UMAT Thread

[Chaim]

I also disagree. Like many things, practise helps improve your skill for a certain issue/event.

I personally have found that a prep course helped my sister (who is doing 1st yr med at UNSW) achieve a really good score. I am not saying prep courses are essential but they do help.

Maybe though in your case, the prep courses did NOT help you out, but people are different in many respects. Generally, however prep courses help. ACER does not endorse prep courses because they screw the entire purpose of the UMAT, however I would say they are in most cases very helpful.

[BA22]

Exactly, they were nearly identical, you don;t think acer might screw with the rich kids trying to get a leg up? All prep courses are misleading because there is no such thing as umat experience until you have sat a real one. The leaders of the main prep courses cannot lay claim to that. Section 3 can be helped by using the acer q booklets and mensa quiz books, expensive alternatives to the "prep curses"

[Jimbo1]

Btw, UMAT is more about the techniques you apply and the timing/pace of the questions you do (which you learn from practise).

[BA22]

Hahahaha, how perfectly naive, a seemingly consistent opinion

Acer are not the only ones who dissaprove, as do AMSA and every other medical school in the country. Mostly because of price. It is a ridiculous investment that often tells you to say certain things in your interview, tells you to expect certain questions. The predispose you approach the whole admission process from an ultimately biased perspective. Getting hints is fine, but the risk vs. price is absurd

I do not only discourage them from experience, but also on the principles. These are overpriced organisation who use recycled questions and spread rumours about interviews which are untrue and greatly piss off the faculties. Avoid them, and their so called experts.

[bilgia]

i practises icarus' prep course for about 1.5years before i sat the umat and i just attended a med entry lecture before that...and i totally screwed the damn thing up. Goes to show that alot of work doesnt always pay off.

well its either that or im just not a smart guy.

[enwiabe]

I wouldn't trust ICARUS if i were you. The person who runs it is not the most trustworthy of people, and I have seen him make a poor girl cry. The organisation has also been embroiled in law suits for pinching other companies' materials for many years now. Keep a wide berth of the ICARUS organisation.

[Chaim]

http://community.boredofstudies.org/332/medicine-medical-health-studies/149057/umat-07-thread.html

"Did anyone else find a couple of the questions familar from a certain UMAT prep course?"

"^^ yep, recognised at least 5 of them"

NB: Season is a current medical student.

[kido_1]

The person who runs it is definitely NOT trustworthy. One of my friends went to one of his lectures and had a very similar experience. I would also NOT recommed ICARUS.

Note, I am not aiming to say prep courses are amazing, I am just trying to say it might be a good idea to create a seperate thread that discusses UMAT techniques, ways of improving UMAT score, "wide context reading" as quoted by ACER. There are other ways to improve UMAT other than prep courses.

[BA22]

haha, no, it was more like 2 or 3, and the answers were slightly different anway

So you'd happily respend the $1200 you've spent on the course to maybe get some similar questions, listen to bilgia, it doesn; guarantee success and hard work does not equte to results on the umat

[Chaim]

I find that "wide context" reading does help with UMAT (from experiences with older siblings), and practising certain techniques DOES help.

[Jimbo1]

I reckon a UMAT thread would be a good idea.
At least it recognises the importance of the UMAT and it could offer ideas by people of what they THINK could help. It allows discussion about alternatives to ENTER medicine, the GAMSAT and other topics (as well as advice from people, such as  BA22. Your interview would have been bloody awesome).

Discussion, is a good thing.

[BA22]

yeh, it does help, but is it WORTH it, i'm not saying they don't work, i'm saying they are overpriced and not nearly as useful as THEY claim

**I'm done discussing this

[kido_1]

BA22 caned the interview big time.

True, Jimo1, the UMAT thread would recognise the importance of the UMAT and offer tips and advice regarding med/dent entry and allow discussion on these issues.

Note: there are many students who miss out on medicine simply because they don't even do the UMAT.

[Collin Li]

Note: there are many students who miss out on UMAT simply because they don't even do the UMAT.

That's like a tautological tautology

[Chaim]

I don't believe the UMAT thread should be simply about prep course, but techniques and skills to improve performance as well as recognising its importance in the field of med/dent.

I would give it the go ahead.