Should you have a UMAT tutor?

Hello MSOers,

I have been prepping for the UMAT 2010 for the last 2 months or so and still my scores for the 3 sections are approximately the following:
S1: 27/44
S2:28/40
S3: 22/38

As you can tell there is quite a bit of room for improvement and as I quite desperately need to get into med, I was wondering if a UMAT tutor would be useful?

When I was thinking about it, if I did unfortunately get a low score in the UMAT, I would probably consider Bond, which would be around 250k. But equally, I could spend another $800 for a UMAT tutor, that could up my marks up a bit and hopefully allow me to get in a CSP or a BMP?

Do you guys think it would be useful having a tutor in this case?

Honestly, I don't think a tutor would help you. Its not like UMAT has a few core concepts behind it you need to master. Its just three different types of question which generally need practice to get used to the style and how to answer them.

Originally Posted by Vish23

Hello MSOers,

I have been prepping for the UMAT 2010 for the last 2 months or so and still my scores for the 3 sections are approximately the following:
S1: 27/44
S2:28/40
S3: 22/38

As you can tell there is quite a bit of room for improvement and as I quite desperately need to get into med, I was wondering if a UMAT tutor would be useful?

When I was thinking about it, if I did unfortunately get a low score in the UMAT, I would probably consider Bond, which would be around 250k. But equally, I could spend another $800 for a UMAT tutor, that could up my marks up a bit and hopefully allow me to get in a CSP or a BMP?

Do you guys think it would be useful having a tutor in this case?

UMAT is a tricky exam, and nothing can guarantee you a good mark!
my advise is to keep practicing until the day before the exam!

Good luck

I don't think UMAT tutoring even exists? If it did, it would be very hard to come across because the tutor would have to make all of their own material, and its reliability would be really quite questionable. If they used material from other prep courses, then that would be illegal.

Also, I'm fairly sure Bond costs more than $250k (it's more like $270k), and those are just fees alone. You have other expenses to account for. In addition to questionable internship security on a DFEE place, I honestly think resiting the UMAT would be a better course of action.

UMAT tutoring does exist and some companies offer individual tutors who use the company's material to teach (i'm not mentioning any names because it would be advertising/discussion). It is really expensive though, probably much more than 800$ depending on how many sessions you want.

I would recommend that you ignore the time restraints for now, and do a question slowly and try to work out how you did it. then compare with the answers and identify where you went wrong in your technique, or why it was effective. If you do enough, you should recognise a pattern and try to improve your technique first (if you keep getting questions consistently wrong and don't see improvement in S3, the problem is usually with technique). The only thing a tutor can really do is provide an objective evaluation of your technique, and point out where/how you can develop it. being really self-critical/reflective will achieve a similar result.

Originally Posted by Lozzy

UMAT tutoring does exist and some companies offer individual tutors who use the company's material to teach (i'm not mentioning any names because it would be advertising/discussion). It is really expensive though, probably much more than 800$ depending on how many sessions you want.

I would recommend that you ignore the time restraints for now, and do a question slowly and try to work out how you did it. then compare with the answers and identify where you went wrong in your technique, or why it was effective. If you do enough, you should recognise a pattern and try to improve your technique first (if you keep getting questions consistently wrong and don't see improvement in S3, the problem is usually with technique). The only thing a tutor can really do is provide an objective evaluation of your technique, and point out where/how you can develop it. being really self-critical/reflective will achieve a similar result.

Thanks Lozzy, although I have tried doing that, perhaps my attempts were kinda half hearted. Also, do you reckon a tutor be able to suggest perhaps better techniques? Especially for questions like pick the middle, where except for the 3-2 rule, I am unaware of any other methods used. Even the 3-2 rule only works in a fraction of the questions.

yepp, they can do that too. umat prep companies always come loaded with a bunch of techniques, although whether or not they work is up to you. there's certainly more techniques for pick the middle questions, than the 3-2 rule though.

3-2 rule FTW! Though I can't recall using it very often in last year's UMAT..

Originally Posted by Lozzy

yepp, they can do that too. umat prep companies always come loaded with a bunch of techniques, although whether or not they work is up to you. there's certainly more techniques for pick the middle questions, than the 3-2 rule though.

Definitely! Since S3 was my weakest section, learning those techniques really boosted my score though many others didn't find it useful.

Originally Posted by Lozzy

umat prep companies always come loaded with a bunch of techniques, although whether or not they work is up to you.

Mine didn't, despite having very good practice exams, drills etc, the guides are quite useless, esp for S3. Hence the need for a tutor.