UMAT Section 3 Prep Discussion (No Prep Courses!)

Hey kelbel, there's plenty of resources out there but you've just left it too late. Your best chance of maximising your score tomorrow is having a chilled out night, plenty of rest and a decent breakfast. Don't fret too much about pick the middle, everyone finds them challenging so just try and do your best. A really quick tip is to try and use the 3-2 rule. Basically if there are three which have a similar element (eg. a black circle) and two which have a different element (eg. a white circle) then it's quite likely that they will be switching in the sequence (black, white, black, white, black). Even if you have no idea which of the 3 is the correct answer you've improved your chance of guessing correctly from 20% to 33% which is always a good thing.

hey thanks for your advice. ive been preparing, ive already sat UMAT twice, always nail section 1 and 2, always get 100% or one wrong in 2 i find it really easy and have loads of time to spare. its a shame i cant add that time onto section 3 which is my downfall every time, just did a practice then and still only getting low 30's out of 40, all middle q's wrong i seem to have finally got the next in series and fill in the blanks. I just didnt really realise there were as many set patterns for section 3, i only saw about the 3-2 rule tonight, but thanks for that advice. ive been doing psychometric test books with non-verbal q's just wondering if there are any other concrete patterns to try if it looks like theres no pattern? Cheers.

you are lucky that s3 is the easiest to prepare for! I found with pick the middle - that if I found two "pair" type images and onehat didn't seem to fit- it was usually the middle...

I have done the ACER sample papers and found that for me section 2 was the easiest, i am getting all the questions correct except i have a problem with section 1 and 3...

How can i improve my marks for section 1 and 3? (especially section 1)

Try to practice reading the passage only once, but remember all the info there is. Write down like simplified notes on the side. Try and draw a diagram or a table.

For S3, there are only a few types of questions, like finish the sequence or pick the middle. Work out a strategy for each type of question. If you can work out a foolproof strategy, then you can tackle each question of the same type the same way.

I agree with syngates. Section is especially hard to improve, but not impossible. Go for getting the hang od the types of questions then picking up speed reading and answering quickly with the aid of diagrams. Speed is the biggest contender in section 1. As for 3, luckily it is the easiest to improve (as they say) so go though as many types of those questions you can to get a feel for what they want from it as well as your technique to working them out.Good luck

Section 3 for me at least, was all about practicing and developing methods to finds the patterns in a short amount of time. While not really memorising, you will find that you can instantly recognise a pattern in a question after you do heaps of practice.

As for section 1, practice I think didn't help me as much as section 3. It is normally by best section, but I flunked it in the real exam because of silly and careless mistakes under the stress of everything. So make sure you keep a cool head when you do s1! (and the others too I guess!)

Section 3 is one where prep can help you identify patterns that will pop up! Try to learn the different common patterns (e.g. the 1,2,3,4,5 pattern, the 45,90,180 rotation pattern etc) and techniques e.g. 'mapping' out a path of a component.

Section 1 is all about attention to detail, imo. Don't make assumptions in anything e.g. in this year's exams, I noticed a question about percentages that would trip a lot of people up. I think it asked for the hospital with the best cure rate or something, but the answer was not the one that appeared to be right - if you actually took time to work out the percentages, it was actually the hospital which cured less patients that had a higher cure rate. Also, just stuff like really paying attention to what the axes of a graph are saying and taking careful note of any conditions or time frames that the questions give you (e.g. there may be a trial for a pill that was conducted on 25-year-olds and one of the answers might seem correct but actually names a different age group etc). And in the real exam, time yourself well and don't get hung up on hard questions!

Merged with previous thread.

@ladybee : please have a look at the stickies and try search old threads before making a new one, this is like the 3rd duplicate.