source : the age
To gain entry to most medicine degrees, students must get a top ATAR, demonstrate emotional intelligence in an interview and score highly in the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT).
Over the past 10 years, the authority which runs the aptitude test noticed a pattern in one section of the test – abstract reasoning – which probes students’ ability to identify patterns in shapes. Students’ marks were getting better and they were completing it in a shorter period of time.
Medical student Daniel Ouyang did not get coaching.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
“[The] abstract reasoning subtest has high coachability,” UCAT Australia and New Zealand said this year.
It has decided to remove that section from the exam this year.
“Historical data on the subtest has shown that candidate performance has increased, and response times decreased over the past 10 years. The nature of the subtest makes it more coachable compared to the other cognitive subtests.”
Sections covering verbal reasoning, decision-making and quantitative reasoning, alongside a situational judgment test, will remain.
Answer and explanation at end of story.Credit: Source: UCAT
Medicine degrees are among the most popular university courses and each year thousands of HSC students apply. Across Australia and New Zealand last year, 15,240 students sat the UCAT exam in the main round of testing, which is also used to admit students to dentistry and clinical science courses.
Among those sitting the test last year was Daniel Ouyang, who set his heart on medicine in year 10 and started preparing for the UCAT in year 11.
“Once I realised this was something I wanted to pursue seriously, I looked into how to prepare for the UCAT,” he said.
The former Girraween High School student successfully got into medicine at Western Sydney University. He did not get coaching but paid for a question bank from a tutoring company.
“Abstract reasoning is basically pattern recognition where they give you a stimulus … Personally, I thought it was one of the easier parts of the test,” he said.
“I do agree with the UCAT decision to remove it on the basis that it is coachable. Abstract reasoning is one of the ones where [with practice] you see the greatest improvement.
Research in 2020 which analysed UCAT results found women, those outside major cities and those of a lower socio-economic status underperformed compared to other applicants. It estimated just under 50 per cent of candidates were coached for the test, but said professional coaching did not markedly improve test performance.
Vice dean of the University of NSW medical school Adrienne Torda said students in a metropolitan area could practise with classmates and did not need to pay for coaching to get its benefits.
“I think that informal coaching comes just by way of being in a big metro school that has a high academic focus with big groups of students trying to get into medicine,” she said.
“When I speak to students, we often have 10 students from, let’s use an example, James Ruse or from a school like that. Often, 30 students are trying to get in.
“So they’re going to be practising tests together … you wouldn’t call that coaching, but you get a big group of students who are trying to support each other and having study groups.”
The dropout rate for medicine is low, which Torda said was down to the interview process which probed students’ motivations for getting into the course.
“The interview is actually quite a telling process. It’s two interviewers with one interviewee for an hour speaking to them about those kinds of things. Why are they choosing to do medicine? Who are their role models? What’s their inspiration? What are the things that give them joy and motivate them to go on and go forward in this world?”
“People do have parental pressure. It comes out in the interview, and it’s almost like a way out. If they don’t do well in the interview, they’re not going to get in.”
UCAT specialist Callum Chalmers from MedView Education, which provides tutoring and practice tests for UCAT, said the scores required to secure a spot in a medicine program had gone up in recent years.
“If you look at the threshold, it is going up and up each year – it is becoming harder for med schools to discern who can gain entry. So universities are struggling with that as a metric,” he said.
“The students who want to do medicine but struggle a little bit more academically, they know they have to work harder to get the same results.”
A spokesperson for the UCAT’s Australian and New Zealand office said changes to the test had been under consideration for some time, saying the decision to remove abstract reasoning was taken worldwide, affecting prospective medical school students in Europe, Asia and the UK.
Correct response: A. This is because there is a central horizontal line of shapes with a white circle and white star. There are two shaded shapes.
Set A: There are nine shapes arranged in a 3 x 3 square. One to three shapes are shaded. A white circle and white star occupy one of the two diagonals of the 3 x 3 square.
Set B: There are nine shapes arranged in a 3 x 3 square. One to three shapes are shaded. A white circle and white star occupy a vertical or horizontal line through the middle of the 3 x 3 square.
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