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UPCAT Tips: A Test Day Survival Guide
UPCAT Tips: A Test Day Survival Guide
Guide
Pressure usually peaks on your UPCAT testing date itself, when you have to
go up and see if all that reviewing was worth it. Many take this aspect of the
test for granted, often preferring to just look at the all-exalted review
process. But what you do on the day itself can have as big an effect on your
performance as all the reviewing you’ve already done.
A good number of test-takers find out too late that what and how you eat for
test day can factor into your performance on the UPCAT. Eating too little will
have you hungry and impatient during the test, while being too full will have
you groggy and sleepy, wasting those all-important test minutes.
▪ Eat a good breakfast. A lot of test takers don’t bother with breakfast due
to nerves or stress. Ignore all those reasons and have a hearty (and
hopefully balanced) meal in the morning. Breakfast jolts all your body
systems awake, and will improve your performance over the course of
the day.
▪ Take something before taking the test. Remember, that test is hours
long, and you won’t be able to leave at any time during the test except
to go to the washroom. Having a small meal (or a big snack) up to half
an hour before the test will keep those hunger pangs from disturbing
your focus halfway through.
▪ Bring chocolates and water. Test takers are allowed to bring snacks into
the room so you should make the most of the concession. Bring along
a few pieces of easy-to-open chocolate and a bottle of water.
Chocolate is easy to nibble and can give your brain a good wake-up
call, especially when you’re in the home stretch.
▪ Junk food and coffee are a no-no. Many make the mistake of bringing
junk food and coffee into the testing room, in an effort to keep
themselves awake. Junk food has carbohydrates that lull you to sleep
when you’re not in motion, while coffee is a diuretic that will make you
pee like crazy during the test.
Plan all these out at least a couple of days before the test. You’ll have much
more pressing things to worry about on your testing date, and you really
don’t want to waste time over a pack of chocolates.
An UPCAT Strategy
Countless people through the years have gotten by the UPCAT simply with a
good test-taking strategy – even though their review was less than optimal.
Truth of the matter is, a good approach to tackling the questions can get you
through much of the UPCAT. It’s a skill you’ll have to master if you’re serious
about making the cut.
▪ Make a first run on the easy items. The questions in the UPCAT aren’t
arranged by difficulty; easy and hard questions are scattered all over
the place. Go through the entire test one time, answering all the items
that you can recall immediately. Should you run into trouble
somewhere else in the test, you already have those initial items to
give you some semblance of a score.
▪ Don’t fuss the difficult ones. No matter how hard you reviewed, you’ll
probably come across a trigonometric identity you forgot or an
element you can’t recall. Just leave it blank and move on. Worrying
about it wastes precious minutes.
▪ Review, review, review. It’s not just about checking if you answered all
the items. Some of the items are interrelated – they use the same
formula, for example – and answering one will give you a clue on how
to answer another.
▪ Got time? Guess. But that doesn’t give you license to do eeny-miney-
moe. Pick the answer that seems to make the most sense to you.
Remember, though, that each incorrect answer costs you ¼ of a point.
If you’re absolutely clueless about an item, you may want to just leave
it blank instead.
None of these strategies will work unless you have sufficient review time to
back them all up. Don’t expect to be able to pull through the UPCAT with just
a test-taking strategy and none of the topics that you were supposed to
review in the last few months.
▪ Eat. Hopefully, you’ve got a few snacks along with you. The UPCAT takes
an extremely long time to finish, and there’s no point in your getting
hungry.
▪ Don’t panic review. Few things are as detrimental as a panic review –
that strange practice where test takers cram in as many facts as
possible in the last few hours before the test. Doing so will muddle up
whatever you’ve already reviewed, and distract you during the test
itself.
▪ Find your way. Unless you know the campus or testing center like the
back of your hand, do a test run of your route at least the day before.
Find out where the important rooms are. Nothing is more stressful
than getting lost on UPCAT day.
▪ Be early. Don’t think that just because the test starts at a particular time,
you can arrive at exactly that time. There are usually a lot of
instructions and corrections to be given out, and there’s an advantage
to coming in at least a half hour early.
The UPCAT can be a long and stressful experience for you, so you should
work to lessen your stress levels in the days and hours leading up to the test.
A little preparation and a few preventive measures should help keep you
focused and ready for the UPCAT. As any UPCAT passer will tell you, it’s not
as hard as it looks.
Too many people nowadays think that memorization is the key to passing the
UPCAT. While keeping a fact or two in your memory can be helpful,
memorizing every factoid is way too hard to be practical. Here’s how you can
optimize all that space in your head:
Neater Note-Taking
Once you’ve simplified how you work with your head, it’s time to clean up
your act with respect to your notes. Notes are an all-important part of the
test prep process because they are good last-minute resources and
reviewers. Every person, though, has a different style when it comes to
taking notes. But whether you work with all text or draw pictures, here are
some tips that should work for you:
▪ Don’t just copy. You probably work with a textbook or some other source
that has information in paragraph form. Not only is it pointlessly
difficult to copy all that into your notebook, but you’ll also find those
notes hard to review.
▪ Use imagery. Have you heard the saying about how images are worth a
thousand words? They’re worth even more in your notes. Pictures and
diagrams could be a little tedious to make, but they’ll make your
reviews much more efficient.
▪ Put everything in an outline. Bullet points and sub-points help show you
how different ideas are interrelated. At the same time, you don’t have
to read through all the extra words that typically go into sentence
construction.
Just like with memorization, your goal with your review notes should be to
minimize and to optimize. That means getting the most benefit out of the
least amount of effort exerted in this area. After all, you still have your
regular academics to worry about.
Scheduling Strategy
You’ll have less and less time in the weeks leading up to the UPCAT.
Scheduling and time management become more important than ever during
those days, as you have to get all your reviewing and regular school
requirements done simultaneously.
▪ Prepare a calendar. It seems like such a small thing, but having a visual
reminder in front of you at all times helps you stick to the schedules
you set.
▪ Focus on just one area. When planning your review sessions, don’t be
ambitious and clump your Math, English and Science topics in one day.
You’ll have an easier time by focusing on just one or two major topics
from the same subject per day.
▪ Call up your friends. Studying all by your lonesome can be demoralizing.
Call up some of your classmates and organize a group study session
every so often. Just make sure that you have a schedule or facilitator
to follow so that you don’t end up gabbing the whole session away.
Don’t think that you can go on an academic marathon and study for three
weeks straight. Experts suggest that you give yourself a day off every week
or so to give you a little incentive and some time for your mind to rest from
all that reviewing.
Each person has his or her unique way of learning. Of course, you can still
learn using other styles and methods, but using the one best suited to you
will optimize the speed and effectiveness of your review.
▪ Visual learners learn best through seeing. Whether it’s a printed diagram
of the water cycle or a video on geology, having everything visually in
front of you will help give you a better grasp of the concepts. Prepare
notes in a structured outline form to help play to your learning
strengths or look for instructional videos on YouTube to help you with
some concept.
▪ Auditory learners pick up things from hearing them. Lectures and oral
reviews usually help you best if you’re an auditory learner. You may
want to try reading your notes aloud, or going with a review group
that does oral discussions.
▪ Haptic or kinesthetic learners use touch or actions to get a literal grasp
on the concepts at hand. It can be a little difficult as a kinesthetic
learner because you’re often on your feet and on the go. Give yourself
hand gestures to signify certain facts or equations you want to
remember. Little props like a Styrofoam ball model of atoms should
also improve recall. I once taught a tutee about coplanar and collinear
points by using pins and a shoebox.
One thing you should never do is force yourself to conform to a style that
doesn’t suit you. If you notice that you’re not making a lot of progress with
one method, switch over to another right away so that you don’t waste time.
You’ll likely have to make a switch or two, but you’ll be thankful you did
come UPCAT day.
You have a lot of things to do for UPCAT prep: pages of notes to dig up,
books to go over and countless topics to review. In the end, those who do
best with UPCAT review – and ultimately the UPCAT itself – are those who
can do the most work in the least time
Unfortunately, your brain is very different from a computer; you can’t just
store all the data you lay your hands upon. In fact, just reading a page of
information most probably won’t be enough for you to recall half of it for a
test the next day.
Making the most of your built-in capacity to memorize takes more than mere
reading. You have to turn all that information into bits and pieces that your
brain can both easily store and quickly retrieve. There are many techniques
to help you do this, but the extent and effectiveness of each one varies from
person to person.
Memorizing by Organizing
Effective memorization always starts with your putting all the information
into logical order. Information isn’t stored in discrete, fixed units like building
blocks you pile one over the other; it’s best viewed as a jigsaw puzzle where
every fact and figure is a piece that somehow fits into another piece.
Organizing information makes memorizing easier because you can better
recall one fact based on its relationship with another.
You could, for example, arrange information into logical groups. Find a
common theme among multiple elements and then focus on memorizing
them by theme, not individually. Say you had to memorize a list like
▪ Javanese Tiger
▪ Snow Leopard
▪ Silver Shark
▪ Thomson’s Gazelle
▪ Boa Constrictor
It seems difficult because the elements look unrelated at first glance. But
aside from the fact that all of the items are animals, you can further
subdivide them into groups. You could, for example, clump them as
endangered (the first three items) and non-endangered (the last two items)
species. Alternatively, you could group them into predators and prey. The
advantage of grouping information is even clearer with larger sets of data.
The human brain, although it’s quite inefficient at storing information per se,
is good with recognizing and recalling patterns. Grouping the facts you have
to memorize gives your brain a pattern to remember, essentially a
framework to help you recall things later on.
Now that you’ve prepared the materials you want to memorize, it’s time to
get down and put them all in your head. Again, the whole paradigm of
haphazardly stuffing information in won’t fly here. You have to be methodical
and efficient with the way you memorize.
Another great way to help you recall is to put the information into your
own words. The way things are phrased can have a huge impact on recall.
Imagine yourself as a teacher and you’re presenting the material to a class.
By rephrasing the information, recalling is easier because you’re
remembering the sentence structure and the phrasing you typically use. That
is, it’s technically your information that you’re trying to memorize.
The added value of rephrasing information is that you also get to process all
the data as you memorize. This kind of analysis – the “understanding, not
memorizing” that your professors want – ultimately make recalling much,
much easier because you understand the underlying concepts and related
ideas.
Ensuring Recall
Teachers and parents will often nag you to practice, practice, practice –
and there’s a point to all the reminding. Practicing what you memorized by
listing all the information again from memory or taking a sample test is the
surest way to recall what you studied for test day. Each practice session is as
good as another round of memorization because you jog your mind through
all the information all over again.
If you’ve got a friend who’s taking the same test, you may want to discuss
the material with him or her – or your whole class, for that matter.
Discussion has the same effect as rephrasing the material or making a cheat
sheet: you run through all the information, and you’re forced to put it into
logical and coherent order.
2. Answer the easiest question first, then go back if there is still time. This is
good practice because next time you may already notice something you may
have missed noting the first time you looked. Or you may have encountered
the same pattern already.
3. Patterns that you are looking for may fall under three general types:
▪ Take a good look at all the frames to take note of any progression pattern.
▪ Take note of repeated design elements or change/s in the design.
▪ Look for pairings among the given frames.
▪ Look for alternate progression in the design.
▪ Note changes in sizes or shading.
▪ Note deletions or additions of parts.
b. Letter – number pattern
-> There are instances when the increase or decrease in not unifrom but
retrogressing.
3. Read all the choices first, then eliminate all illogical conclusions and
choose the strongest argument or a logical conclusion.
Items of this type always have the correct answer as one of the choices,
except where a ‘none of the above’ option is given. Only one option is
correct, save for those extremely rare cases where two of the given choices
are considered right. As you’ll see later on, knowing how to look at this kind
of exam plays a part in strategies you can use for it.
Because each choice has to be taken at face value as a possible direct
response to the item question, multiple choice exams very rarely ask
analytical or interpretative questions, focusing more often on objective ones.
There lies their difficulty: you’ll have to have a good grasp of definitions and
fundamental facts for the exam. Bluffing and roundabout essays won’t work
in multiple choice exams, though certain strategies can help.
To challenge students even more, many teachers and test makers often give
two or more answer choices that are very similar to one another. But even
when the makers create an exam to be straightforward, answer choices can
also be ambiguous at times. This means your language and context must be
more or less similar with that of the test designers.
▪ there are items where the choices look alike (shortened to CLA, for the
purposes of this discussion). Items with CLA choices try to confuse you
by giving a set of responses that are so similar in wording and
appearance.
▪ And then there are items where the choices are different (CAD).
Although these seem to be on the other side of the spectrum from
CLA, they have the exact same requirement: your knowing exactly
what to answer.
▪ Stand-out choices (SOC) do just that – stand out. In, say, a five-choice
item, you are given four CLA choices and one that starkly stands out.
Don’t be fooled! The unique choice is just as likely as the others to be
incorrect.
▪ Mix-and-match items have answer choices that are split up into two or
more parts which are then mixed and matched between each choice.
This can be confusing, and is usually used on questions referring to
components and processes.
The four types are all subsumed under the multiple choice category, but
there’s a specific way to strategically deal with each kind.
Say you were given a question and corresponding answer choices that looks
like this:
Which presents stages of mitosis in the correct order?
This is clearly an item with a case of CLA, as all the choices are identical save
for each one’s third stage. Even if you studied the terms related to mitosis,
you’d still have trouble getting to the correct answer if you don’t know the
exact process. Here’s how to make an educated guess in this case.
If you read about interphase, you’d know that it’s the preparatory stage of
mitosis. But if it’s a preparatory step – that is, it occurs at the start – why
does it appear as the third step? This eliminates A. Similarly, you’d know
that cytokinesis is the very last step, and so D would get disqualified as well.
Consider only the important parts where the differences are placed; in this
case, you only have to look at the third step of each process. Since the rest
of the text in the choices are identical anyway, they only serve as
distractions in CLA items.
How would you deal with a multiple choice item that looked like this:
Based on the proposed timeline of evolution, which of the following
structures are likeliest to develop first?
a) head
b) bones
c) opposable limbs
d) feet
This is a good example of a CAD item, as each choice is different from all the
others. It might seem that knowing the exact answer to this question is the
only way to deal with the item, but there’s actually another way to get points
out of it.
You could start by analyzing for any possible relationships between any of
the choices. In this case of a Biology question, for example, you could use
your common sense to say that bones (or at least some rigid support
structure) are a prerequisite for both opposable limbs and feet to emerge.
With this, you could immediately eliminate C and D and thus give yourself a
higher chance of getting the right answer.
Finding that correct answer requires a little more study on your part.
Sometimes, though, the key to getting the right choice is simply finding an
example that will support one answer or the other. In this case, you might
want to try recalling that the development of a basic head – cephalization –
occurs in groups as old as annelids, while bones emerge much, much later in
evolution. This suggests that A is the correct choice.
You can rely on the uniqueness of the answer for each item to help point out
a plausible answer. Once you’re able to create relationships between
different, you’ll also be able to eliminate one or two choices at a time
because one is subsumed under the other.
It cannot be stressed enough that having one answer choice distinct from the
rest is never a guarantee that it’s the right one. In the following question, for
example, you can’t be sure that A is the correct answer simply because it
stands out.
To the strategy-less test taker, D is the most tempting choice because it’s
the odd one out of the bunch. But if you take a few extra seconds to analyze
the question and the choices, the correct answer should be fairly obvious.
Since the problem is too much solvent, B and C are immediately wrong
because they add even more solvent. And because adding more solute to fix
the solute-solvent ratio is a valid remedy, there’s no need to resort to D.
Never settle for the odd one out just because it’s the odd one out. Use other
strategies that work equally well for SOC items. When you disregard the odd
one out, for example, you can use the same strategy you did for CLA. If
you’re not able to get an answer that way, then chances are good that it’s
really the odd choice out that’s the correct one.
Mix-and-match items tend to be quite confusing, not in the least because all
the items are so similar to each other yet have very different meanings. Try
this question, for example
Given a closed system, which pair of conditions will most likely accompany
an increase in volume of the container?
As you can see, the answer choices are split into two parts: the factor
(temperature or pressure) and the change in that factor (higher, lower or
constant). In order to answer this question, you’ll have to know about one of
the more basic equations in Chemistry: PV = nRT. That fundamental concept
will guide you toward D, the correct answer.
The important thing to remember is that all of the parts of each answer must
be correct in order for the choice itself to be correct. As soon as one part is
erroneous, the choice itself becomes incorrect. Don’t forget to also consider
situations like the example above where the parts can go hand-in-hand with
each other.
▪ Eliminate choices as soon as you can. Even if you end up getting left with
two choices that look equally correct, you have a higher chance of
getting the right answer should you resort to guessing.
▪ Look at the wording, especially for answer choices that look very similar.
Little changes in tense or object can alter the meaning of the
statement in a big way.
▪ Do the easy ones first. Time pressure is very real in multiple choice
exams, so don’t give too much time and effort to any one item.
Besides, this is futile because many exams give equal weight to both
easy and difficult items.
▪ Allot time for multiple runs. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll finish all of
the test questions on your first go. Split the test time up such that you
leave yourself some margin to go back on all those questions you
skipped the first time around.
Yes, the strategies outlined above can help you boost your score in any
multiple choice exam. A good score, however, always starts with sufficient
study and review prior to the test. Even if you’re familiar with all the
techniques above, passing will be difficult if you don’t have a grasp on basic
concepts to begin with.
1. Use your test/exam time wisely. Allow a minute per question for a 50
minute test with 40-50 questions. Remember that all questions carry the
same point.
3. Watch out for key terms or key words. If a question looks easy but you
cannot find out the answer to the question, maybe you missed out on a key
word, which maybe a word like subtracted by, square, even integer, scalene,
area or perimeter.
6. Take a quick look at the choices before doing computations. For example,
if the answer is a circumference and the choices are 31 pi or 19 pi, it means
do not multiply by 3.14 (value of pi) anymore.
8. Move to the next question if you have spent 30 seconds on a question and
you’re still in doubt. However, if you find the question easy or simple, make
sure you take time to give the correct answer.
9. Use scratch paper when necessary. Number it and keep it clean to make it
easier to review if needed.
10. Stay calm and focused. Go back to unanswered questions if time permits.
Be sure to always shade the correct space specially if you are skipping a
question.
** Don’t forget to pray before exams. Do your best and GOD will do the rest.
Specific Strategies
1. Mathematical Reasoning
Analysis:
11 x 15 is equal to 165.
Without multiplying each equation with the common term, we can conclude
that the answer is B.
2. Ask yourself if you can relate the word with an object, an idea, a person or
an experience. For example, solemnity is associated with praying, mass or
church. Therefore, any word that suggests roughness, loudness or improper
action must be eliminated.
3. Test for consistency in part of speech. For example, a noun will require a
synonym that is also a noun. The other choices that are not nouns may be
eliminated. This concept, particularly when used in constructing sentences, is
called parallelism.
4. Determine the tone or mood of the word. Words may suggest a good,
positive or upbeat tone. Its synonym must exhibit the same.
5. Try to replace the word in the sentence with the choices given, then do a
final process of elimination. Choose the best answer.
3. Look for the most common errors first. Start by checking the spelling of
words. You should also watch out for redundant words.
4. Check for any possible error in grammar by checking the subject-verb
agreement in the principall as well as the subordinate clauses. Other errors in
grammar maybe verb tense, pronoun-antecedent combination, comparative
forms of adjective or adverb, wrong conjunction or preposition, punctuations,
and wrong usage of words like these, this, its, it’s, etc.
5. Read the whole sentence again and check for any error in sentence
construction (parallel construction, logical construction).
6. Always assume that the test questions have undergone proofreading, and
are therefore completely accurate. If there is an error, it is probably not a
typographical error and is therefore intentional.
Reading Comprehension
1. Scan the paragraph to get the main idea before turning to the questions.
Others look at the questions first. This is a choice one has to make based on
his experience or what works for him/her.
3. Search for the specific details for a detail question. Make sure you answer
this correctly.
4. Read the sentences and recognize the clues that can help state the implied
idea.
2. Test this relationship for the same pairs of choices in number one.
4. Watch out for tricky questions. The choices will purposely
include confusing answers.
Example:
Therefore, the answer cannot (a) since singer: sing is noun: verb.