UMAT scores

[bsdfjnlkasn]

Hi there,

I was just wondering if anyone could please explain to me what you actually get given on your UMAT score card?
I understand that the results given for each section aren't the number of questions you answered correctly.
So, how do you interpret these arbitrary numbers?

Thank you 

[guest123]

So on your score card you get given 5 different figures. The first three are you scores from each section and generally you want to get a score 60+ however if you get higher in one section then you can get lower in another so it can balance itself out. These scores are then added up to give you a total aggregate score and again you want to get at least 180, to be competitive. The last number they give you is your percentile rank and this tells you how you went in comparison to everyone else, rather like the atar. So you want to get at least 90.

Also I'm not sure if this is still a rule but in the past, Monash hasn't accepted students with any section scores below 50 even if they got a high percentile rank.

I assume you'll be sitting the UMAT 2017, so good luck and just try your best. If you don't get a good score just remember not to give up as a you can still get into a med school without a UMAT. 

[bsdfjnlkasn]

So on your score card you get given 5 different figures. The first three are you scores from each section and generally you want to get a score 60+ however if you get higher in one section then you can get lower in another so it can balance itself out.

Hey!

Thanks for all the useful info and kind wishes

I'm still a bit confused by the first three "score" figures. What do you mean by score? Is it a percentage? A weighted mark?
I just think it would be useful to apply this knowledge to my preparation so that I can understand what an equivalent score to my percentage/totals would be.

[guest123]

Well no one really knows what the magic formula is tbh but I remember when I was doing the practise papers that Acer provides I was getting about 80% total and an the actual test I got a percentile of 96. So I guess just aiming for at least 3 out of every 4 questions to be correct for each section. But like I said no one knows how it works but I think your aim should be to just try and get as many questions right as you can rather than overstress about scores.

[A1P]

I'm still a bit confused by the first three "score" figures. What do you mean by score? Is it a percentage? A weighted mark?
I just think it would be useful to apply this knowledge to my preparation so that I can understand what an equivalent score to my percentage/totals would be.

This question is 3 months old but still relevant today I'll help answer:

- ACER says the max score per section is generally 100, you can see your section score as a mark out of 100 (which also means the percent of max).

- But it's NOT necessarily the percentage of questions you got correct. Since the Qs are not of equal marks you may need to score 70%+ of Qs if they are mostly the lower-mark ones to get 60/100 (for ~90%ile in that section). Opposite if you are an expert at hitting higher-mark Qs but missing the lower ones.

- Another factor is the median of each section is ~50. Median 50 marks out of 100 doesn't happen by itself, there must be some secret manipulation/adjustment by ACER. This also has an effect on the relationship between percentage of Qs and score out of 100.

Hope this helps clear your mind, just go score as many Qs as you can without worrying how they are counted.

[cookiedream]

This question is 3 months old but still relevant today I'll help answer:

- ACER says the max score per section is generally 100, you can see your section score as a mark out of 100 (which also means the percent of max).

- But it's NOT necessarily the percentage of questions you got correct. Since the Qs are not of equal marks you may need to score 70%+ of Qs if they are mostly the lower-mark ones to get 60/100 (for ~90%ile in that section). Opposite if you are an expert at hitting higher-mark Qs but missing the lower ones.

- Another factor is the median of each section is ~50. Median 50 marks out of 100 doesn't happen by itself, there must be some secret manipulation/adjustment by ACER. This also has an effect on the relationship between percentage of Qs and score out of 100.

Hope this helps clear your mind, just go score as many Qs as you can without worrying how they are counted.

But I've seen people getting over 100 in a section. What's that all about ??

[Quantum44]

Is it true that the harder questions in the UMAT are worth more than the easier ones? If so, should we be prioritising the harder ones rather than skipping them and coming back to them? Or should we focus on getting as many of the easier questions as possible?

Yeah the harder ones are worth more, however there are some new questions they add each year that may look hard, but don't count as they are trial questions, so you should prioritise questions with caution.

[A1P]

But I've seen people getting over 100 in a section. What's that all about ??

I think there are two reasons for this. Five years ago UMAT used to be valid for 2 years, ACER needed to scale the marks of one year to be comparable with the previous year since they could compete directly against one another in the same applicants pool. The maths resulted in some going over 100, not fair to chop them to 100 while leaving the year cohort alone, but also not fair to scale the whole cohort down as it would advantage the previous year.

That is no longer needed however ACER wants to make the median mark = 50. What if the top student gets 2.4 times as many correct answers vs the median, ACER must redistribute the marks from each question so the top doesn't become 120. They try to make it close to 100 but not always spot on 100.

Btw this ACER webpage https://umat.acer.edu.au/results says Each of the 3 construct scores is expressed on a scale of 0 to 100.