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.
First introduced in 2016 to replace the Decision Analysis subtest, the UCAT Decision Making subtest assesses your ability to analyse information and apply logic to make decisions.
This guide will provide you with more information about the Decision Making subtest, including how to prepare, tips to do well and where to access free quality UCAT practice questions.
The UCAT Decision Making subtest assesses your ability to evaluate arguments, analyse statistical information and apply logic to make decisions or form conclusions. The questions relate to information presented in text, charts, tables, graphs and diagrams.
The ability to make decisions is an essential skill for doctors. Often they are tasked with doing so in complex situations where they’re required to assess and manage risk, deal with uncertainty and apply high-level problem solving skills.
Being able to reason, evaluate arguments for and against, and use logic are key skills for problem solving.
As mentioned previously, questions in this subtest relate to data which is provided in text, charts, tables, graphs or diagrams. For some questions, you will have to select the correct answer from 4 possible answers, while in others, you have to respond to 5 statements with ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
There are 29 questions in the UCAT Decision Making subtest. All questions are standalone and do not share data.
You’ll have 31 minutes (plus a 1 minute instruction section) to answer the 29 questions, giving you approximately 1 minute per question.
There are six types of questions within the UCAT Decision Making subtest, they are:
You can find strategies for each question type in the relevant section below.
As mentioned above, there are two answer types within the UCAT Decision Making subtest:
The strategies section below gives more information on how to approach each of these question types.
Within the Decision Making subtest, scoring depends on the type of question. For the multiple choice questions, which have one correct answer, one mark is available for each. For the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, which have five statements to respond to, there are two available marks; two marks will be awarded for all correct responses to the statements and one mark for partially correct responses.
The raw mark you achieve in the Decision Making subtest is converted into a ‘scale score’ between 300 – 900. The other cognitive subtests – Abstract Reasoning, 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 data for 2018 – 2023 exams:
For more information about how the UCAT is scored, including the scaled scoring, visit our UCAT Score and UCAT Decile Ranking blogs.
For all of the ‘cognitive subtests’ in the UCAT, it’s generally advised that a ‘good’ score is approximately 20 – 30 marks above the average score for that subtest. For example, for 2023, a ‘good’ UCAT score for the Decision Making subtest would be 643 – 653.
Remember, the average score will vary each year, depending on how that year’s candidates perform, and therefore, so will what’s considered a ‘good’ UCAT score.
Decision Making can be a tricky section of the UCAT with some questions which can easily trip candidates up. Remember, your score for each of the cognitive subtests – Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning and Abstract Reasoning – will be combined to give you a total UCAT score. So it’s worthwhile dedicating time to all areas of the exam, particularly those which you find more challenging, as these have the potential to bring your score down.
The free, adaptive Medibuddy UCAT question bank can help you to easily identify the areas which you need to improve and uses artificial intelligence to provide personalised learning based on your individual strengths and weaknesses. By taking this more focused approach to your UCAT revision, you’ll see more improvement in your UCAT performance and the score you achieve.
As mentioned previously, some of the questions in the Decision Making subtest can be tricky if you’re unsure of them; therefore, it’s vital that you’re familiar with the types of questions you’ll receive and how to answer them. Focusing on practice questions and practice tests during your UCAT preparations will support you in understanding what the subtest involves and how to approach it.
To ensure that you’re fully prepared for the exam, you should practice all six types of questions that you'll encounter. In addition to this, to gain more from your preparations, you should aim to identify the types of questions you find more challenging and dedicate additional time to those. The free, adaptive Medibuddy question bank automatically identifies these for you and ensures that you spend time developing the areas which are likely to have the biggest impact on your UCAT Decision Making score.
You’ll find more information about practice questions, and the free Medibuddy question bank in the questions section.
As well as practice questions and tests, brushing up on your maths skills will help you with the Decision Making section. The UCAT website suggests that you specifically focus on revising probability and Venn diagrams, which are needed for the probabilistic reasoning and Venn diagrams questions.
The UCAT Question Tutorial provides the following strategies for answering questions in the UCAT Decision Making subtest:
For logical puzzles and syllogisms in particular, which refer to the type of language being used, the UCAT website provides ‘Decision Making definitions’ which clarify the key language used in the subtests.
The following tips will support you to perform well during the UCAT Decision Making subtest:
Completing practice questions and practice tests is the most effective way of preparing for the UCAT. They allow you to become familiar with the types of questions you’ll be asked and how to answer them, which will increase your pace and help you approach the questions more confidently.
The free Medibuddy question bank offers artificial intelligence powered practice questions, which automatically adapt to your strengths and weaknesses, to provide a personalised learning experience. This method of learning makes the most effective use of your UCAT preparation time, as you’ll be guided to spend more time revising the areas which you need to focus on to improve your UCAT score.
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.
