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Everyone who has taken the UCAT will tell you how important it is in your overall application to medicine or dentistry. Many reapplicants will tell you that a major part of their later success in getting into medical school was a drastic need to improve their UCAT score.
In 2020, there was a record number of medicine applications in the UK, leading to a colossal increase in competition for places (source). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 saw many medical schools use the UCAT as an initial screening process to reduce the number of applicants. This means that if your UCAT score is too low to get you over the threshold, you won’t even get a chance to prove yourself at interviews!
The Medical Schools Council have stated that “The consequence of this rise in applications is that the selection criteria universities use in 2021 are likely to be stricter than those used in 2020.” (source) For 2021, all students need to be aiming for high UCAT scores to be in with a chance of getting an interview. But fear not, we are here to help you!
UCAT Tuition is the most personalised way to improve your UCAT score. The best thing about 1-1 UCAT tutoring? It can be used by almost anyone taking the UCAT, for a variety of reasons.
Some of our previous students have used 1-1 UCAT tutoring to:
• Find out their weaknesses when previously they were unaware
• Iron out specific problems with certain subsections or question types
• Learn strategies instead of making the same mistakes in repeated practice
• Improve their timing
• Receive full UCAT teaching as a private 1-1 course
1-1 tutoring can be used by any student, from those who are currently scoring poorly and need help getting a good average, to those who are naturally scoring well and want to take their score up to the high 700s - even 800s!
Though the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) is now commonly used by medical and dental schools or universities in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, it can still be difficult to prepare for.
You may be stumped that the UCAT exam is not like your GCSE, A-Level or other high school tests. You may require more focused help than a group UCAT course can provide. Or, you may have attended a course already but have found particular weaknesses that you need help with.
1-1 tutoring allows your UCAT preparation to be completely personalised.
Our 1-1 tutoring is personalised by:
One major advantage of 1-1 online tutoring, is that you learn at your own pace.
Have you ever felt that you have been left behind in a group setting, not able to keep up with the crowd? It may be the case that for certain concepts, it takes you longer to really understand them. Or perhaps you have found yourself moving quickly through the material in a group and you need to move at a faster pace to be challenged? In our 1-1 tutorials, our experienced tutors will teach at a speed that is comfortable for you and that will aid in your learning.
One to one tutoring allows us to vary the speed depending not only on you as an individual, but also per subsection or even per question type within a subsection. From our experience, students' natural abilities can vary within a section, for example you may be good at Probability but fairly weak at Logic Puzzles within Decision Making. Our experienced tutors will be able to note when you are strong in certain areas, and they can move quicker through these topics, leaving more time to delve deeper into your understanding of weaker topics.
You can’t just revise for the UCAT like a school exam, but nor will you do well if you only practice. The key to success is knowing what strategies to employ to solve questions - and to be able to do this in good time.
Our 1-1 tutoring sessions are strategy-based, and we teach strategies for sections that are not taught anywhere else.
In Verbal Reasoning, the lowest scoring section on average, we have come up with a method that sees students' scores increase by 100 points. Our method avoids the need to read all passages in full, but also doesn’t rely on scanning for words, which often sees students miss out on valuable marks.
In Decision Making, we teach strategies to solve each question type - of which there are thirteen. We will work with you to identify your strengths and weaknesses in this highly varied section, and can help by teaching you to write effective shorthand, use tables and quick diagrams to solve questions.
In Quantitative Reasoning, we have researched and interviewed high-scorers and have come up with the fastest methods to solve each type of maths question - including Percentages, Geometry, Tax and Time Zones. Often, this can take a 3 step question down to a 2 or 1 step question just by changing to a more efficient method, saving you valuable time!
In Abstract Reasoning, the MSAG approach enables students to get difficult patterns that previously they would have to skip. We do not rely on any mnemonics that you can find for free on the internet, instead, we will teach you a thorough 5-step approach that combines speed with systematic checking.
In Situational Judgement, most students lack an approach and can be caught out by only relying on their gut instinct. We will help you to refine your approach so that you can more reliably be scoring in the top bands.
Every one of our 1-1 sessions are designed to be fun and engaging. We can make our sessions fairly formal, if you’d prefer to learn in a similar environment to school. Likewise, if you’d like a more informal approach, we will strive to get to know you as an individual, and you will also get to know your tutors! We’d love to chat about your weekend plans and hobbies whilst still spending most of the time teaching and discussing strategies. This allows you to strive to achieve your best - through feeling engaged and prioritised during your sessions.
All of the MSAG UCAT tutors have not only sat the UCAT before, but they have scored in the top decile for the sections that they teach.
Our tutors are proven masters of their sections. Our philosophy is that the best person to teach Verbal Reasoning is not necessarily the best person to teach Quantitative Reasoning, for example.
Experts in Verbal Reasoning...
Experts in Decision Making...
Experts in Quantitative Reasoning…
Experts in Abstract Reasoning...
Experts in Situational Judgement…
Not all Universities use the UCAT in the same way. For example, Liverpool states that a competitive score for undergraduate applicants in 2019-20 was 2400, whereas Birmingham have previously had a cut off of 2640 (2020). Many of our tutors, along with their top 10% scores for the sections that they teach, attend highly selective UCAT-Universities such as King's College London, Sheffield, Newcastle, Manchester and Bristol. We also have tutors at Oxbridge, UCL and Imperial, who scored highly in both the BMAT and UCAT and can give you tips on balancing your prep for both admissions tests!
At the MSAG, it is not simply enough to have scored highly in the UCAT to be part of our tutoring team. Having good marks does not always equate to being a good teacher.
All of our tutors have been through a thorough selection process to be a part of our teaching team:
You should get to know our tutors before wanting to book a 1-on-1 session with them. At the MSAG we believe in transparency and your right to know who will be teaching you. All of our tutors have experience sitting the UCAT themselves, gone on to study medicine or dentistry, and achieved UCAT results in the top 10%.
All tutors have an enhanced DBS check as part of the requirements of their medical or dental courses.
Those who score highly in the UCAT, will concentrate their practice on replicating the exact conditions of the exam. This means practicing online, with a software that has the same layout, colours, buttons and online calculator as the real UCAT test.
So shouldn’t this also be replicated in tutoring?
We believe that this should be the case, so that you get used to the style and formatting of the real test. But many other tutoring companies will teach using resources that don’t replicate the real test - such as powerpoints, or hand-drawn notes and diagrams.
In 2021, theMSAG Online Question Bank has been adapted to deliver intuitive learning in 1-1 tutoring lessons. This means that not only are you are being taught using the software that most replicates the official online UCAT, but you have access to all of the features that make our Online Platform the best for use in your tutoring sessions:
Read more about how we invested and researched to create the highest quality UCAT question bank to aid in your preparation, here.
Every tutor and teacher for theMSAG has been in your shoes. As medical students, doctors and dentists, we have sat the UCAT/BMAT, been successful in interviews and have consistently strong academic records. Throughout our training we are both taught and examined on our communication skills through specialist practical examinations (OSCEs) only seen in healthcare degrees.
Communication and teaching are intrinsic parts of any medics or dentist’s job - we are best placed to transfer these skills to tutoring students, helping you boost your average UCAT score.
At the MSAG, we have been tutoring students for 12 years, our team has done over 5,000 hours of solely 1-1 tutoring and we have helped 2,000 UCAT takers in the last 12 months. We have met students from a variety of backgrounds, undergraduates, graduates, career changers, those with extra learning needs, and have dealt with almost all learning problems and styles before!
If you have a particular worry about your own learning style or needs, please get in contact for a free consultation with us. One of our Senior Tutors will be back in touch and will be able to give advice for your individual circumstances.
We understand that applying to medicine or dentistry can be daunting, stressful and for some, disheartening. Those who are supporting you in your journey to becoming a doctor or a dentist, don’t just want you to do well, but they want to see you thrive and achieve your personal best. Doing your UCAT (UKCAT) tutoring with theMSAG means that our tutors, yourself and your parents can monitor progress, so that we can all be best placed to help with your continued learning.
We recognise that each individual’s training needs will change with time, and with detailed monitoring we are able to adapt to these changes so that you can reach your full potential.
We monitor this within our Online Platform - through integrated Progress Reports after each tutoring session, in combination with your practice scores. This is viewable by you (the student), parents, tutors and senior tutors.
In addition, one of our advisors is available 7 days a week over email or the phone. We are happy to take calls regarding any aspect of your preparation - and can even help with last minute nerves or advice on test day!
All of our 1-1 tutoring services are conducted over Skype or Zoom as online video meetings. This means that you can join us from anywhere in the world. We have tutors across different time zones who have all taken the UCAT, so that we can arrange sessions to suit your schedule. We have previously taught students from Canada, USA, UK, UEA, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and many more countries - helping them all to achieve their dream of attending UK medical school.
Although the UCAT is an exam of 5 subsections, as part of 1-1 tuition, we view each subsection separately. This is because they test different skills, and from our experience helping hundreds of students with their UCAT, students will make different mistakes within each section.
For most applicants, UCAT is only step one of a costly application process. When you think of UCAT, BMAT, GAMSAT, personal statement and interview preparation, the costs can rack up fast. At theMSAG, we have a strong ethos of widening access to Medicine.
We offer significantly discounted rates for 1-1 tutoring, means tested depending on your circumstances. You are likely to qualify for financial assistance for our services at the MSAG if you also qualify for the UCAT bursary.
If you feel that you do qualify, please contact us at hello@themsag.com with the subject matter ‘Financial Assistance’ and a member of our team will be in touch.
