To do MedEntry or not next year?

[10weid]

Mmmm, been reading up a lot and a variety of people say that NIE is significantly better than MedEntry as a med prep course. And others have also recommended to do a lot of MENSA/IQ games/quiz questions etc haha, what are your thoughts on this?

Absolutely do not touch NIE. I purchased Medentry this year, and I truly belive it significantly assisted me in achieving the 98th percentile I obtained. I recieved the entire 2009 NIE set of books from a friend and they were useless. Let me quote an answer to a sequence question, whcih appeared no less than 19 times out of 150 answers for section 3 questions : "well, the pattern here is rather obvious." That is how they profess to help a student?

I throw all my support behind Medentry, and honestly can't recommend them highly enough.

PM me if you'd like to discuss further.

[Caspar]

It's probably worth adding that UNSW's survey found no significant difference between the scores of those who did prep courses and those who did not. Their sample space was just those who made interviews though, so it'd be rather biased.

[MBBS]

Mmmm, been reading up a lot and a variety of people say that NIE is significantly better than MedEntry as a med prep course. And others have also recommended to do a lot of MENSA/IQ games/quiz questions etc haha, what are your thoughts on this?

Hehehe, my father is a member of Mensa and had a hand in one of those books.

[shinny]

It's probably worth adding that UNSW's survey found no significant difference between the scores of those who did prep courses and those who did not. Their sample space was just those who made interviews though, so it'd be rather biased.

That study doesn't mean really anything if you think about it though =/ UMAT has always been a test determined mostly by natural aptitude. A large proportion of the people that get in don't do any preparation. Some who get in do preparation, but probably didn't even need to and still would have gotten in. There's probably only a small proportion who get in only because they prepared. Problem is you don't know which of these categories you fall under, so if the cost is justified in your mind, prep course is the way to go I guess. Ultimately, it comes down to how much it means to you personally I guess.

[bec036]

I did it and i dont think it helped me at all

[Andiio]

I did it and i dont think it helped me at all

Didn't you think you would've improved in Section 3 at least? :/
Just out of curiosity, what did you get for your UMAT? (it's fine if you don't want to share it)

And also, would anyone know what the absolute cut off for undergrad Med at Monash is for the UMAT?
I've heard it's 93rd percentile but other people have said you could still get in with ~80.

Is it really that hard to get ~93 percentile?

[Russ]

There's no absolute cutoff, it varies year to year. The 93 is just the general estimate of what you want to be competitive.

And 80 percentile getting into monash? Not unless there's some other access scheme helping them out there.

In terms of how hard it is...how long is a piece of string? Your results have to be in the top 7% of students sitting it, your absolute marks are only important insomuch as determining your percentile rank

[Andiio]

How many marks/how much percent would you be wanting to look at over all 3 sections for a generally good score? (~90 percentile)

[Caspar]

No one knows, but as few as possible. People have attained raw scores of over 100 in section 1, even though 73+ gives you 100%ile. This might mean that you can drop a fair few marks, but there really is no way to know without being recruited by ACER.

[stonecold]

How many marks/how much percent would you be wanting to look at over all 3 sections for a generally good score? (~90 percentile)

Just pawn section 3.  If you can get 90+ in that, then it would take a disaster not for you to get 90+ overall.

[Andiio]

How many marks/how much percent would you be wanting to look at over all 3 sections for a generally good score? (~90 percentile)

Just pawn section 3.  If you can get 90+ in that, then it would take a disaster not for you to get 90+ overall.

Any specific advice on how to improve in section 3? xD I think I'd just need a lot of practice with section 3; but I really don't have a lot (if any) of those exercises/questions :/

[Russ]

Buy some of those mensa books/quiz books/spatial reasoning books etc.
The ones you see at airports for people to do on planes.

[stonecold]

How many marks/how much percent would you be wanting to look at over all 3 sections for a generally good score? (~90 percentile)

Just pawn section 3.  If you can get 90+ in that, then it would take a disaster not for you to get 90+ overall.

Any specific advice on how to improve in section 3? xD I think I'd just need a lot of practice with section 3; but I really don't have a lot (if any) of those exercises/questions :/

Stroodle posted a whole bunch of them somewhere in the UMAT forum...

[Caspar]

How many marks/how much percent would you be wanting to look at over all 3 sections for a generally good score? (~90 percentile)

They were pretty good, I did most of em. I only got a 70%ile in sec3 though so mbe my endorsement isn't a big plus lol.
Just pawn section 3.  If you can get 90+ in that, then it would take a disaster not for you to get 90+ overall.

Any specific advice on how to improve in section 3? xD I think I'd just need a lot of practice with section 3; but I really don't have a lot (if any) of those exercises/questions :/

Stroodle posted a whole bunch of them somewhere in the UMAT forum...

[Stroodle]

Here's the stuff I posted:

http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,27721.0.html

http://vce.atarnotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,27228.0.html

There's also heaps more floating around on the net.