Have you all boarded the Procrastination Station rapid train? Are you having trouble staying motivated? Are you on the verge of giving up?
You might be feeling this way for a variety of reasons, some of which may be affecting your motivation to study and be ready for the UCAT. You can be experiencing stress, fatigue, or overload. Your vitality may have been depleted by your numerous other extracurricular, academic, and social obligations. It’s possible that a certain UCAT practice test destroyed your confidence and diminished your aspirations for the future. Consequently, instead of getting ready for the UCAT, you could be glued to your phone, idly surfing around social media.
This time, though, you’re not going to give in to the internet. I’m here to remind you of the benefits of starting your UCAT preparation today!
UCAT is just one exam
Your high school grades, which are based on a variety of examinations covering a full year’s worth of studies, will be somewhat flexible if you perform well on the UCAT! Your high school outcomes are determined by a variety of circumstances, but your UCAT score is a personal outcome. Keep in mind that you can still get into several medical schools with an ATAR in the low 90s and a high UCAT! Make every effort to ace this one exam so that you will still have a shot at becoming a doctor even if anything in your senior year of high school doesn’t work out!
You are acquiring critical abilities
The UCAT is not a ridiculous, useless exam. In essence, the UCAT is an assessment that gauges your emotional intelligence (EQ) and IQ. Thus, you are effectively raising your IQ and EQ while you prepare for the UCAT, gain new skills, and enhance your abilities. You may be set up for life by this! I swear to you, everything changed when I studied for the UCAT. For me, school was a whole other story.
Exams went quite well. My grades increased across the board. I could concentrate! for several hours! This is not an accident. The UCAT had an impact! I became a more productive and curious learner as a result. I gained an appreciation for academics and critical thinking. My life would have been much better had I not chosen to pursue a profession in medicine or if I did, preparing for and taking the UCAT would still have had a positive impact! Dr. Ray’s UCAT workshop is an excellent resource if you need assistance shifting your perspective.
Errors provide a chance to grow
Why not go even farther since you’ve already come so far by looking at the UCAT preparation materials? Don’t let poor performance, challenging UCAT questions, or careless errors depress you. Leverage these setbacks to motivate your UCAT preparation. Try beating the number of your “weaknesses” or “mistakes” by playing a game with yourself!
Recall your motivation for doing this
Next year, you may be pursuing a medical degree! You’re correct, picture it. You may be buying your first stethoscope in less than a year. Next year, you may find yourself at medical facilities with like-minded individuals, exploring the complex mysteries of the human body from head to toe! Imagine that for a moment—how wonderful would it be? It is worthwhile to put in a little more time for UCAT practice tests and study. Simply carry it out.
Even though studying for the UCAT might be difficult and seem unproductive at times, it is well worth the effort.
All of this being said, please take a break if you are feeling truly unmotivated and it isn’t working for you. For your study to be productive, you should be taking ten-minute breaks every hour and half-hour breaks every couple of hours, except UCAT practice examinations. Therefore, after reading this post, consider taking a break from your UCAT study if you are truly having trouble. Return to UCAT feeling rejuvenated and inspired after spending time in nature, hanging out with loved ones, or practicing an instrument.
Making the Most of Your Practice Exams for the UCAT
The day of your UCAT exam is becoming nearer by the week. It’s possible that you are doing QBank, skills trainers, the Medic Mind curriculum modules, or even fake UCAT subtests. All of this will help you prepare, but one crucial thing to know is if you’ve taken a full UCAT practice test yet.
Finishing a lengthy UCAT practice test might be frightening and worrisome. It is simple to practice untimed UCAT or spend time on QBank without worrying about getting a forecasted percentile or score.
It is imperative that you take a full-length UCAT exam as soon as feasible, though. You can only comprehend the intense time constraints of the UCAT in this manner. You can build and practice techniques to help you properly answer UCAT questions within the allotted time by completing UCAT examinations.
The following three pointers will help you make the most of your UCAT practice exams:
1. Finish the UCAT tests in a virtual environment.
This is really, really important. The timing is one of the most challenging aspects of the UCAT. On the day of the UCAT exam, you will have to spend two hours straight in front of a computer screen, without any breaks, answering challenging questions under tremendous time pressure. It’s not simple at all! But it won’t feel as strange if you’ve done it ten times already.
Thus, approach every UCAT practice test as if it were the genuine thing. Don’t let anyone in, stay in your room, and don’t have any food or beverages. Make sure the UCAT computer platform you are using for your practice is an identical replica of the real UCAT, such as the one offered by Medic Mind. Make sure you have the same tools as when you take the UCAT exam (preferably a desktop computer, mouse, and noteboard).
Above all, observe the UCAT time constraints! Although it may be unsettling the first time, this is the only way to acquire the abilities required to pass a test with such a tight deadline.
2. Try answering the UCAT questions you answered wrong again.
One of the most effective and useful ways to be ready for the UCAT is to retry the questions you answered poorly.
There is a reason why you answered a UCAT question incorrectly: either you made a mistake in thinking, you ran out of time, or you gave in to the temptation of providing the incorrect response. Regardless of the cause, reattempting a UCAT question will help you develop techniques to make sure you answer it correctly on test day.
Retaking your UCAT questions is the most effective and time-saving strategy to be ready for the exam because you’ll be strengthening your areas of weakness. You have up to four attempts to retake questions that you answered wrong using Medic Mind.
3. Go over and consider the UCAT exam.
It is not recommended to only finish practice test after practice exam in order to do better on the UCAT. All of the UCAT questions, including the ones you answered correctly (maybe you answered the question correctly because you guessed or for the incorrect reasons), should be thoroughly reviewed. Even if you answered the UCAT question correctly, carefully going over the solution can enable you to come up with a more efficient or effective response. Medic Mind offers thorough written and video answers on our online learning platform for UCAT questions.
If you answered a UCAT question incorrectly, consider why you did so and how you could avoid repeating the same error on test day. With the aid of Medic Mind’s unique error record, you may identify your mistakes and take corrective action to reduce the likelihood that you will repeat them in the future.
Consider the whole exam-taking experience for the UCAT as well. What succeeded and what failed? What are some strategies to improve your performance on the upcoming UCAT exam? To assist you with this process, the online learning platform from Medic Mind creates a test report that evaluates how well you performed on each UCAT exam.