Who did well in UMAT? HOW? (2 Viewers)

[kenhung123]

OK for those who did well in UMAT please share your thoughts for future students.

Could you please answer the following questions:

1. How did you prepare for the UMAT?
2. When did you prepare for it? Is it the earlier the better?
3. Did you go to any UMAT preparation programs? If so, which one did you select? Do you suggest future students do choose that institute?
4. Any additional advice on how do perform well in each section?

Thanks in advance! Your contribution will help lots of people!

 

[Dr_Fresh]

1. medentry, random notes i scabbed off friends
2. must've been in the school holidays in april (i.e. 3 months in advance)
3. cant really comment on this cuz i didnt do any other programs. but i thought medentry was pretty good, but probably not worth the 500 bucks. you could definitely achieve the same result for a much cheaper price if you were willing to scavenge around.
4. sleep well the night before.

 

[Libby01P]

"I got an interview offer off a predicted atar of 92-93, so it must have been decent, even for rural entry."

Ooh well done. Was that from UNSW? When did they release the interviews?

 

[dolbinau]

In my opinion, prep courses defeat the purpose of the test, it really is sad that people do all this preparation for a test of your communication skills, logic and reasoning.

It's not sad it's smart...people want to increase their opportunities to get into the course they want.

 

[Libby01P]

It's not sad it's smart...people want to increase their opportunities to get into the course they want.

oh dear, starting the UMAT preparation debate eh? I think if it makes you feel better and more confident about the UMAT, and you or your parents can afford it, go for those courses. Otherwise, as that lecturer from UNSW said, you do't need it. UMAT is testing you as a person, how you think by youself. I found that really scary, I've always thought that better preparation = good marks in any exam. But after thinking about what they are actually testing in UMAT, I realised there really was nothing I could do: either you SHOULD be in healthcare, or not (even if the questions are not perfect, that's what they're testing). That's what they want to find out, I think they assume you know how to study b/c they assume you're pretty smart to get the ATAR. Develop a fatalist attitude I say

 

[Dragonmaster262]

1. medentry, random notes i scabbed off friends
2. must've been in the school holidays in april (i.e. 3 months in advance)
3. cant really comment on this cuz i didnt do any other programs. but i thought medentry was pretty good, but probably not worth the 500 bucks. you could definitely achieve the same result for a much cheaper price if you were willing to scavenge around.
4. sleep well the night before.

By scavenging, do you mean just using your friend's papers etc?

 

[dolbinau]

oh dear, starting the UMAT preparation debate eh? I think if it makes you feel better and more confident about the UMAT, and you or your parents can afford it, go for those courses. Otherwise, as that lecturer from UNSW said, you do't need it. UMAT is testing you as a person, how you think by youself. I found that really scary, I've always thought that better preparation = good marks in any exam. But after thinking about what they are actually testing in UMAT, I realised there really was nothing I could do: either you SHOULD be in healthcare, or not (even if the questions are not perfect, that's what they're testing). That's what they want to find out, I think they assume you know how to study b/c they assume you're pretty smart to get the ATAR. Develop a fatalist attitude I say

"UMAT is testing you as a person, how you think by yourself"

UMAT tests for skills that can be developed...you can take philosophy courses in critical thinking and formal logic at uni...


" But after thinking about what they are actually testing in UMAT, I realised there really was nothing I could do: either you SHOULD be in healthcare, or not"

I think you should demonstrate some of the 'thinking by yourself' and ask whether the UMAT is a valid test to determine your suitability for working in 'healthcare'...I don't think showing the path of a circle is really that relevant.

I think it's sad if you did bad in UMAT you'd take that as an indicator that you shouldn't work in healthcare..

 

[zazzy1234]

got 100% by being smart

 

[dolbinau]

Well if you're entering through a rural scheme it's a bit hard to judge whether you did 'fine'...(You may have done excellently, better than the cut off for normal applicants, but you may also have done much less, if you're given allowances right?)

Now, there are a few arguments you're saying against prep courses, I get the gist that they are:

1. They don't work
2. Even if they worked, the test aims to test 'natural ability', so it's ethical to use if.

(I don't want to bother for the first, though there is research from UWS to suggest they don't work, but I think it's questionable anyway), but for the second, if it really tested natural ability then you shouldn't be able to improve your score, so assuming we can I don't think it really tests this.

As I said earlier, you can take Philosophy courses on critical thinking and logic, which teaches the skills used to answer problems in section 1 of UMAT, and the UWS study that suggested prep courses don't work, said that they do actually work for section 3.

 

[Dr_Fresh]

its not just a few marks. getting use to the format of the questions, knowing how much time to spend on each question, knowing how to approach the different questions (believe me, this does wonders for s3) etc all make a huge difference. sure you need a bit of natural ability/background (i.e. know how to read), but it doesnt take a genius to do well on the umat. plenty of smart friends i know bombed out with the mindset that they know how to read analytically/critically. a lot of them either didnt finish, had no idea in s3 or no idea in general. they had never seen those types of questions before and no idea how to tackle them. had they done a prep course, i can assure u that their scores wouldve been very different.

btw macca91, if u think that rote learning is the only type of learning that can get you good marks then med probably suits u.

 

[lizajane91]

i think the prep courses do help in part, for example when i first did a prac test i was completely useless at section 3 but gradually i got used to seeing the tricks...i dont really think practice helps with s1 or2 though...the only reason i did the medentry stuff was because i got a massive discount from my careers advisor which medentry sends to rural schools and since i was the only yr12er interested in med i got it automatically...only ended up paying like $150 compared to $500.....


in regard to the whole ethical debate--i understand that we shouldnt prepare for a test that is to test us on natural ability, and if noone prepared i be happy with not preparing BUT people DO do the courses so what is the point of being righteous when its likely to disadvantage you...

 

[Charity F]

OK for those who did well in UMAT please share your thoughts for future students.

Could you please answer the following questions:

1. How did you prepare for the UMAT?
2. When did you prepare for it? Is it the earlier the better?
3. Did you go to any UMAT preparation programs? If so, which one did you select? Do you suggest future students do choose that institute?
4. Any additional advice on how do perform well in each section?

Thanks in advance! Your contribution will help lots of people!

1. Medentry, the ACER practice booklets

2. About 1.5 weeks before the exam -_- yes, definitely, the earlier the better

3. Only chose Medentry because my parents enrolled me in it - at the time I didn't really care. They do a pretty sound job, if you ignore the promotional bs. Would recommend, based on friends who've also done the course + general opinion.

4.

• learn to speed read/scan
• train yourself to process information efficiently
• read some of the questions before you start reading the passage
• empathy
• check out some other threads in this forum, there's some solid advice posted there already

 

[Dr_Fresh]

When did I say that? lol if anything I said that preparing would not get you marks. As to whether med suits me I certainly hope so it's been my goal since the tender age of 13 lol *prays*

In my opinion, prep courses defeat the purpose of the test, it really is sad that people do all this preparation for a test of your communication skills, logic and reasoning. All you could really do is familiarise yourself with the type of question, there's no rote learning you can possibly do.

so u say that preparing for the umat doesnt help (much). and then state that you could only familiarise urself with the type of questions and there is no rote learning you could do. doesnt it logically follow that you think rote learning is the only way to learn?
its also quite contradictory since if you cant rote learn for the umat, then why is there such a big issue? it would still come back to the persons underlying ability.

maybe im reading into it too much. this is an online forum afterall and not the umat.

 

[dolbinau]

There is an example on another forum, where someone went from 150 to over 200 by using prep courses+taking a GAP year.

This isn't an IQ test, you apparently can, or more conservatively at least one person can, improve their ability .

 

[Dr_Fresh]

the umat is essentially an IQ test and like all IQ tests, the same type of questions come up again and again. do enuff IQ tests and your "IQ" does improve. simply because you either encounter the same questions or ur speed increases (just like the umat).

 

[dolbinau]

Griffin actually came to my uni to lecture us on this....she was involved in the UWS MMI too.

There is a major major flaw with the study I think, and that is it that while coached/non-coached students did not have significant differences in UMAT scores, it doesn't actually show the effect of taking UMAT prep..

It is possible all the 'prepped' people would not have had a sufficient UMAT score to get in if they didn't have prep.

 

[Dr_Fresh]

the results arent significant tbh. we are doing epidemiology right now and learnt all about observational cohort studies etc. here are the reasons y the results of the study are not significant:
1. observational cohort studies in its self is very weak unless you incorporate a large number of people (287 is a very small sample out of the 20,000 ppl that do the test every year).
2. the subjects are not randomised (i.e. they are all from the same medical school, different selection criteria apply and hence it is very inaccurate to draw conclusions based on 1 medical school). e.g. there could be an overwhelming number of people who did very well on the umat with coaching but didnt choose uws because it was a very new university back when this study was conducted (there are other things, but you get the point)
also like to remind you that the MMI is only applicable to UWS undergrad med, no other med school uses it.

the only valid way to test it out is to take a random sample of umat candidates. have some coached and some not coached (account for gender differences) and see how they go on the umat. experimental studies>>>observational studies.

 

[kenhung123]

I guess macca is just trying to say: UMAT is meant to filter out the nerds which perform really well in UAI due to study. Which is true. However, in the real world, everyone does almost anything to get what they want. In this case, prepare for something we shouldn't. But as another member said, since a great lot of people prepare for it then keen students might as well do it or we would be at some degree, a disadvantage.

 

[Dr_Fresh]

the umat isnt designed to filter out the nerds/non-nerds. its the interview process that does that.
the umat is designed to distinguish the students who have 'skills' required to do med and those that dont. its a really poor attempt to elicit these 'skills' in a 2 hr exam no matter how well it is written. its just a way for ACER to make money and to help med schools cull the numbers. imagine trying to select who to give interviews to for 2000+ ppl with only a predicted ATAR available.

 

[kenhung123]

If I want to go Medentry, does it mean its better to go earlier i.e. January? Or its better to go a bit later so the skills you learnt is still fresh?