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If you're anything like me, I wanted to avoid spending money if I could on UCAT preparation, so I decided against subscribing to medify. But if you feel that you want to opt for paid services like medify, by all means go ahead; my friends who studied with medify had great scores as well! 

So the first thing I did was go to the UCAT Consortium: if I'm not mistaken they had timed tests, untimed tests, and also they had question banks according to the sections

I firstly took a shot at a timed test to see what I was dealing with. It's okay if it seems super difficult at first! Because the more you practice the more familiar it becomes. 

After my first glance at the test i went on and did as many free questions werw available on a website called themedicportal. The questions on that website aren't exactly of the same calibre as the actual test, but it's a good place to start. 

Then I did the section-based question banks on the ucat consortium. I took my time with the questions to really see how it flowed and when I got my answers wrong, i took time to understand the provided answers. By now it should be made clear that you will need to start early to get a good score! 

Then i moved on to the untimed tests. I didn't rush myself on doing these as well. But after each test i would try to approximate what my scores were (you can look up the score table on a few websites). And again at this point, you shouldn't be bummed out if your scores were sub-par like mine were at this time. 

After doing all the untimed tests, I moved on to the timed ones; here I went full force, strictly adhering to the time limit. If i felt that i still needed more practice, i would redo the untimed tests (because id have probably forgotten the questions already) but this time i would time myself. 

I must stress that you CANNOT force yourself to do too much ucat practice in one go (it can be extremely exhausting, especially when you don't understand how to get the correct answers) ; it needs to be a continuous effort that accumulates over time





Applying for Medicine

How did you prepare for the UKCAT?

The perfect kinds of personal statements are those that have been
a) Rigorously drafted and re-drafted, and
b) Written from the heart

A good personal statement should show your experiences, your achievements, your personality; but MOST importantly it should make clear what you yourself have learned from your experiences. If you're applying for medicine, these experiences could be (but not limited to) your hospital attachments, experience at an old folks' home, or simply time spent caring for a family member. What universities want to see is what you derive from those experiences, and how they make you more human and humane.

Get started early, for both UCAT and your personal statement. Run your PS through a guidance counsellor or admissions officer; they have lots of experience getting students into university. The UCAT Consortium has lots of practice questions and mock exams. I would advise you to take your time with the untimed questions to get the flow of the test, and when you think you're ready, take a crack at the mock tests. All the best!

How to write prefect personal statement about medicine also how to ice your UKCat exam?

Aside from shadowing doctors at their practices or hospitals, you could also arrange a health screening at your school/college. 

I was the president of my health society in college, and we organized a full day of simple health screening procedures that were carried out on our students and staff; this included measuring weight and height for calculating BMI, measuring blood glucose and also measuring blood pressure. Although its not experience in a strictly formal environment, it gives you a tiny taste of what's next to come down the road. It's also a good opportunity to test and develop your people-skills!

What type of work experience should I get if I am considering medicine? Any tips?

Introducing quadratic inequalities with two worked examples. Also some tips on how to visually interpret quadratic inequalities.

Iqbal Lokman

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Iqbal Lokman