2 Full UCAT Simulations
Cognitive UCAT Practice:
9 Verbal Reasoning Tests
10 Decision Making Tests
6 Quantitative Reasoning Tests
11 Abstract Reasoning Tests
New! SJT Preparation using the Doctor's Principles Method:
3 Full SJT practice tests + Doctor's Principles guide & examples
Doctor's Principles Personality Test:
Built in correlation with the Doctor's Principles values
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Here are some important dates to remember for the UCAT exam 2022 in the UK.
24 May - UCAS Application: Account registration, access arrangement and bursary applications open.
20 June - Booking opens.
11 July - Starting UCAT test date.
20 September - Access arrangement application closes.
22 September - Booking closes.
29 September - Last UCAT test date.
30 September - Bursary application closes.
15 October - UCAS deadline.
Early November - Results mailed to universities.
Asif, Civil Service Exam specialist at JobTestPrep.
What Is the UCAT Test?
The University Clinical Aptitude Test UCAT is an admissions test for medical students in the United Kingdom as well as Australia and New Zealand (UCAT ANZ). In order to study medicine in prestigious medical schools, you will need to sit the UCAT. The test takes approximately 2 hours. Click here to register for the UCAT on the official site!
The UCAT is used by UK universities (and some universities outside the UK, such as Australia and New Zealand) as an admissions test for their academic medical and dental programmes. This test measures a candidate's cognitive, verbal, and situational judgement abilities using multiple choice questions. You will not be penalised for wrong answers during this test- only given points for correct answers.
The UCAT question bank consists of five subtests, all measuring your critical thinking skills:
1. Verbal Reasoning 44 questions, 11 texts, 21 minutes
2. Decision Making 29 questions, 31 minutes
3. Quantitative Reasoning 36 questions, 25 minutes
4. Abstract Reasoning 50 questions, 12 minutes
5. SJT 69 questions, 22 scenarios, 26 minutes
How Do I take the UCAT?
The Pearson VUE based test can be taken by registering ahead of time on the official UCAT website. You will be asked to write a personal statement during your UCAS application, explaining your motivation to become a medical practitioner.
Remember that you can take a free UCAT practice test to get a feel for the timed conditions and challenge of the actual exam.
Official UCAT practice tests are available, but they are much easier than the real thing- so it is better to practice with other UCAT resources.
Let's now try some UCAT questions, straight from the preparation pack's UCAT question bank.
UCAT Practice Test Questions - Situational Judgement Test
Try reading and answering each of the practice questions in 22 seconds- that's how much time you'll have on the university clinical aptitude test.
The next 2 questions will require you to rank the importance of certain factors in deciding on a response.
UCAT Test Mock Exams: Sample Question #1
Noah is a student who is about to perform a medical procedure on a patient in front of his classmates and a supervisor. Just before the procedure begins, Noah's father informs him by text that his grandfather is in a very bad condition, and asks him to contact them as soon as possible. Noah is extremely concerned about this situation and wants to assist his family.
How important is the following consideration for Noah to consider while deciding what to do next?
The patient's safety.
UCAT Test Mock Exams: Sample Question #2
A man complaining about headaches arrives at a medical clinic. Lauren, a junior doctor, treats him. After the treatment, the man continues to complain about the pain, but Lauren finds nothing wrong with him.
How important is the following consideration for Lauren to consider while deciding what to do next?
Lauren's wish to seem like a qualified doctor.
The next 2 questions will require you to rank the appropriateness of a response. The SJT UCAT question bank includes a variety of formats! You can try the free test at the top of the page to get a feel for them.
UCAT Test Mock Exams: Sample Question #3
Laura is a medical resident in the surgical department. After a big accident happened near the hospital all non-critical surgeries for the day were delayed to help treat new patients who were wounded. Laura is asked to talk to Dave, a patient who was waiting very nervously for a tumour removal for the past 3 weeks, and tell him that his surgery would be delayed to the following day, to first in the morning. The delay wouldn’t further endanger Dave, and Laura comes to his hospital bed to let him know of the delay.
How appropriate is the following response by Laura to this situation?
Ask that Dave return tomorrow morning and wait with his questions until then – since the medical staff is preoccupied with the accident.
As you can see, the UCAT SJT demands divergent thinking skills, and the UCAT questions have extreme time limits.
But the Doctor's Principles method gives you a way to handle complex situations better and more quickly than the vast majority of other candidates!
UCAT Practice Test Reasoning and Decision Making Sample Questions
Here are some UCAT questions from the cognitive part of the university clinical aptitude test. Make sure you practice these as well for a high UCAT score!
Verbal Reasoning Sample Question
Try answering this question in 30 seconds- that's about as much time you'll get during the university clinical aptitude test, since you'll have 21 minutes divided by 44 questions.
Read the following paragraph and decide if the statement is true, false, or indeterminably true/false according to the text.
Companies wishing to increase their growth pace occasionally use the method of franchising which provides a new owner with the permission to use their business identity and in return to purchase products exclusively from the company. Each party to a franchise has several interests to protect. The franchisor is most involved in securing protection for his trademark, controlling the business concept and securing his know-how. This requires the franchisee to carry out the services for which the trademark has been made prominent or famous. Thus, the franchisee is not in full control of the business as he would be in retailing.
However, most companies will aim to minimise the use of this method and often prefer the expansion of the companies' own branches. Companies who have previously used franchising learned the essential need to monitor the business operation of the franchised branch. Difficulties arise from franchisees and companies disagreeing on business policies such as customer care, service delivery efficiency and quality of human interaction. There is a great deal of standardization required of the franchisee. The place of service has to carry the franchisor's signs, logos and trademark, and the uniforms worn by the staff of the franchisee have to be of a particular shade and colour. Inadequate attention to the monitoring of franchisees on the part of the companies is typically the cause of subsequent problems. Franchise agreements carry no guarantees and the franchisee has little or no recourse to legal intervention in the event of a dispute. Franchise contracts tend to be unilateral contracts in favour of the franchisor.
Statement: Franchising is likely to become the most popular method of business expansion.
Your UCAT result can be massively improved by quality practice. The UCAT preparation materials offered include full solutions for each UCAT question.
Decision Making Sample Question
Try answering this question in 1 minute- that's about as much time you'll get during the test.
Read the following text and answer the question.
A kindergarten is arranging the children's birthday schedule.
The following facts are known:
Gabriel is younger than David.
Liz is younger than Sarah.
Katie is older than David but younger than Sarah.
Liz is younger than Katie.
Which of the following MUST be true?
Quantitative Reasoning Sample Question
Try answering this question in 41 seconds- that's about as much time you'll get during the university clinical aptitude test.
Read the following text and answer the question.
I found a unique beehive in my yard and decided to explore it.
It is a rectangle built of 2310 square cells of the same size.
Some cells inhabit 1 drone; twice as many cells inhabit 3 worker bees;
and twice as many of these cells are empty or used to store honey.
400 of the beehive's cells were used to store honey.
The drones and the bees consumed 35% of the honey so far.
What is the current percentage of beehive cells which store honey, if this season there is no new honey production?
The UCAT pack includes UCAT preparation materials built specifically to help you get into medical school. Get it now and boost your odds!
Abstract Reasoning Sample Question
Try answering this question in 15 seconds- that's about as much time you'll get during the test.
The correct answer is (B) -
There are two characteristics in this question: the number of chords (lines) drawn, and shading. First, look at the chords. An additional chord is drawn from one corner (vertex) of the pentagon to another corner directly across from it in each frame. If you label each corner of the pentagon with a number, it is easier to see.
The first chord is drawn from vertex one (to vertex three).
The next chord is drawn from vertex two (to vertex four).
The next Chord is drawn from vertex three (to vertex five).
The final one is drawn from vertex four (to vertex one).
Therefore, the missing shape is the one with the chord drawn from vertex five, creating the star shape inside the pentagon.
All of the above eliminates answer choices one and four as they do not contain the star shape.
Next, look at the shading in shape. Each time a new chord is drawn, it reduces the amount of grey shading. The shading always lies on the inside of the chord boundaries. When lining the final chord from vertex five, the remaining space inside that chord is just in the centre of the star. Therefore, it can be only answered (B).
How are the UCAT Scores Calculated?
Unlike other tests which may give you a score of 1-100 or any score that only measures your performance at the test, the UCAT results are based on a standard distribution around an average score- this means your performance is compared to the average performance of all test takers to calculate your score.
Each medical school has different UCAT scores needed to enter their programmes, and the more prestigious the school- the higher those requirements are.
In addition, your overall score is comprised of two values:
1. Your score in the 4 cognitive UCAT sections: For each of these, you will get a score between 300 and 900 (For an overall cognitive UCAT score of 1,200-3,600). In 2021, the median score for the cognitive section was around 2500.
2. Your score in the SJT section: The SJT section gets its unique score, divided into 4 'bands', which band 1 being the best score and band 4 being the worst. This means that it has the same weight as the 4 cognitive sections put together for your UCAT result.
What UCAT Score Do I Need to Pass?
This is difficult to answer, wildly dependent on the specific university in question. However, a cognitive score of 2,600 and band 1/2 are considered a good UCAT score for most (though more prestigious places like Oxford may require higher performances). Click here for our dedicated UCAT score info page (opens in a new window).
So we know the SJT is very important to score high on since it gets its own grading system. But how hard is it?
Why is the UCAT SJT So Important?
Medical Schools that are a part of the UCAT Consortium want to see if you are personally able to behave as a doctor. And the simple fact is- not everyone is. Cognitive skills can be improved with general practice, but managing to improve your problem solving skills as well as personal morals and priorities is more complicated and demands an accurate tool meant for the job.
In order to be able to act as a doctor, you must act according to strong core principles. Our preparation provides those principles and teaches you how to act according to each of them.
As mentioned, the SJT section contains 22 scenarios. Each one has up to 6 questions for a total of 69.
There are 26 minutes to complete this section: This gives you about 22 seconds per question.
Why are you getting such short times? Because the test wants to illicit a natural response, to see how you would act in the heat of the moment, in reality- when you would not always have a long while to decide your course of action, as a doctor. This is given especially serious importance since the split-second decisions of a doctor can save or ruin lives.
For example, try answering this sample from our question bank, including reading the text- in 22 seconds:
UCAT SJT Sample Question
Ahmed is a medical student. While walking through a hospital corridor he sees a small pool of liquid in the middle of the floor. He is already five minutes late for the start of his shift but does not want to leave without cleaning it up. Ahmed must decide how to deal with the situation.
How important to take into account is the following consideration for Ahmed when deciding how to respond to the situation?
The risk of infection the liquid presents to patients in the hospital.
As you can see, having 22 seconds makes this question even harder than it is. These questions come in 3 different types:
1. Ranking the appropriateness of a response (4 options ranging from 'highly appropriate' to 'highly inappropriate'), or ranking if a response is appropriate or not.
2. Ranking the importance of a consideration in deciding on a response (similar to the above sample question- 4 options), or ranking if a consideration is important to taking a decision or not.
3. Ranking 3 responses in order of appropriateness to the scenario.
Each scenario only involves one of these types, so as not to further confuse you as you only have 22 seconds per question.
This section has been recently updated- finding a useful, professional UCAT SJT guide is basically impossible.
So how are you supposed to ace the UCAT SJT, when you have such little time to figure out each answer?
JobTestPrep Doctor's Principles - How to beat the UCAT SJT
In order to help you prepare for the UCAT SJT, JobTestPrep developed its Doctor's Principles method. This is a set of 10 principles of descending importance, which are used to decide the optimal course of action for a medical student/practitioner facing a professional dilemma.
The preparation pack offered on this page will teach you how to use this tool, developed by medical practitioners who face such scenarios daily, to eventually answer the SJT questions accurately and within seconds, in order to pass the UCAT SJT and become a medical student.
Here's an example: Patient Safety is the first and most important principle. When the safety of the patient is in conflict with another principle, it will always take precedence- because a doctor must "first, do no harm", as the Hippocratic oath states.
Now that we understand the idea behind JobTestPrep's Doctor's Principles, let's see how they can be used to accurately solve the UCAT SJT.
UCAT Test FAQ
What are the UCAT eligibility criteria?
To take the UCAT exam, you must:
- Complete/be in the final year of your higher secondary education (higher than that is also fine)
- Be eligible for medical programmes at chosen Universities in the UK or Australia and New Zealand
Which Medical School can I get into after taking the UCAT exam?
There are more than 20 medical schools and universities in the UK alone which use the UCAT test format to screen for their medical and dental courses. Click here for our UCAT universities page to find out more.
When is the UK exam for Australia and New Zealand?
Test dates for the UCAT ANZ are between 1 July 2022 & 12 August 2022, with results expected to be delivered to universities by mid September.
What is the test fee for taking the UCAT?
The UCAT is not a free test to take- the cost in the UK is £70, and £115 in Australia and New Zealand.
Related Pages:
UCAT SJT Guide- Get more details and an SJT-only version of the preparation pack offered on this page.
UCAT Abstract Reasoning Guide- Get more details on the abstract reasoning part of the test, as well as a Cognitive only version of the preparation pack offered on this page.
UCAT Quantitative Reasoning Guide- Get more details on the Quantitative reasoning part of the test, as well as a Cognitive only version of the preparation pack offered on this page.
UCAT Decision Making Guide- Get more details on the Decision Making part of the test, as well as a Cognitive only version of the preparation pack offered on this page.
UCAT Verbal Reasoning Guide- Get more details on the Verbal Reasoning part of the test, as well as a Cognitive only version of the preparation pack offered on this page.
