The Medibuddy AI-powered UCAT question bank is the only one on the market that uses AI algorithms to deeply analyse your ability levels and create a personalised learning journey specifically tailored to boost your UCAT score.
"The question bank really mirrored the real UCAT exam style. It was very comprehensive and helpful. I have used many other ones where they used almost the same questions but your question bank was completely unique"
The Medibuddy AI-powered UCAT question bank provides this and more.
“The new [Medibuddy] adaptive UCAT question bank made my revision much more efficient and it helped me get better and quicker at answering questions”
“I used the Abstract Reasoning section as I found the website the night before my test and I was pretty bad at AR. In my official exam my AR was my 2nd best section at 860! Overall, I thought the website was a very useful resource from what I saw and I liked the algorithm that showed skill in particular question types.”
Did you know that if you spend an average of 2 minutes answering and absorbing the explanation of each question in a question bank, it will take you 333 hours to get through 10k questions!?
No wonder the vast majority of people don’t answer anywhere near 10k questions before their exam!
We surveyed 100s of medical students and asked them what their biggest issue was when preparing for the UCAT.
Over 90% said that because the UCAT wasn’t a knowledge-based exam, they could answer thousands of questions but never feel like they were getting anywhere.
The trouble with standard question banks is that everyone is given the same questions to prepare with, with no consideration of what skills or topics each person is actually struggling with.
However, everyone has a different baseline ability. You might struggle with quantitative reasoning, whereas your friend might be a maths wizard. With a standard question bank, you’ll both answer the same QR questions, in the same order, meaning you’ll be left struggling while your friend doesn’t feel stretched.
No wonder so many people can find preparing for the UCAT frustrating!
The Medibuddy adaptive UCAT question bank is here to change all that.
We recognise that the vast majority of students don’t complete all 10,000 questions in a question bank.
It’s therefore vitally important that the questions you do answer are relevant to your skill and ability level.
We’ll ensure that in the areas you’re struggling, you’ll master the basics first. Whereas in your stronger areas, you’ll be immediately pushed.
This will mean that every minute of your revision is turbo charged to maximise your UCAT score.
As you progress through the question bank, you’ll be able to see a sophisticated estimate of your current skill level for each subsection of the UCAT. When other question banks give you a performance review, they are simply telling you how many questions you’ve got right or wrong.
We do things differently.
Our algorithm will tell you exactly what your ability level is for each area of the UCAT. We calculate this based on the actual difficulty of the questions you are answering and it’s done in real time, so you can be sure that the work you’re putting in is actually translating into real gains in your UCAT score.
The Medibuddy UCAT question bank is the only one available which shows you if you’re actually getting better at answering harder questions.
The UCAT Abstract Reasoning subtest aims to assess your ability to identify patterns within abstract shapes. The inclusion of irrelevant and distracting information within this subtest can lead to incorrect conclusions being drawn; therefore, familiarity with the types of questions you’ll be asked will improve your pattern recognition and your ability to identify unnecessary information.
This guide will provide you with more information about the Abstract Reasoning subtest, including the types of questions you’ll be asked and how to answer them, where to find quality practice questions, and tips to prepare and do well in the exam.
As mentioned above, you’ll be assessed on your ability to identify patterns within the shapes presented, disregarding irrelevant information as needed. You can find guidance on identifying patterns below. The purpose of this subtest is to test your ability to make judgements and hypotheses, critically evaluate and query these as you work through the information, and change track where required.
As with the other sections of the UCAT, the Abstract Reasoning subtest assesses skills required for working within the medical profession.
When considering diagnoses for patients, doctors need to be able to make judgements about the information they’re presented with, to identify which information is useful and will help them reach a conclusion, and which is irrelevant and/or distracting from the real issue. This involves being able to identify reliable and relevant information from a set of symptoms and/or test results.
These skills are also needed when carrying out research involving data, where you could be required to identify patterns within results to allow you to generate further hypotheses.
The format of the UCAT Abstract Reasoning section is as follows:
You’ll have 12 minutes (plus a 1-minute instruction section) to answer the 50 multiple choice questions, giving you approximately 14 seconds per question and making time a crucial factor in this subtest. Although time is limited, you’ll have up to five questions for each set of shapes, meaning that once you’ve identified the pattern/s you’ll be able to answer subsequent questions more quickly.
The UCAT Abstract Reasoning subtest has the following four types of questions:
Having a clear understanding of the rules you’re likely to encounter within the Abstract Reasoning questions will help you decode them more easily and quickly during the exam. Often for the sets of shapes, there will be more than one rule applied, which you need to identify and apply to the question.
The UCAT website outlines the following keywords for the rules relating to the Abstract Reasoning shapes:
Often candidates find it helpful to use a mnemonic (a phase or pattern of letters) to remember key rules for identifying patterns. This can be a useful tool, allowing you to work systematically, and increasing your speed and accuracy when identifying patterns.
For each of the Abstract Reasoning multiple choice questions, there is one correct answer and one available mark, resulting in a total of 50 marks for this subtest. As with the other ‘cognitive subtests’, the raw mark that you achieve will be converted into a ‘scale score’ between 300 – 900, allowing for a common range for each of these subtests.
The other cognitive subtests – Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning – are all scored in the same way, whereas the Situational Judgement Test is scored using a band system.
The UCAT website provides the following mean scores for the Abstract Reasoning subtest from 2018 – 2023:
For more information about how the UCAT is scored, including the scaled scoring, visit our UCAT Score blog.
Generally, a ‘good’ UCAT score for each of the subtests is approximately 20 – 30 marks above the average score for that particular section. For 2023, a ‘good’ UCAT score for the Abstract Reasoning subtest, therefore, would be 672 – 682. Remember, while this general rule remains the same, what’s considered a ‘good’ score will vary depending on how each year’s candidates perform.
The UCAT is a challenging exam, and you may find some subtests more difficult than others, depending on your individual strengths and weaknesses. Your total score for the cognitive subtests – Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning and Abstract Reasoning – can play a crucial role in your medical school application. Therefore, it’s vital that you perform well in all areas. For more information on how your chosen medical school uses your UCAT score in the application process, visit our UCAT Universities blog.
If you find the UCAT Abstract Reasoning hard, or any of the other subtests, it’s worthwhile dedicating more time to these so your total score is not affected. Our The free, adaptive Medibuddy UCAT question bank makes it easy to identify which areas you need to focus on, and our artificial intelligence automatically selects personalised questions to help you develop the areas in which you need to improve the most.
Although a challenging exam, with the right UCAT preparation you can be confident that you can perform well and achieve the score you want.
For all sections of the UCAT, you should focus on gaining an understanding of what the subtest involves and the types of questions you’ll be asked. By focusing on practice questions and practice tests during your preparations, you’ll become more familiar with the questions and how to answer them, and also accustomed to dealing with the time pressure associated with the exam.
In the Abstract Reasoning practice questions section below, you can find more information and where to access our free UCAT practice tests. You can also find information about the free, AI-powered Medibuddy question bank, which offers personalised learning for more effective UCAT preparation.
Initially, practice questions, rather than timed practice tests, will be most effective for improving your skills needed for the UCAT Abstract Reasoning subtest. These will allow you to spend time identifying patterns and different rules within sets of shapes, so you become familiar with the types of patterns you can expect within the test and can spot them more efficiently.
It’s also worthwhile to include some timed practice tests in your revision, as these will help you to understand the time demands of the Abstract Reasoning subtest and improve your speed and accuracy, ensuring that you’re prepared for the exam.
To improve your ability to identify patterns within the shapes provided, and therefore ultimately perform better within the Abstract Reasoning subtest, it’s useful to approach each set of shapes systematically. For example, this may include considering what shapes are presented, how many there are, their positioning in the box and in relation to one another, whether different colours or shading have been used, and so on. For questions with ‘series’ and ‘statements’ of shapes, this may include considering what changes have been made from one set to another and what has remained the same, including things like rotation, colour change and the repetition of shapes.
As discussed in the ‘how to answer’ section above, using a mnemonic can be helpful for remembering the keywords or ‘rules’ for identifying patterns, allowing you to work through them systematically. Experiment with systems for recognising patterns during your preparations, applying them to practice questions to determine what works most effectively for you.
The following tips will support you to do well during the UCAT Abstract Reasoning subtest:
Practice questions and practice tests are the most effective way of preparing for the UCAT Abstract Reasoning subtest. Practice questions will help you become familiar with the types of questions you’ll be asked and develop strategies for answering them. Practice tests will support you in dealing with the demands of the exam, particularly the time pressure, as they’ll positively affect the pace at which you answer questions.
On our website, you’ll find more information, tips and support for all sections of the UCAT, including the Abstract Reasoning subtest. For example, our UCAT Guide has everything you need to know about the exam, our UCAT Score and Decile Ranking blogs provide information on scoring, and to help you prepare there’s a step-by-step guide.
You can also support your UCAT preparations with The free Medibuddy UCAT question bank which offers personalised learning through AI-powered practice questions. By adapting to your strengths and weaknesses, our question bank will ensure that you spend time focusing on the areas which you need to improve, and that are likely to have the biggest impact on your UCAT score, to make the most of your UCAT preparations.
Thousands of questions and comprehensive answers written specifically for UCAT preparation, with more getting added.
The Medibuddy platform has been designed to replicate the actual exam, so you won’t get any surprises on the day.
Each question and explanation you receive will be chosen by our AI algorithm, specifically for you.
The only question bank available that tells you if you’re actually getting better and not just how many questions you’ve answered correctly.
We don’t just pick the questions for our mock exams at random, we follow a similar process to the actual exam board by calibrating every question for difficulty, based on the abilities of 100s of medical students. This means your score will be a much more accurate reflection of the real thing.
You can access our platform anywhere and it works on desktops, tablets and phones. This means you can revise at home or on the go.
When the Medibuddy team were preparing for the UCAT, working out where to start was quite overwhelming. The online resources offered thousands of practice questions and lots of generic advice. However, the only way of getting help that was specifically targeted at you was by paying for expensive tutoring.
This didn’t seem right to us. The personalised learning you get with a tutor has been shown to improve exam results across all fields of education. So why when it came to the UCAT, an exam that is vital for medical school, should it only be available to those who could afford a tutor?
The good news is artificial intelligence has changed everything! Super smart algorithms can now identify exactly where your strengths and weaknesses lie, ensuring that every minute of your revision is focused on areas that will have the biggest impact on your exam score.
Here at Medibuddy we’ve used the latest educational technology and combined it with our deep understanding of the UCAT, to produce the first ever AI-powered, adaptive UCAT question bank.
Our sophisticated question bank platform will adapt seamlessly with every question you answer. As you improve, the type and difficulty of the questions you receive will change with you, ensuring that at all times, you only receive the most relevant questions.
The Medibuddy team has been creating educational resources for medical students and doctors for years. We’ve helped thousands of students pass their exams and we’ve put all of that experience into our UCAT question bank.
We stay up to date on all the latest educational science, so you can be sure that the techniques we use are state of the art.
We know how expensive applying to medicine can be, so we do our bit by keeping our UCAT question bank FREE.
We’re able to do this by charging a little more on our educational courses and question banks for qualified doctors. We strongly believe that no one should be priced out of medicine. Our doctors agree and are happy to subsidise our educational resources for students.
As you progress through the question bank, our algorithm will be performing complicated statistical analyses of the way you answer questions. All of our questions have been tested on hundreds of 1st year medical students so the algorithm knows exactly how difficult each question is.
The algorithm looks at how you answer questions across a range of different difficulties to work out what your current ability level is.
Every question in our database has been tagged based on the skills required to answer it and its difficulty level. Once the algorithm has worked out what your ability level is and the areas you need to target, it ensures that the questions you receive focus on these areas. As you get better, the algorithm adapts with you, moving you onto new areas based on your needs.
Every single question in our question bank is written specifically for UCAT preparation and is reviewed by our editorial team to ensure it is as close a match as possible to the UCAT standard. We don’t borrow questions that have been written to prepare for other exams. In addition to this, all of our questions are calibrated by 100s of first year medical students who have recently taken the UCAT, which allows us to remove any outliers and ensure consistency.
