#UMAT2017 || Debrief and Discussion

[Joseph41]

So - how did you all go?

[Quantum44]

Despite the annoyance of waking up at 6am to get to Caulfield by 8, it was an interesting experience. As expected, there was tonnes of people there but I still managed to find and talk to a few people from my school before and after the actual test.

Have no idea if I did well. I'm fairly sure I my scores probably went Section 1 > Section 2 > Section 3. Unfortunately I kinda ran out of time and had to guess the last few Section 3 questions but aside from that I'm pretty happy with it.

[Joseph41]

Despite the annoyance of waking up at 6am to get to Caulfield by 8, it was an interesting experience. As expected, there was tonnes of people there but I still managed to find and talk to a few people from my school before and after the actual test.

Have no idea if I did well. I'm fairly sure I my scores probably went Section 1 > Section 2 > Section 3. Unfortunately I kinda ran out of time and had to guess the last few Section 3 questions but aside from that I'm pretty happy with it.

Had you done much if any preparation? If so, how did the actual thing compare?

Congrats!

[mtDNA]

The UMAT was a little different to what I expected - I was under the impression that the actual questions were SOOOOO much harder than ACER’s practise questions; however the actual thing wasn’t that bad (except for S1  :’( ). In saying that, I wish I did a lot more practise under timed conditions since that was the main issue.

Essentially, I went in thinking I’d quickly finish section 2, then 3, then finish with 1 (which worked with tests such as Matrix), but it didn’t unfold as I’d hoped - For the actual thing, S2 took a lot longer than expected (although the question difficulty was quite simple; perhaps it was the nerves or maybe the extracts were longer than the ones I had previously practised on), so I got up to roughly 110 and then switched to S3 question. Those were reasonable, but as I was running behind, once I got to 100-110 I went to S1. Now, I don’t know what it was, but I found S1 to be quite challenging (maybe it’s because my brain was pretty fried at that point  ), so I partially did it, with the ‘educated guess’ here and there, again to 100-110. By this point there was about 5 minutes to go, so I just made sure I hadn’t skipped any questions, answer some easy-looking questions from the ones remaining, then put B for the rest 

So overall, I really don’t know what to expect as a mark, except for the fact that S1 was pretty shocking (Just hoping the ATAR carries the UMAT score so I’m still eligible for an interview at Monash). Looking at the situation as a ‘glass half full’ perspective - I’d still be thrilled to get into Biomed @ Melb or Monash 

 

[Joseph41]

The UMAT was a little different to what I expected - I was under the impression that the actual questions were SOOOOO much harder than ACER’s practise questions; however the actual thing wasn’t that bad (except for S1  :’( ). In saying that, I wish I did a lot more practise under timed conditions since that was the main issue.

Essentially, I went in thinking I’d quickly finish section 2, then 3, then finish with 1 (which worked with tests such as Matrix), but it didn’t unfold as I’d hoped - For the actual thing, S2 took a lot longer than expected (although the question difficulty was quite simple; perhaps it was the nerves or maybe the extracts were longer than the ones I had previously practised on), so I got up to roughly 110 and then switched to S3 question. Those were reasonable, but as I was running behind, once I got to 100-110 I went to S1. Now, I don’t know what it was, but I found S1 to be quite challenging (maybe it’s because my brain was pretty fried at that point  ), so I partially did it, with the ‘educated guess’ here and there, again to 100-110. By this point there was about 5 minutes to go, so I just made sure I hadn’t skipped any questions, answer some easy-looking questions from the ones remaining, then put B for the rest 

So overall, I really don’t know what to expect as a mark, except for the fact that S1 was pretty shocking (Just hoping the ATAR carries the UMAT score so I’m still eligible for an interview at Monash). Looking at the situation as a ‘glass half full’ perspective - I’d still be thrilled to get into Biomed @ Melb or Monash 

 

Sounds like you did well overall! Congrats.

Was it a good experience, do you reckon?

[clawds]

Found it pretty difficult, but that was to be expected. I started with s2 then moved to s1 then s3. I ran out of time, so I had to guess the last dozen questions in s3
I found s1 to be the most difficult, I'm glad I didn't do that section last, or I would have been guessing the last few questions of that section instead
Medentry was really good prep for this. I understood it wouldn't be exactly like the real UMAT, but it did prepare me for the same skills required, and s2 in the UMAT seemed to be easier than the prep, same with most of s3. s1 was definitely more difficult in the UMAT though
Anyways, whatever I get, I'm looking forward to seeing my result in a couple months
Hope everyone else is happy with their efforts today <3

[chowe2]

I hadn't done any lectures or Medstart preparations, but I had done my fair share of practice papers/questions whilst working on my weaknesses (section 3).
The UMAT was quite an interesting experience (so many people at Caufield!!) and I found it almost therapeutic to sit there for three hours and work through the questions systematically.
I decided to do around a dozen section 2 questions in reading time, then began with section 1 questions. However after about 1/3 of the time had passed, I started to semi-freak out because I realized I wasn't close to finishing all the section 2 questions, so I went back to the start and began to fill out the blanks. I was pleasantly surprised that I was making good time (spending less time than I thought on section 3 questions because I had practiced ways to easily identify the patterns). In the end, I had time to redo about a dozen questions I had made an unsure guess at, but just guessed the last four questions of a Section 1 experiment.
Was pretty happy with how it went 

[pikachu975]

S3 was insanely hard and was way different to medentry exams. Medentry was easy compared to that section 3 in the umat wtf

[kiwiberry]

^^ I agree, it was weirdly therapeutic!!
Glad I chose the afternoon session, would've been so out of it in the morning. No idea how I went in S2, it was very vague and I felt like I was guessing every question. Those true/false questions were the worst, I spent way too long thinking about them. S3 was definitely the easiest and S1 was alright except for a few which completely stumped me. Had to leave one question blank but other than that I'm pretty happy with how I did overall

[mixel]

Honestly, I realised I don't want a career in medicine not long after registering for umat so I did no preparation except one past paper. I'm quite pissed about $250 and 6 hours wasted, but I guess its better than racking up an astronomical hecs debt on a job I'll hate.
It's probably because I had nothing riding on it and wasn't stressing but it wasn't as crazy as I was expecting. I did it one section at a time starting with section 2 then 3, and even though I had to shade some random answers at the end I think it made timing a bit easier. If I get a decent mark it'll only be because section 2 carried me, seeings as I'm completely hopeless with the other ones. Probably not worth missing a day of school over the week before trials, but oh well, live and learn I guess

[zhen]

Like most people I came out of it feeling dead. But it's over and done with. Right now we can't change the past. But we can try hard for our VCE subjects and wreck those. For those who think they did badly on the UMAT it isn't the end of the world and if you guys really want to do medicine you can get in through postgraduate medicine or alternatively Melbourne has sort of a guarantee if you get 99+ atar and meet some other requirements (this is apparently full fees so it's really expensive I think but it's still an option). Also, I think James Cook university doesn't have UMAT as its requirement. So, we all have more chances, so don't feel discouraged. Just use this to motivate you guys into acing VCE and everything else.