5 Top Tips for UCAT Quantitative Reasoning
This is the section most students appear to find the easiest but don’t get complacent. We go over several tips that you can use to maximise your UCAT Quantitative Reasoning score.
Get used to the topics that come up in Quantitative Reasoning
There are a few topics that come up again and again. Make sure you are familiar with approximation and estimation and basic financial concepts such as costs, inflation and interest rates. Time and distance, averages and percentages.
Make sure you know your units and how to convert them. Know your formulae.
This is another area where they can trip you up. Make sure you are able to convert between the units quickly for example between grams and kilograms, kilometres and metres. You will also need to know the formula for common shapes, including in 3D, for example surface areas and volumes of a box and cylinder for example. They do not provide you with the formulae.
Familiarise yourself with the online calculator
Whilst you are initially revising, you can use the windows calculator (or the calculator app on your system). Please note that the UCAT calculator is based on the Texas Instruments TI – 108. It has memory functions, square root and percentage keys. In your final exam you will have an online virtual calculator – it is slower to use than a real calculator so try and minimise its use.
Decide which questions you are going to attempt
If a question looks long and complex, flag it and come back. Don’t get bogged down on one particular question – they are all worth the same number of marks. This exam is not negatively marked (in other words they don’t reduce your marks if you get an answer wrong) so answer all questions, making informed guesses if you need to.
Practice under time pressure
Many students never get to complete the section. You can initially start at your own pace, but you will need to start practicing under time pressure. Use a stop clock to time yourself. The maths involve are in themselves not complex but solving the problem is what takes the time.
Use at least two resources to practice questions from. Make sure your course materials are up to date and set at the correct level for your revision. The UCAT consortium website has several example questions and we provide calibrated questions on our UCAT course. Learn strategy and tips on how to master the exam and boost your score with fully qualified tutors. Click the link below to learn more.
