ATAR Notes: Forum
Archived Discussion => UMAT => Exam Discussion => Victoria => 2008 => Topic started by: bilgia on July 30, 2008, 01:14:47 pm
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For the people who have just sat this years umat, what are your opinions?
For me,
Section 1: Was pretty long winded with many deduction questions, it was a killer for me....I had lot of questions to go, i think like 13 when the announcer said 10mins....i managed to only get 5 more when time ended..just guessed the rest. This is my second time sitting the umat,...oh shit i hope i did better than last year.
Section 2: Was much easier on the brain, but there were some tricky questions with similar emotions...i think i went decent on it, but i really cant tell.
Section 3: This was a winner for me, i managed to figure out patterns quite easily and there were maybe 2-3 hard questions which i think i weeded out before time ended.
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It was okay overall,
Section 1: I was disappointed with the way I handled the time pressure in this section. I guessed a number of questions.
Section 2: Felt okay, but there were a lot of 'close' 50-50 answers.
Section 3: I found this okay. But there were still some harder ones.
bilgia I thought that people doing an undergraduate course already couldn't sit the UMAT. So can you still enter undergraduate health science courses if you're already at uni then?
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I thought the puzzles for section three were incredibly hard, but then again, I always do. Section 1 and 2 were okay, but I agree, section 1 was too long.
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Section 2 & 3 were easy.
I screwed up section one, didnt have enough time. Had to just put bs for the last 6 or 7.
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Section 1 was definitely long-winded -- couldn't finish the last 5 and ended up guessing them (I was so tempted to go back to this section :D).
Section 2 was much better.
Section 3: I hate the ones where you have to find the correct order and select the middle one. It's so freaking hard *I'm wondering how my tutor got 100% on it* Otherwise, the rest weren't too hard.
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All of it was so hard
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Section 1: Long and hard
Section 2: Ok, finished with plenty of time, but i was the same as chid, getting quite a few answers down to 2 options. Felt the answers were fairly ambiguous.
Section 3: Really good! Finished with time to spare. Happy.
Overall, i think its kind of hard to say how i went, as your score depends on so many variables (apparrently). Guess i will just have to wait and see.
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section 1: PWNED IT, suprisingly, lucky i didnt have to read half the stimulus (info) material coz i got background knowledge. So it was straight to the questions for me.
SECTION 2: wat the hell do half of the words mean, pretty average.
SEction 3: not bad.
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Section 1: Was pretty long winded with many deduction questions, it was a killer for me....I had lot of questions to go, i think like 13 when the announcer said 10mins....i managed to only get 5 more when time ended..just guessed the rest. This is my second time sitting the umat,...oh shit i hope i did better than last year.
Section 2 & 3 were easy.
I screwed up section one, didnt have enough time. Had to just put bs for the last 6 or 7.
Section 1 was definitely long-winded -- couldn't finish the last 5 and ended up guessing them (I was so tempted to go back to this section :D).
ditto all :( I guessed heaps from section one due to the time restraints.
In 2 and 3 I had time left over (and had the biggest urge to go back to section one lol, but I followed the rules ;D) ... but can't be so sure about my answers.
Hope everyone's relieved :)
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Section 3: I hate the ones where you have to find the correct order and select the middle one. It's so freaking hard *I'm wondering how my tutor got 100% on it* Otherwise, the rest weren't too hard.
Advice a bit too late, but for the easier ones there was usually two the same. One is the first and the other is the last.
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Yeh, have to agree, Section 1 for was pretty bad, ended up guessing the last few questions, whilst section 2 and 3 were pretty good
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So now I want to know how are our scores are calculated, in terms of percentile...etc?
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So now I want to know how are our scores are calculated, in terms of percentile...etc?
I don't think anyone knows how they're calculated .. it's all hush hush with the UMAT. ACER doesn't reveal anything about the marking system.
EDIT: re-read your post. You get percentile, overall score and er.. what was the other one..?
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Section 3: I hate the ones where you have to find the correct order and select the middle one. It's so freaking hard *I'm wondering how my tutor got 100% on it* Otherwise, the rest weren't too hard.
Advice a bit too late, but for the easier ones there was usually two the same. One is the first and the other is the last.
THAT IS MY TACTIC TOO LOL.
I don't know, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. *shrugs*
My experience was like the rest. Section 1 - was very pressed for time and ended up guessing quite a few. Sections 2 and 3 were relatively easier and I had time left over.
Overall though I don't think I did that well, especially for Section 1!
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Funny, I seem to feel the same way about each of the sections of the UMAT as most of you. Section 1 was a killer.
Results come out in September yeah?
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Funny, I seem to feel the same way about each of the sections of the UMAT as most of you. Section 1 was a killer.
Results come out in September yeah?
I guessed As for 35-44, (section 1).
Do they jumble the questions around to stop ppl copying?
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ganges: yeah, that's why they make you write the number of your booklet.
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yeah section 1 was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard i almost fucking pulled my eyes from my sockets
oh well
you didn't do the umat.
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I was looking at past UMAT booklets (I didn't do it though :P), and the pattern questions were ridiculously difficult. I would have guessed at least 3/4 of it, I'm not that good at recognising patterns :(.
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there was someone out the front handing out flyers for VCE Notes!! Who was it?? I didn't get a chance to ask him, it was after the 8 o'clock session.
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That was my brother! :D
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hahha i didnt see that but gj rofl
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It was our first ever marketing campaign :P Hasn't done much so far, but oh well. I'm guessing most people coming out of the UMAT don't want to talk about it/never want to hear about it ever again. Hahaha.
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Section 1: It was so long =(
Section 2: It was so short =D But that time I could have used to go back to section 1 =(
Section 3: Too easy. Pattern recognition ftw.
There were a lot of 3x3 pictures were the first picture plus the second one equalled the third one. Or superimpose the first one over the second and the ones that overlap cancel.
For the put in order and choose the middle ones. The easiest way is to either assume the pattern is a combination of rotation, translation and reflection (plus colour swapping) and try to eliminate two straight off. For example, if you notice there is a ball in all of the pictures that is always either white or black, and there are three whites and two blacks, the pattern is almost always going to be white black white black white. So the ones with black on them can't be the middle one. Then you work from there, try and figure out which is first and last (Most horizontally left... sequence of rotations etc.). Meh, that's just how I did it.
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hey guys,
from past experiences u heard, about what percentage u should get right to have a realistic chance in med? btw can anyone have a guess about what the the mean score would be?
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cause in the practise acer booklets I get about 70%
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hey guys,
from past experiences u heard, about what percentage u should get right to have a realistic chance in med? btw can anyone have a guess about what the the mean score would be?
u shud get 90th % overall generally, thats around 61-65% as a raw score, which is still pretty hard to get.
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hey guys,
from past experiences u heard, about what percentage u should get right to have a realistic chance in med? btw can anyone have a guess about what the the mean score would be?
Last year for monash the UMAT score cutoff for an interview was 59. This year it will almost certainly be higher. Percentiles are no longer used by Monash.
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hey guys,
from past experiences u heard, about what percentage u should get right to have a realistic chance in med? btw can anyone have a guess about what the the mean score would be?
seriously, don't worry so much about it, nobody will know except acer. just blame them for creating a worthless piece of shit and labelling it as a 'UMAT'.
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hey guys,
from past experiences u heard, about what percentage u should get right to have a realistic chance in med? btw can anyone have a guess about what the the mean score would be?
seriously, don't worry so much about it, nobody will know except acer. just blame them for creating a worthless piece of shit and labelling it as a 'UMAT'.
wise words
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hey guys,
from past experiences u heard, about what percentage u should get right to have a realistic chance in med? btw can anyone have a guess about what the the mean score would be?
Last year for monash the UMAT score cutoff for an interview was 59. This year it will almost certainly be higher. Percentiles are no longer used by Monash.
wth is this right? it doesn't really sound it...
if you get more than half answers correct, you win interview?
wth.
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59 is a raw score, not a percentage.
Nobody knows how it is worked out. But it definitely doesn't mean you only got half right
59 was the cutoff last year, I have the letter to prove it :P
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ok, relatively did you think you went well?
btw are you doing med atm?
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I personaly believe the UMAT is a irrelevent. Can't bring my head around to why Unis endorse such a pointless test. There is not one thing there that suggest that the best UMATer will be the most competent doctor. The money, such a test is making is outstanding to say the least. @ melboure: we had 2 sessions. And in those two session, there was three levels with ~900 people in each level. If everybody paid, on average, 120 (averaging people with conc, norm and late) that around $800 000. Just for melboune. It sure is a good way to make some extra cash.
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I'll be honest here...from what I've seen, the questions are great for gauging who may be a good doctor. In theory.
Chuck into a high pressure exam, and you're bound to have screws come loose...simply because a Year 12 isn't designed to necessarily handle that kind of stress.
It seems to me as though as it's a stress test (lol) more than anything.
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ok, relatively did you think you went well?
btw are you doing med atm?
are you talking to me? :s
if you are - no I was amazed to have made the cutoff (I got 59 exactly :P) as I guessed literally half of section 1, about 8 qs from section 2 and I am the most hopeless puzzles person so I pretty much bullshitted my way through section 3.
so basically if I can get in the cutoff anyone WHO GOT AS LUCKY AS I DID can :P
and no I'm not doing med, as you can see in my sig I'm doing arts/law, I didn't get past interview stage, you want to talk to BA22 for that :P
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so basically if I can get in the cutoff anyone can :P
I'm going to feel really bad if I don't make it into the cutoff :P
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aw sorry ed, I edited it :P
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Along with a decent Umat score, what ENTER is expected for med at Monash, Melb Uni?
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I'll be honest here...from what I've seen, the questions are great for gauging who may be a good doctor. In theory.
Chuck into a high pressure exam, and you're bound to have screws come loose...simply because a Year 12 isn't designed to necessarily handle that kind of stress.
It seems to me as though as it's a stress test (lol) more than anything.
I disagree entirely. The questions are absolutely next to useless at 'gauging' the capacity to become a doctor. This mentality of UMAT somehow assessing the qualities that are expected of doctors is exactly the kind of spin and hyperbole that ACER and the universities want you to believe.
Let's see... Section Two tests for empathy and understanding of people, sounds good amirite? So how do they go about this? They take FICTIONAL passages and ask questions about the feelings of non-existent characters, somehow expecting to see whether candidates can relate to a few written words rather than a living, breathing person with a facial expression and body language.
Section Three..."not an IQ test", "assessing qualities that the community expects", lol nuff said.
Section One is kinda okay. But they reuse past questions for UMAT. And after all their zomganticheatinghaxx. Bloody geniuses.
'In theory' I suppose it works. The reality is that ACER has done a half-assed job of creating this 'high-stakes' test while being paid truckloads.
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I'll be honest here...from what I've seen, the questions are great for gauging who may be a good doctor. In theory.
Chuck into a high pressure exam, and you're bound to have screws come loose...simply because a Year 12 isn't designed to necessarily handle that kind of stress.
It seems to me as though as it's a stress test (lol) more than anything.
I disagree entirely. The questions are absolutely next to useless at 'gauging' the capacity to become a doctor. This mentality of UMAT somehow assessing the qualities that are expected of doctors is exactly the kind of spin and hyperbole that ACER and the universities want you to believe.
Let's see... Section Two tests for empathy and understanding of people, sounds good amirite? So how do they go about this? They take FICTIONAL passages and ask questions about the feelings of non-existent characters, somehow expecting to see whether candidates can relate to a few written words rather than a living, breathing person with a facial expression and body language.
Section Three..."not an IQ test", "assessing qualities that the community expects", lol nuff said.
Section One is kinda okay. But they reuse past questions for UMAT. And after all their zomganticheatinghaxx. Bloody geniuses.
'In theory' I suppose it works. The reality is that ACER has done a half-assed job of creating this 'high-stakes' test while being paid truckloads.
So true. It's just a money making scheme.
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I agree!! It is just a money making vendeta!! Load of rubbish!! I dont even think doctors would be able to get half the questions!! I hope i get enough to get an interview, i really want to get into med, and have ever since i was young!! Anyway, i thought section 2 and 3 were not bad, and i ran out of time for section 1, guessed about 5!!! What i dislike about section 2 is that i can be a variety of answers depending on the tone you read the question in, for eg it could be angry or frustrated... so annoying!! Anyways good luck to everyone and i hope u all do well!! :o)
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Well, just be glad the UMAT is over guys, now begins the nervous wait for results and interview offers. A point of interest is that UNSW typically release their interview offers before the results are released to students.
The UMAT has a clear and necessary purpose as an interview selection tool. Medical schools cannot practically interview everyone who applies, there needs to be some method of selection in this area. You don't necessarily have to ace the UMAT to get an interview, just beat a certain amount of other students, as is the nature of competitive entry.
The UMAT is not perfect, but it exists to serve a useful purpose. Every other country has a similar test to determine students suitable to be interviewed and every other years of prospective med student has also undergone the same test. Section 1 is always long and hard, and you can't prepare yourself for that, despite what people often tried to tell me to the contrary
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At a tertiary information session I attended the other day, the representative from Uom said that you can use the UMAT to guarantee you get into the new graduate medicine course after your undergraduate course...
Was she just bulls***ing? I thought you had to do the GAMSAT?
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The UMAT has a clear and necessary purpose as an interview selection tool. Medical schools cannot practically interview everyone who applies, there needs to be some method of selection in this area. You don't necessarily have to ace the UMAT to get an interview, just beat a certain amount of other students, as is the nature of competitive entry.
It does indeed have a purpose. The question is whether this purpose is fulfilled. As I have already outlined, UMAT is inherently flawed in many ways, and I could probably state a couple more faults if I felt like it but what's the point of debating on the interwebz anyway?
The UMAT is not perfect, but it exists to serve a useful purpose. Every other country has a similar test to determine students suitable to be interviewed and every other years of prospective med student has also undergone the same test.
Right that it's not perfect, otherwise completely wrong. It certainly does not "serve a useful purpose" other than as a feel-good exercise for the unis to select the 'best' candidates for interviews, while at the same time generating an underground market of prep courses and of course ACER's own 'cheap', dumbed down alternative. Past years of prospective students do in a sense, ironically, undergo the 'same' test; ACER reuses past UMAT questions(lol...). But even so the format of the UMAT has changed since it was first used. Does this mean that the generation that sat that outdated UMAT has not been selected properly?
Not every other country has a selective test. Singapore uses a 'lottery' system. On the one hand, yes, you're not selecting the best candidates. On the other, this at least guarantees fairness, unlike the UMAT in which doing prep courses gives you a small but distinct advantage. Also, why bother testing for empathy, logic, and visual skills when these things can be developed in uni? Imo everybody who can attain a high enough academic record to be considered for med(not easy in Singapore I can tell you, our education system probably doesn't match up to theirs) has the capacity to gain these skills.
Section 1 is always long and hard, and you can't prepare yourself for that, despite what people often tried to tell me to the contrary
I can tell you that I am guilty of using a prep course and it definitely prepared me psychologically and emotionally at the very least.
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I politely suggest that you lack perspective, as the UMAT does serve a useful purpose
Would you rather the expense of sitting an apptitude test at every university you apply to? No, and neither does the university.
You may call it a "feel-good" activity, but if one is truly brilliant at school, then there are ways of gaining entry without meeting a certain, arbitrary UMAT cut-off. The higher your ENTER at UNSW, the less your UMAT has to be, a UMAT of about 150ish is acceptable if you gain an ENTER of around 99.8, which should be a cinch in our easier secondary school, right? If you attain a similarly high ENTER for UAdel, they offer a later round of interviews for students with previously lower UMAT scores. JCU don't use the UMAT at all. So Singapore may have a more high-school academically friendly entry system (if that's even posible under a lottery system), but where would you rather go to med school?
Fairness is never guaranteed in selective based entry to a university course. You may beleive that UMAT courses give you "the edge", but often their own negative impressions of the interview stage produce students who beleive interviewers are out to trick them, and therefore spend the whole interview secind guessing the interviewers questions and themselves
My own UMAT score was terrible, but i will defend its use, typically the people who have the most to sy negatively about the UMAT are people who feel as though it hamper their own chances of gaining entry. You have to ask youself whether you are biased abou the UMAT, simply because it doesn't suit you.
I undertook 2 UMAT prep courses last year and saw one question that was similar to any of the prep course questions. I'm happy that you felt ready for the exam orsel, but many students are not. They are also releived of $400-700 for their "peace of mind".
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u got 259? u call that terrible?
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Well, just to start off with, and by no means am I offended or anything, but it seems that you have taken a subtle personal attack on me. I sincerely apologise if my earlier post appeared to express contempt or annoyance towards you; know that any negativity is directed towards the UMAT.
I politely suggest that you lack perspective, as the UMAT does serve a useful purpose
Would you rather the expense of sitting an apptitude test at every university you apply to? No, and neither does the university.
It's not the concept of the UMAT that exasperates me, rather that it is of extremely poor design. And this is something that can be fixed, all it would take is for ACER to scrap Sections 2 and 3 and stop reusing past questions.
You may call it a "feel-good" activity, but if one is truly brilliant at school, then there are ways of gaining entry without meeting a certain, arbitrary UMAT cut-off. The higher your ENTER at UNSW, the less your UMAT has to be, a UMAT of about 150ish is acceptable if you gain an ENTER of around 99.8, which should be a cinch in our easier secondary school, right? If you attain a similarly high ENTER for UAdel, they offer a later round of interviews for students with previously lower UMAT scores. JCU don't use the UMAT at all. So Singapore may have a more high-school academically friendly entry system (if that's even posible under a lottery system), but where would you rather go to med school?
My reference to it as 'feel-good' is in relation to the public image it creates, the whole notion that somehow it selects candidates based on good qualities, while there is in fact no comparison possible to see whether selecting candidates through UMAT is effective at producing better doctors, which is ostensibly the entire basis for the existence of the UMAT. If we aren't creating better doctors, then why should UMAT exist at all? To generate money for ACER? A lottery system at least guarantees fairness.
I'm not sure what you mean by asking where I would rather go to for med. I don't want to make any suggestion that Singapore is 'better' in its education system. Their quantity certainly trumps Australia's, but quality is another question altogether. Poor choice of wording in my previous post when I just woke up, my bad.
Fairness is never guaranteed in selective based entry to a university course? You may beleive that UMAT courses give you "the edge", but often their own negative impressions of the interview stage produce students who beleive interviewers are out to trick them, and therefore spend the whole interview secind guessing the interviewers questions and themselves
Rather irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
My own UMAT score was terrible, but i will defend its use, typically the people who have the most to sy negatively about the UMAT are people who feel as though it hamper their own chances of gaining entry. You have to ask youself whether you are biased abou the UMAT, simply because it doesn't suit you.
I don't believe myself to be biased at all. I have little, if any passion towards medicine(probably going to be third or fourth preference) as I am, by my own judgement, far too cynical for a career as a doctor. Perhaps you have noticed this? :)
I also have no idea how I went in UMAT. Thought I did pretty well but we'll wait to September for that. I guess this is a cue for us to stop the off-topic and agree to disagree?
I undertook 2 UMAT prep courses last year and saw one question that was similar to any of the prep course questions. I'm happy that you felt ready for the exam orsel, but many students are not. They are also releived of $400-700 for their "peace of mind".
I too only saw one similar question. But I know for a fact that reuse of questions occurs through forum-trawling references to past questions which have appeared in UMAT '08. It also seems that your own skepticism of prep courses parallels mine of UMAT?
Congratulations go to you for getting into your desired course, but frankly the process for medicine entry shouldn't be like this.
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Again, i say you lack perspective, a lottery system is far more unfair than the UMAT. I'll agree that it's structure is not perfect, but you originally seemed to think it just should be completetly removed.
The UMAT rarely stops brilliant students from gaining entry to medicine, you don't understand the system, and that's my fustration with your arguement.
I don't have a problem with you orsel, i have a problem with the attitude you have towards a system which is proven, comapred to your complete lack of experience with actually undergoing a full selection cycle to medicine. The UMAT plays little role in the selection of students who are academically brilliant. You only consider my point of interviewing to be irrelevant mostly because you lack understanding of how the system works.
Again you misunderstand, i was not implying that Singapore medicine is inferior to Australia. My question related to whether you would prefer to undergo slection in a country that randomly determines if you have a chance, or a country where you are allowed to earn that chance
Ganges: my score was 5 below the Monash overall score cutoff, i got an interview through DRL
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"Not perfect" seems a bit of an understatement donchathink?
The UMAT rarely stops brilliant students from gaining entry to medicine, you don't understand the system, and that's my fustration with your arguement.
I never stated anywhere that the problem lies in brilliant students being prevented from gaining entry to medicine. The problem is that we are paying ACER to create a useless test that purports to achieve something that no studies have proven. We just assume that it works. "A system which is proven"? By whom? By what research?
The UMAT plays little role in the selection of students who are academically brilliant.
Depends significantly on the university.
You only consider my point of interviewing to be irrelevant mostly because you lack understanding of how the system works.
I fail to see how interviewing is relevant to the fairness of UMAT. Even if interviews sort out the 'bad apples' why should an incredibly flawed test be allowed to play any part at all in the selection process? Pray tell.
My question related to whether you would prefer to undergo slection in a country that randomly determines if you have a chance, or a country where you are allowed to earn that chance
Of course I'd rather earn my position in a course. But, again, why through UMAT? Simply because it is impossible for the UMAT to be completely fair doesn't mean it's alright for it to be very unfair. Either fix it or scrap it. As I stated, there are things they could do to improve it, so why don't they start with that? I understand that any selection test will always have inherent flaws, the issue here is that these are not inherent flaws, they can be changed.
Again, let us agree to disagree. If you still want to debate the point then create a new topic lol.
Edit: Also, I realise that someone has to lose out with limited med places. It'd suck to just lose out by chance in a lottery system. But when you're paying millions of dollars a year to create a proper test and you get crap in return, that sucks 10x more.
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Not every other country has a selective test. Singapore uses a 'lottery' system.
That is completely untrue.
I know for sure because I'm from Singapore, and being the meritocratic society that is is; the National University of Singapore chooses their students based on A level results, performance in the interview, and certain selection exams. No lottery whatsoever.
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Hmmm....moving on from the Singapore topic....
The cutoff for Monash will be higher this year won't it? Because of the Melbourne Model. But then UniMelb will give you a place...all u need to do is get 99.90 lol.
Does any1 reckon particular prep courses helped them with the UMAT?
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Well I was just thinking... will the UMAT cutoff actually be higher becuse of UoM model?
Wouldn't almost all of the students who were accepted into UoM medicine have done the Monash interview? Meaning that the UMAT cut-off is similar but the other two selection criteria (ENTER and interview will be more important)
This is just an idea (I think it's more out of hope than anything else!) but is this how it should work?
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Using a simple supply and demand model, the answer is yes. More demand (students) and less supply (overall med places) will increase costs (UMAT mark cutoff). However, if Monash increases their quota for interviews as a result then maybe the UMAT cut-off may not be as high.
Some students who made it into UoM (with a higher ENTER and lower UMAT) may not have made it into Monash due to the UMAT requirement (don't quote me on this).
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Actually, that's precisely correct Excalibur.
UMelb had an ENTER stream for kids who got really mediocre scores for their UMAT but totally pooty tanged their ENTER. This allowed many retards who were purely choosing Medicine because it was the course with the highest ENTER to join the ranks of the elite.
Monash suggests that successful doctors should have a certain amount of people-skills thus and set a standard (ie. if you don't get an interview, don't hope that your ENTER will save you).
I am a dud, therefore I cannot make it into anywhere now. :(