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The UCAT is the admissions test for almost every UK medical and dental school, sat in the summer before applying. It is a speed test as much as a reasoning one. The difficulty is that there is not enough time to answer every question properly, and the skill being measured is partly deciding which ones to abandon.
We also build cookie, which has free guides to applying to university. The medicine one covers when the UCAT is sat, work experience, the early deadline and MMI interviews, with the official pages to check it against.
Read the medicine guideVerbal Reasoning rewards reading for what a passage does and does not support, quickly, without importing outside knowledge. Decision Making is logic puzzles, syllogisms and probability under time pressure. Quantitative Reasoning is GCSE-level arithmetic at a pace that makes it hard.
Situational Judgement is scored separately as a band rather than folded into the total, and medical schools use it very differently from one another.
Most people can answer most UCAT questions given enough time; nobody has enough time. Serious preparation is therefore about a triage strategy (recognising within seconds which questions to attempt, which to guess and flag, and which to abandon), practised until it is automatic.
This is the part that is hardest to build alone, because the useful feedback is on a decision made before any working started.
Medical schools weight the UCAT very differently: some use a hard cut-off, some score it alongside grades, some barely use it. A tutor who has been through the process recently can help build a sensible list of five choices around a score, which is often worth more than another few points.
The BMAT, which some schools used alongside it, was last sat in October 2023 and is discontinued.
Most people start six to eight weeks before their test date, in the summer after Year 12. Much longer tends to plateau, because the gains come from timed practice rather than from content.
No, and the BMAT no longer exists; it was last sat in October 2023. Schools that used it have moved to the UCAT.
Yes, mostly by improving strategy and pacing rather than knowledge. The largest single gain for most people is learning to abandon a question quickly.
It is reported as a band from 1 to 4 rather than a score, and universities treat it very differently. Some use it only as a threshold; a few weight it heavily.
Not necessarily. Many UCAT tutors also list medicine interview preparation, which is a separate subject on a profile.
From £30 an hour, set by each tutor. Most people book fewer sessions than for a school subject and do more between them.
We are selective about who teaches here: we look for tutors at top universities, everybody is interviewed by us, and nobody is listed without a criminal record check on file. Lessons run in the browser with live video and a shared whiteboard.Rates start at £30 an hour, the first 15 minutes with any tutor is free, and every student gets cookie's study software at no extra cost.