UMAT Section 1 Prep Discussion (No Prep Courses!)

Originally Posted by Amygdala

"Do I detect a hint of sarcasm there - or just stating the bleeding obvious"

lol clearly i am slow ._.

Originally Posted by meimei

Scarah, may I ask how you did in Section 3 in the end? Section 3 is my hardest section, even in the practice tests (so practice, practice, practice), and I'm terrified of it ruining my chances of joining you in Newcastle next year .

I did ok (somehow ) in section 3 in the end, 88th percentile which was well and truly my worst section but a whole lot better than I expected. One thing I found that with all the practice Qs I did for section 3 I didn't have major time issues yet when it came to the real test the questions were so much harder that they called "10 minutes to go" and I was only half way through. I seriously felt like I had failed that section so I was amazing with my result.

Originally Posted by Amygdala

Yep I agree with you Season, section one is by far the most difficult and needs the most work. They say it is hard to study for, so I have concentrated on time management, how to handle MCQ and one minute drills on reading actively. Basically taking a 300 word passage and reading it within a minute and then writing down everything I can remember from the passage and then in the next minute writing down questions to the points I have written down.

Also brushing up on a bit of basic maths and comprehension skills, I really don't know what else to do, if anyone has any other ideas they would be appreciated.

I don't find section one so hard at all - but I think that's my Uni studies that have prepared me for it. Time-wise I finished with a few minutes to spare. My suggestion for section one questions that are like little summaries of research or experiments is be wary of absolute answers that contain words like "always and never" or that indicate causality.
Remember that unless a research study involves the whole population in question (where most studies select a sample of their research population - that is selection 250 Yr 12s to study instead of study every single Yr 12 student) it can't conclude that A always or never leads to B it can only conclude the A is likely/unlikely to lead to B.
Similarly causality is very hard to prove, the fact that of the 200 people you studied everyone who ate MacDonalds got lung cancer does NOT mean that MacDonalds causes lung cancer it only means the two as associated. A logical conclusion would be that people who ate MacDonalds are also likely to have lung cancer. There's nothing that suggests the two are cause and effect.

Originally Posted by anthony

That's one of the more useful tips for section 1 - you should be able to find all the answers within the passage. Also, I would suggest having a quick read of the question stems before reading a particularly long passage (the part of the question before they list the A/B/C/D options) - this may help you focus on the relevant bits of the text. Watch out for those tricky questions with negatives in their answers e.g. "which of the following can NOT be inferred...".

For those logic type questions, all I can say is to read it carefully and remember that you can scribble all over section 1 of the question book if you have to, in order to answer the question.

Yes skim the actual question first, you may find a whole paragraph of lead in text is irrelevant. Underline key words in the question, especially any negation like Anthony talks about above.

For some logic style questions tables or diagrams are very useful and can be scribbled in the margins of your test booklet. We had a question last year about three girls wearing hats, tops and skirts in different colours and you had to work out who was wearing what if A was wearing a red hat and B was wearing a green top.... a quick table was the key to working that one out - or even little stick figures.

My main advice - if there is a certain type of question you struggle with, or you find in the test that there's something that you can't work out then LEAVE IT AND MOVE ON! It sounds so logical but I know people that don't do it, if you hit something hard make sure you circle it and also mark on your answer sheet so you can easily see which ones you need to go back to.

Hello guys,
I have come from a non-english background, How can I improve in speed reading?
Also: Can someone please tell me if Section III still includes shapes or just patterns??

shapes or patterns? well i don't really know the difference but doesn't it include both?

:O in section 1 in one of the practice questions books - there's a really weird question about finger print IDs. even with the answer i still cant' figure out how they got that answer and im pretty sure it involves maths (even tho its says theres no maths in umat D: )
how sad and frustrating

Originally Posted by Torquoise

(even tho its says theres no maths in umat D: )

This is a bit off topic for Section 1, but some (basic) maths is useful for section 3 - often you're busily squaring things or square rooting things in your head looking for patterns. I had one that used the Fibonacci sequence the other day.

Which practice book is it in? I don't want to look through to 'find' the question because I'm taking them under test conditions, but I could try to get it done tomorrow if you point me in the right direction. Or maybe someone else here has done it? (I trust you're talking about the ACER booklets?)

There was maths in the UMAT as far as i remember. Definitely not hard maths; the kind you could use your fingers and toes for if you really had to.

Some **** UMAT questions I have seen have some annoying maths questions.

Originally Posted by D.I

Some **** UMAT questions I have seen have some annoying maths questions.

Unless you sat the UMAT in Year 11, i wonder how many "UMAT questions" you've actually seen.

Originally Posted by Shizzy

There was maths in the UMAT as far as i remember. Definitely not hard maths; the kind you could use your fingers and toes for if you really had to.

Yes there is maths - simple percentages, logic puzzles there is definitely maths.