or the second, or the fifth, tenth, etc. This triggers a spiral of panic which can be extremely costly time-wise. Ha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Preparing for the UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT)
• Chapter 1 The Verbal Reasoning subtest
• Chapter 2 The Quantitative Reasoning subtest
• Chapter 3 The Abstract Reasoning subtest
• Chapter 4 The Decision Analysis subtest
• Chapter 5 The Situational Judgement Test
• Part III Practice tests, questions and answers for the UKCAT
• Chapter 6 Practice test 1
• Chapter 7 Practice test 2
• Chapter 8 Answers and rationale
• Part IV Preparing for the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT)
• Chapter 9 Section 1: Aptitude and Skills
• Chapter 10 Section 2: Scientific Knowledge and Applications
• Chapter 11 Section 3: Writing Task
• Chapter 12 After the BMAT