Medicine 2021 - part 2

[Millylovespuddles]

Following on from the first thread:
DD now has UKAT booked for mid-August. She couldn’t get a driving theory test booked until after the UKAT date, but will keep an eye out for cancellations.
Now, her big dilemma is Oxbridge it not....

DD has hers booked for next Friday, started prepping 2 weeks ago I think using Medify, which was fairly overwhelming when she first logged on but she's made her way through it really quickly.

She wrote down what she ideally should be getting for each section and she's been hitting it, but the timing is a huge issue. She has said that if she runs out of time she's just going to choose "C" for each missed answer. What could possibly go wrong

DD is also preparing for her UCAT exam which is booked for next week at a test centre. She's not finding it easy and although her scores are improving on the mock tests she still isn't achieving high scores.

She's always known that it's not the type of test that suits her, and completing it in what isn't her first language (or the language she's educated in) is also hindering scores as she's translating some questions in her head and losing time. Thankfully she's waiting to get her result before deciding where to apply so she's being quite realistic about the situation and keeping everything crossed.

Well done to everyone who has already got the dreaded UCAT out of the way, and good luck to everyone who has it to come.

It's a truly awful awful exam. My ds made me do one section because I kept saying how hard can it be. Well it was a shocker! I got through 3 out of the 14 questions in the allotted time. It's the speed that is required which is the most challenging aspect. Good luck to everyone doing it this month and well done to those who have done it.

@DJchickpea special thank you from my DS for telling him about the * key. Knowing that did help him not to panic.

Yes, it is a shocker of an exam. DS is a bit disappointed, as he really worked very hard on it, and had hoped for something better than he got, but the reality is that he didn't do badly. It should be enough for interview at all the places he is hoping to interview at (although Bristol might be a stretch, he is just above the cut off from two years ago, but the classic advice is one stretch, two confident, isn't it?). So definitely no BMAT, he will apply with this UCAT and his GCSEs this year. I suppose the upside of this debacle with the A levels for us, is that he had always wanted to take a gap year. Now, instead of "oh why are you taking a gap year?" we might reasonably hope for "oh good, you want to take a gap year!"

Good luck to everyone about to take the exam and those that have already endured it. I say endured, DD is certainly enduring, I didn’t see her this stressed with the GCSEs

She’s hitting about 2500 at the moment but it isn’t enough for Nottingham or Sheffield. Hoping she peaks by Friday. She had mentioned rescheduling if she didn’t feel prepared but she’s just going to do it now and get it out the way.

It’s one hurdle after another, which is what we knew but it’s hard. And now I’m worrying about the spaces (or lack of) for 2021 after the debacle with this year. Trying not to stress over what we can’t control though.

@MaddieElla tell her to keep going. DD never scored more than 2500 on mocks but got 2710 in real thing. Can only try your best

Thank you, hopefully she will peak on the day as yours did. 2700 is also what she’s hoping for.

@MaddieElla speed DD says. Answer, flag if not sure and move on. Get the marks you do know and if have time come back tondo the flagged ones. Good luck.

UCAT fever in this house too. Thankfully it will be over in a few days. DD is feeling on course with her scores, but you just can’t depend on a thing with this exam.
More worrying is how this year’s exam fiasco with impact on 2021.....

What is going to happen to your DC, will your candidates be competing for spaces with people who finished A-levels in 2020 and who got awarded medicine places because of the inflated grade assignments in 2020? omg, this is seeming like a nightmare for all clinical courses, that everyone got inflated grades in 2020 and got deferred to 2021 entry.

I'm so cross with govt for kicking the can down the road.

Yes it's very worrying, there is so much pressure on medical schools who over offer, and all uni courses actually, to honour offers made. When in real exam years so many students would not have met the grades and the spaces would be very accurately filled. My sister is a teacher and said she faced immense pressure by the head to inflate the assessed grade so for the first time in the history of the school every student will be getting an A-C at a level in her subject. I'm pleased for this years yr 13 because they have messed about but it creates chaos and uncertainty for years down the line. My ds keeps asking what I think will happen in 2021 and keep telling him no one has a clue.

Are there more mock tests on medify? DD did one from a book yesterday and got a bit depressed!

It's so hard as this year group are already hearing that places are going to be fought over next year 😔

Grey - if you have the medify subscription I thinks there's 8 mocks on medify and 2 free ones on the ucat website. Ds has his exam on Saturday and has been going through the mocks this week. He found the medify mocks different to the ucat ones but all of them have been useful.

Thank you @Powergower

I will be paying for the two weeks course for UCAT and the set BMAT one for Dd tomorrow morning 😁

She is all depressed about this. She has her driving theory test tomorrow at the same centre so at least she can scope it out I guess.

If the test was from THE book then it is notoriously much harder than the real thing so don't worry too much. Medify and the UCAT mocks are good.

@MaddieElla I presume it was THE book?, whichever the book is (but I daren't ask tonight in case she starts stressing again.)

She scored band one in the last bit apparently, but just was not fast enough for the other sections as she found it really tough. She finds the last section the easiest, and the others really tough to be fast enough. She cried last night. I'll buy the medify thing for her.

Thank you all.

She is now stressing because medify is much easier than the book 😆

Hopefully, she will feel confident enough to take one of the mocks on the UCAT website after the weekend.

It's all a bit random though really, isn't it? 🤷🏻‍♀️

This book.

TSR is full of people saying it's much tougher and not representative, Medify is much closer I believe although it depends how mean the questions are on the day.

Speed is definitely the killer. The trick is to flag and triage any harder/lengthy questions or guess and move on if you've spent too long on it. And practice practice practice, she will see her score go up.

Hugely stressful

Yup! That's it!!! I am reassured then. She honestly thought she was doing so well with all the practise questions and then was gutted over the test.

She will start over tomorrow with medify. And she's bought the BMAT as well on there too.

*practice !

@GreyBow UCAT is officially the most dreadful, stress inducing exam ever!

DD sat hers early August and she really didn’t enjoy all the practice!

She used Medentry as well as Medify and the official UCAT mocks so that might be worth a look for your DD? She definitely found it useful and we just bought the access to the questions and the mocks which I think was around £45?

Hope your DD feels better about it tomorrow and hope it’s over and done with for you soon too.

Dd found UKCAT really stressful and postponed it three times ( maximum allowed) last year. The book was really difficult but she found medify ok. BMAT was reasonably straight forward in comparison to UKCAT. Practice makes it easier...

Just reading about the GCSE results and thinking, our current year 12/13 hoping for 2021 entry now have a cohort one year above them with inflated A level results and now a cohort one year behind them with inflated GCSE results. It really it so frustrating. I’m trying to ignore it and luckily DD is just ploughing on but it does feel like the odds are becoming more and more stacked against them.

I know this is a generalisation and many students deserved their A level and GCSE results, but given the increased amounts of A stars etc, there are definitely some winners from the whole debacle.

Some unis like Durham are offering bursaries for those who defer, this means competitive courses will be even more competitive. The real casualties of this years mess are the year 10 and 12, going into year 11 and 13. They will be expected to catch up on 6 months of missed learning, sit exams, then apply for courses which have been part filled by this years candidates or competing against 2020 candidates with inflated grades in hand. It's such a mess, I have one going into year 11 and one in year 13 so it's going to be a double whammy of stress. Shambolic of government to lay this at the uni doors.

Agree @Powergower it’s awful.

I took a little comfort from the medical schools association statement which did take the year 12 going into 13 cohort into account and definitely acknowledged the inflated grades, saying that they are concerned therefore about above average failure rates.... so they are under no illusions nor are they burying their head in the sand and ignoring the issue, but how on earth do you fix it!

Have to wonder if UCAT and GCSE become more important for 2021 entry to level the playing field as these are actual attained grades. Then for 2022 entry it would need to revert to A level and UCAT as GCSEs are inflated!! What a joke!