u/Busy_Papaya8994

I loved the isolated community, the culty feeling of something strange going on that you’re not fully in on yet, and the way it slowly takes hold of more and more people. I also really liked the whole idea of good intentions becoming completely corrupted, with people doing increasingly awful things while genuinely believing they’re doing the right thing.

Hi everyone.

Ive ummed and ahhed about whether or not to post this since my exam on Tuesday. I have decided to because I did find this sub very useful at times. It inspired me, gave me hope. Yet it also caused significant anxiety spirals and I ended up doom scrolling like nothing else, often late at night to the detriment to my revision.

First off. Well done to you all. Anyone who bites the bullet to study for this exam is a winner and you should be proud of yourself. Its not easy. It takes a lot out of you psychologically as well as time wise. Pat yourself on the back and give yourself a break. And good luck to anyone who is sitting in these final few weeks.

As you can see, my score is nothing crazy. I am very happy with it, I was aiming for anything beginning with a 2 and I cried with happiness when I saw it. Im so proud of myself. I am no expert on how to do well, far from it. I just hope this post may help some people in terms of how to get through the ucat cycle intact because it is so incredibly stressful and nobody around you understands unless they've been there themselves.

Firstly, for anyone yet to sit, I would uninstall this app immediately. I did it finally a week before my exam and it was one of the best choices I made for myself. I had no idea about other people's worries, scores, panic over variants I refuse to name bc honestly its out of your hands, you cant influence it so just focus on your revision and wellbeing and then do the best you can on the day.

Second, I cannot stress enough how important the mentality you have leading up to the exam and on the day is. I sacrificed doing targeted work in the days leading up to it in order to try and get more sleep, to just chill out and listen to my body. I felt burnt out. Id been revising for so long. I knew it wasn't because I no longer cared, I just didnt have the capacity for it anymore. I did some official QB stuff but not all of it in the week prior and official mocks A, B and C. I decided to forfeit D as its known to the the easiest and I figured Id rather know where I was at with a more realistic scenario. However if you feel you need that confidence boost or have the time to do all of them, go for it. Whatever works for you.

I didnt do half as many mocks as some people. I did 8 in total including the 3 officials. I was working while studying for this and had a lot of stressful things going on in my personal life. Im a GEM applicant so in a different boat to many of you. I really felt analysis of my mistakes and both untimed and timed question bank practise is where I made most gains between mocks.

In terms of being GEM, I hadnt done maths in about 12 years. It took me a long time to figure out how to handle QR from scratch. I didnt even know how to calculate a percentage when I began... yeah, I know. But I got 750 in the end. If anyone who has been out of maths for a while would like any tips please feel free to contact me. Im no expert, so many people seem to smash out 800+ in that section and I used to feel quite silly but then VR was a natural strength; were all different.

What worked best for me as someone who did worse than anyone I saw in their medify diagnostic (1450 - literally got 0 DM correct as I was like a deer in headlights and had not done any timed practise for any sections prior to my diagnostic), I kept an error log spreadsheet. It tracked which subsections I was most weak in, where I was improving and showed me how many id attempted. Useful to know that an accuracy of 98% across 12 questions is much less reliable than an accuracy of 88% across 300 and so on. This motivated me by seeing granular progress and helped me to decide where to focus each time I sat down.

Mocks and mini mocks will fluctuate. Dont let the fear of seeing a 'low score' or one that drops from your all time high prevent you from doing them. I know it can be terrifying. But at the end of the day focus on your raw marks. Scaling for the various sites is so varied and I really think focusing on small wins and trends over time with raw marks is the way to go. Analyse yourself after each revision session - whether thats a mock, mini mock, timed/untimed qb. See whats going wrong and focus on it.

On the day I was calm. Im good at handling myself under pressure luckily but if I had gone in extremely anxious etc I dont think I could have grabbed the marks where I could. I cant stress enough how vital good sleep is leading up to the test, good food and keeping as calm as you can. Adrenaline is your friend. Tell yourself youve done the work, you did your best, smash it out. What will be will be. I went into the loo before hand and jumped around a bit like a nutter to get some tension out of me and smiled at myself in the mirror (terrifying really). Some things are out of our hands. Deep breath and be proud. You can do this. At the end of the day, who cares whether you got a low score just good enough to secure an interview or top end, if it gets your foot in the door, youve done what you set out to do!

Any questions ill do my best to answer them. I wont be commenting on which variant I got. I used Medify for almost all of my practise. I got MedEntry towards the end and found their skills trainers the best part of what they offered.

Attached mock scores etc.