The UKCAT Test
The UKCAT is a skills test designed to assess the abilities and behavioural aptitudes identified as desirable for those applying to medical or dental school. It seeks to determine aptitudes rather than assess knowledge and measures a wide range of skills, grouped under four headings.
These are:
- Verbal reasoning
- Quantitative reasoning
- Abstract reasoning
- Decision Analysis
Each section, plus a non-cognitive section involving a great many questions designed to provide a basic psychological assessment of candidates’ aptitudes, must be completed under timed conditions via a computer screen.
A total of two hours is available for the test.
The sections of the test, cumulatively, are a test of skills, not talents as such and skills can be learned and improved.
The skills most emphasised are of:
- Problem-solving
- Lateral thinking
- Judgement
- Language
- Data analysis
The five sub-tests cover four substantive subjects; verbal reasoning, decision analysis, abstract reasoning, and quantitative analysis. The fifth element, a non-cognitive test, is a sort of personality test which may suggest the aptitude of a candidate for particular parts of the disciplines and faculties to which they make their application. The purpose of the fifth element is unclear, and it has generally been used as a tool to aiding and counselling students once they have entered programmes, as well as useful material for interview should one be held.
There are few ‘right’ answers or meaningful things to say about this last aspect of the test. Personality test questions can not be got ‘right’ as such. Rather, they simply indicate to university departments what sort of person is applying, and how that person might fit with the ‘mix’ of students and outcomes—some surgical, some general, some academic—that medical schools want to put together.