“How to manage time for the UCAT exam?” is always a question for the UCAT candidates. Time is the most important factor in the UCAT and so efficiently managing your time can really help maximise your score. Before going deep into the time-management strategies for the UCAT exam, get a basic idea about UCAT and its relevance.
UCAT stands for University Clinical Aptitude Test and is an admission test organized by the Consortium of universities in the UK. The UCAT is an exam required for admission to UK Universities which provide medical/dentistry degree programs that test the general aptitude, reasoning and analytical skills of the students. The test has five sections, namely – Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning and Situational Judgement.
Time management is as important as exam preparation and all. In all the sections the students have less than 30 seconds to answer a question. While it might seem reasonable enough at the first glance, every question requires thorough reading and understanding of the given instructions, paragraphs, figures and data etc. So, if you spend a little more time in finding the right answer, you lose out on completing more number of questions. And, if you do a cursory reading of the given information, it is highly likely that you are going to mark the wrong answer. Making the matters worse, the language constructs of every question are extremely typical and the students have to focus on every single one of them.
Also read, When Should I Start Preparing for the UCAT
So, as important as it is to join some reputed exam preparation coaching institute, it is extremely important to hone your time management skills as well.
Hence, in the following post, we are going to share some amazing tips for managing your time during the UCAT exam. Read these tips carefully and make sure you adopt them in your test preparation routine well ahead of the exam so as to make them a habit.
Time Management Tips for UCAT
1. Enhance your reading skills
Focus on your reading skills. Spend a few hours reading and understanding passages from different domains. However, don’t just read anything; and focus on UK English books. Newspapers, editorials and analytical texts are some of the best texts that you can read. Regular reading will enhance your speed and thought-processing abilities and this will help you in sections where you have to answer questions based on paragraphs. As the habits take time to get developed, you must start practising your reading at least 3 to 4 months before the exam.
2. Read the questions first and then search the answer in the given passage
Whenever you have to answer questions based on a passage at a fast pace, first read the question and its answer choices. Then start reading the passage. This way, you will be able to find the right answers in a shorter period of time as compared to the general approach of first reading the passage and then marking the answers.
3. Solve practice papers to keep the preparation targeted
Continuous practice of the sample papers helps the students to increase their accuracy and speed which are the two key factors of success.
Also, the sample papers contain last year questions which help the students to know the exact format of the exam so that they can prepare accordingly. The online sample papers and mock tests also come with a timer and solving them will teach you time management. The students will gradually learn how to divide the time for each and every section of the exam. Further, solving the sample papers increases the confidence of the students. Hence, you must solve practice papers.
You may also read, How Is The UCAT Scored And What Is The Test Format?
There is one more tip related to the sample papers. You must not wait for the syllabus completion to get started with the practise papers. Daily, as you cover sections and concepts in your classes, start solving the questions based on them from coaching material, reference books and then practice papers. You can find practice papers from many reputed publishers and solve them on a daily basis. After every week you must solve questions based on the concepts learnt in that week, from the previous year question papers. This way, you can keep your exam preparation on point and up to the mark.
Once you solve the papers, you will feel more and more confident regarding the preparation as the time passes. Constant practice will sharpen your problem-solving skills as well.
4. Join some reputed coaching or training classes
There are many institutes offering UCAT classes in Dubai. However, you must pick one that has an excellent track record and that has helped a large number of students in their admissions. Taking a few demo classes in some of the reputed institutions might help you in understanding their faculty, teaching methods and actually analyzing them in terms of exam preparation. Having a guide is good, but having an expert guide that can help you prepare keeping the level and extent of UCAT in mind is actually going to make a difference. They train your mind to solve problems in a minimum amount of time and exam tricks to help you bypass lengthy solving processes. So, do the research and join some reputed coaching centre.
5. Try to avoid marking questions for review
When you have less than half a minute to solve a question, you just cannot enjoy the luxury of marking some questions for review and then revisiting them. We are not discouraging you, but this will only waste your precious time. So, as soon as you feel that you are unable to solve a question, skip it and move on. This practice will save you from over-attempting and negative scoring as well. However, if your problem-solving skills are great and you are confident of solving the exam in the given time, then you can mark the questions for review and then re-visit the questions after solving the others.
This completes our list of time management tips for UCAT that are easy to follow and highly effective for every student. Still, have a confusion on how to manage your timing for the UCAT? Visit Sage Education Services for comprehensive UCAT classes in Dubai. Sage ensures the success of each student in the UCAT. Register with us and start the preparation journey for UCAT.
